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Anderson has the sense to look it all up on the Internet when he gets home - his wife, Moira, is at the kitchen table, watching television. He leans in for a kiss and she begrudgingly gives him her cheek. He does his best not to mind it. Grabs a frozen dinner from out of the refrigerator, heats it up, and stabs at it intermittently, seated in front of their ancient desktop.
Apparently, the whole mess is to do with some old American sci-fi show - The X-Files, he reads, created by screenwriter Chris Carter, originally aired from September 10, 1993 to May 19, 2002. In the series, FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are the investigators of X-Files: marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena.
It’s a weird choice for an insult, if he’s honest. So the character’s a woman, so what? His first name is Sylvia for Christ’s sake, he’s more than immune to those sorts of comments by now. He bites into a piece of broccoli that is soggy on the outside and frozen on the inside, and he winces.
He follows the appropriate link and finds that he and the character don’t have a thing in common - the actress’ name is Anderson, though, he supposes that’s where it all began. There’s a thorough quality to geek-logic, he supposes. Either way, there’s plenty of Andersons in the world. The comparison is more strange than it is insulting.
He plugs his headphones in and watches a few clips. Well, she’s fit at least. One of those strong, stoic types. Like Sally, almost, if Sally were less cross. He nearly feels a stirring of nerdly affection in his chest, but he clamps down on it, stamps it out. Mulls over all of it.
It’s a weird choice for an insult. It’s really bordering on non-insulting, actually.
Anderson doesn’t know exactly what to think about that.
Two weeks later and it’s caught on with the whole department; they’re all dicking him around, like always, and he ignores it, like always. A month and a half later and people call him ‘Scully’ more often than they call him by his real name. It’s less of an insult and more of a…well, Anderson doesn’t know exactly what to call it. It’s less of a joke and more of a…name that people call him.
Like a…nickname? He supposes that the right word.
Anderson’s never had a nickname before. Sure, he’s always made people call him by his last name - the only people who don’t are Moira, his sister Kate, and his parents. Even Sally calls him Anderson, which she apparently thinks he doesn’t mind. (He does, but it’s hardly a big enough deal to make any fuss about it. It would be worse if she called him Sylvia.) In school he went by his middle name, which is Christopher - to this day, he’s never been able to work out of his mother exactly why that isn’t his first name to begin with.
But he’s never been a friend with anyone who would’ve wanted to call him by a nickname. ‘Chris’, maybe, but certainly nothing particularly affectionate or clever. He hesitates to embrace that that is what it is. He hovers between its designation as a joke and something else, reluctant to accept that it might be so; Anderson knows better than to let his guard down. He’s learned by now. He keeps his distance.
It’s three months since the whole mess started, and Moira is on an assignment in Chile. Sally comes over with a bottle of red wine and her coat unbuttoned.
“Evening, Scully,” she says in the business-like way she says everything, and Anderson feels some part of himself flip over in delight.
He accepts it. A nickname. He has a nickname.
He isn’t sure what that means, but he accepts it nonetheless.
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Six months after the fact, and the new hires don’t even know his real name - they’re examining a woman’s body found in the Scrubs, and Sherlock Holmes arrives with John Watson at his side in a flurry of pomposity and non-invitation, his posh air coming in on the wind and rankling Anderson’s good humor. He growls and steps forward, prepared for the inevitable confrontation, puffing himself up.
“Anderson,” Sherlock says expectantly. Behind him, John Watson is watching the exchange, looking wary, zipping up his coveralls. “Let’s get this charade over with, shall we?”
“Charade?” Anderson scoffs. “I’m about to ask you, for the umpteenth time to not make everything we find in this case completely unusable in court.”
“Yes, Anderson,” Sherlock says, sarcastically indulgent, “and true to form, your advice is baseless, unwarranted, and invites a truly unflattering assessment of your character.”
“Hey,” says one of the deputies walking by, “lay off Scully.”
Sherlock Holmes pauses - Anderson feels his entire being go still and he clamps his arms across his chest. He finds himself very near to shaking as if this is it, some big moment. Sherlock Holmes stands in front of him, glass eyes boring into him, analyzing, the name that Anderson has taken into his heart as his own; and for once, for one glorious moment, Anderson sees a lack of recognition on his face.
Lestrade interrupts them, walking up: “Is there going to be a problem?” He looks between them. Sherlock stares at Anderson with that same intensity and for once, Anderson feel victorious.
“Not if our favorite sociopath fails to manufacture one,” he cedes, feeling generous.
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it, Anderson,” Sherlock says, with smile most unkind. “After all, I do the majority of your job for you, I’d hate to appropriate the only area in which you show any noticeable talent.”
He strides off, John Watson at his heels. The deputy frowns after him, before turning to give Anderson a consolidating look. The officers of the Met part around Sherlock Holmes as he marches in, a small child with the mind of a man and the body of a gangly teenager made of sticks and straw; an alien, knowing everything and belonging to nothing.
A ways off, Anderson sees him turn to John Watson expectantly.
“X-Files,” he hears John Watson say, “pop-culture reference. Weird one, though.”
“Ah,” Sherlock says. “Dull.”
The deputy claps Anderson on the shoulder and he belongs. And in belonging, it feels like he’s won.
It feels that way because he has.
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