Fic: Alternate Fairy-Tale Endings to Take the Place of "And They Lived Happily Ever After"
Title: Alternate Fairy-Tale Endings to Take the Place of "And They Lived Happily Ever After"
Fandom: X-Files RPF
Rating: R
Summary: Chris calls action and David is staring at her in her wine-colored dress with her styled hair and she’s not Scully but she’s not exactly Gillian either, so who is she?
AN: Written for the homeby_five ficathon, for tendre_posion's prompt: David and Gillian on the Millenium/Existance/Triangle/The Truth set, running through their kiss scenes.
Once upon a time, Chris Carter finally wrote a Mulder/Scully kiss.
Although - It wasn’t really a Mulder/Scully kiss. It was Mulder and not-Scully. This makes all the difference.
*
Gillian stands in her shiny 1940s dress, fiddles with her hair, makes a face at David.
Chris calls action and David is staring at her in her wine-colored dress with her styled hair and she’s not Scully but she’s not exactly Gillian either, so who is she?
She suspects they will make the scene dimmer in post-production; right now the lights burn her skin and the crew watches with undisguised interest and David is kissing her.
It’s not a stage kiss, but no one mentions that.
Chris yells cut and they do it again. And again. And again until she feels his fingerprints covering her, until his taste is seared into her brain.
There are mutters about something being not quite right, someone shifts a light, a makeup artist touches up her lipstick.
David shoots her a smirk that pretends to be friendly.
Then Chris yells action and they start all over again.
And fuck, his hand’s on her lower back and it never used to give her these sort of tingles when Mulder did it to Scully. Usually she wondered how Scully refrained from stabbing him with something sharp. And now there are tingles. Fuck.
Her hair’s curled and she doesn’t feel like herself.
Still not a stage kiss, she thinks, and wonders what exactly David thinks he’s playing at.
He holds her a little tighter and his mouth is a little more insistent and she thinks oh. Everything.
Once upon a time, David kissed her and Mulder and Scully had nothing to do with it. Sometimes Gillian really hates fairy tales.
*
Cut to three years, half a million fights and some finger pointing later -
The prison set is unnaturally dim and Mitch and David are joking around in the corner and her throat aches at the flash of familiarity. If she squints they could be in Vancouver, could be back before it all went to hell.
But that’s a false memory; it was never like that, never easy and friendly and painless. She remembers it like that because she wishes it had been.
The bright orange of his jumpsuit hurts her eyes.
Chris yells action and she slips into Scully, throws on the skin of the woman she’s spent nine years learning.
David gamely makes the Silence of the Lambs joke, and she wonders when Chris got so predictable. Probably right around when David left.
So he’s kissing her and her hair’s longer and she isn’t in love with him anymore, but other than that things are pretty much the same as they ever were.
He’s kissing her - and why is it always him kissing her? - and his hair is still soft under her fingertips, she can feel his pulse beating in his neck. And he’s still kissing her, and Skinner’s embarrassment is tinged with Mitch’s, just a little.
The set’s cold and the chill of it cuts into her bones.
When he stops kissing her she tries to click back into Scully, to finish the scene, but it’s clear she’s flustered and someone yells cut.
She takes a minute to compose herself and David goes back to chatting with Mitch, as if he isn’t the reason for her agitation.
It’s hot outside, because L.A. is always hot. She walks around the lot until she can breathe again, until her chest stops aching from wanting him.
She comes back, breath even and head clear. She can do this.
David kisses her again, smirk curving the corner of his lip so that only she can see it. He licks their story into the roof of her mouth, his fingers tattoo it into her scalp. She is breathing his used breath and she can feel the warmth of his skin through her clothes.
Gillian wishes for a time machine so she could go back and drag her much younger and stupider self off by the hair, and make it clear that she really, really does not want to start what she’s about to start with David.
Really.
*
Flash-forward to later that night and they’re falling into bed again, and everything is like it was three years ago, except that they’re older now and probably no wiser but they should know better, they really should, but they don’t.
And ok, she said she wasn’t in love with him anymore but it turns out that was just a fairy tale.
They all live ever after, though not happily.
Fandom: X-Files RPF
Rating: R
Summary: Chris calls action and David is staring at her in her wine-colored dress with her styled hair and she’s not Scully but she’s not exactly Gillian either, so who is she?
AN: Written for the homeby_five ficathon, for tendre_posion's prompt: David and Gillian on the Millenium/Existance/Triangle/The Truth set, running through their kiss scenes.
Once upon a time, Chris Carter finally wrote a Mulder/Scully kiss.
Although - It wasn’t really a Mulder/Scully kiss. It was Mulder and not-Scully. This makes all the difference.
*
Gillian stands in her shiny 1940s dress, fiddles with her hair, makes a face at David.
Chris calls action and David is staring at her in her wine-colored dress with her styled hair and she’s not Scully but she’s not exactly Gillian either, so who is she?
She suspects they will make the scene dimmer in post-production; right now the lights burn her skin and the crew watches with undisguised interest and David is kissing her.
It’s not a stage kiss, but no one mentions that.
Chris yells cut and they do it again. And again. And again until she feels his fingerprints covering her, until his taste is seared into her brain.
There are mutters about something being not quite right, someone shifts a light, a makeup artist touches up her lipstick.
David shoots her a smirk that pretends to be friendly.
Then Chris yells action and they start all over again.
And fuck, his hand’s on her lower back and it never used to give her these sort of tingles when Mulder did it to Scully. Usually she wondered how Scully refrained from stabbing him with something sharp. And now there are tingles. Fuck.
Her hair’s curled and she doesn’t feel like herself.
Still not a stage kiss, she thinks, and wonders what exactly David thinks he’s playing at.
He holds her a little tighter and his mouth is a little more insistent and she thinks oh. Everything.
Once upon a time, David kissed her and Mulder and Scully had nothing to do with it. Sometimes Gillian really hates fairy tales.
*
Cut to three years, half a million fights and some finger pointing later -
The prison set is unnaturally dim and Mitch and David are joking around in the corner and her throat aches at the flash of familiarity. If she squints they could be in Vancouver, could be back before it all went to hell.
But that’s a false memory; it was never like that, never easy and friendly and painless. She remembers it like that because she wishes it had been.
The bright orange of his jumpsuit hurts her eyes.
Chris yells action and she slips into Scully, throws on the skin of the woman she’s spent nine years learning.
David gamely makes the Silence of the Lambs joke, and she wonders when Chris got so predictable. Probably right around when David left.
So he’s kissing her and her hair’s longer and she isn’t in love with him anymore, but other than that things are pretty much the same as they ever were.
He’s kissing her - and why is it always him kissing her? - and his hair is still soft under her fingertips, she can feel his pulse beating in his neck. And he’s still kissing her, and Skinner’s embarrassment is tinged with Mitch’s, just a little.
The set’s cold and the chill of it cuts into her bones.
When he stops kissing her she tries to click back into Scully, to finish the scene, but it’s clear she’s flustered and someone yells cut.
She takes a minute to compose herself and David goes back to chatting with Mitch, as if he isn’t the reason for her agitation.
It’s hot outside, because L.A. is always hot. She walks around the lot until she can breathe again, until her chest stops aching from wanting him.
She comes back, breath even and head clear. She can do this.
David kisses her again, smirk curving the corner of his lip so that only she can see it. He licks their story into the roof of her mouth, his fingers tattoo it into her scalp. She is breathing his used breath and she can feel the warmth of his skin through her clothes.
Gillian wishes for a time machine so she could go back and drag her much younger and stupider self off by the hair, and make it clear that she really, really does not want to start what she’s about to start with David.
Really.
*
Flash-forward to later that night and they’re falling into bed again, and everything is like it was three years ago, except that they’re older now and probably no wiser but they should know better, they really should, but they don’t.
And ok, she said she wasn’t in love with him anymore but it turns out that was just a fairy tale.
They all live ever after, though not happily.