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So it’s time to fess up. To lay bare the part of himself he’s not so proud of. Here goes: Fox Mulder is skilled at seduction. He always has been. From as far back as middle school, he’s known. He looks at himself in a mirror and sees only the flaws. The ridiculously large lower lip. The small triangular eyes. The undersized chin with not enough room between it and the aforementioned lip. The overly broad and large-scale nose. But for some reason beyond any logic, and put all together, those features have had teenaged girls, and then women, falling at his feet for as long as he can remember. It’s as simple as his attentive gaze aimed in their direction.
And, okay, yes, he’s been blessed with a tall and naturally lean body. And he likes to work it, discover its limits. He pushes his body as stringently as he does his far-out theories. So he’s managed to gain a strong back and lean, muscled arms and legs; a swimmers physique and a coveted six-pack. And all with enough ease that he quit going to the gym years ago. Running, swimming, and pickup basketball games have replaced gym equipment, and he attempts to keep mind and body in synch with yoga too, though he won’t ever admit to that particular discipline, even to the few friends he has. Like his looks, he can’t help what his genetics have given him. It’s all just a result of his unique mishmash of genes, and maybe some dumb luck. But that doesn’t mean he’s not above using what he’s got to further his crusade - in ways both monumental and small.
His glibness, which some might call charm, comes naturally too. He’s an equal opportunity flirt. He always has been. And he’s rarely caught unable to offer a smooth, witty retort or a wry observation. He can’t explain this either. It’s simply who he is. Although it does help that he genuinely loves women. He finds them fascinating and mysterious puzzles, loves attempting to assemble their enigmatic ways into a kind of pattern that might afford him some answers to the great unknown. He loves to converse with the fairer sex, especially the ones who can keep up with his esoteric banter. More than anything else, he loves the opportunity to give them what they want most from him. And a lot of the time that means giving them parts of himself: his body, his mind, even his heart if they’re exceptional enough.
He lost his virginity at fifteen to a girl a few years older and on the cusp of her high school graduation. He was clueless aside from the alleged personal knowledge of his friends, the old, dog-eared copies of Playboy he snatched from his dad’s bottom dresser drawer, and his own determination to do for a woman what was expected of him as a man. Luckily, the girl who popped his cherry had more experience and the confidence necessary to begin to turn his enthusiasm into proper technique. The rest he learned from books and films once he was out of high school, independent for the first time, and housed in a third-floor flat right outside the grounds of Oxford University proper.
And then had come Phoebe.
If he was naturally gifted and confident in his technique, Phoebe was a Jedi Master when it came to seduction. And she punched way, way above his weight. She was both a revelation and a nightmare. She did things with him that he never could’ve imagined, let alone actually engaged in. There were still blocks of time so lost to the haze of drugs, alcohol, and depravity that he’ll never be able to recollect them with any clarity. She had his number almost from the start and didn't hesitate to fuck with his head with as much ease and skill as she fucked him in other ways. And there he was, a psych major. He should’ve known better.
But he loved her. And that’s when he learned that book knowledge could never trump the lessons learned while attempting to dissect Phoebe’s twisted mind. She took his love, his trust, and used it as a weapon against him.
He took those lessons with him to the FBI Academy. They pursued him with such fervor that he couldn’t deny them his as-yet-untested investigative skills and his spooky intuition. He was, soon after, deeply entrenched in the VCS and profiling criminals who sometimes paled in comparison to Phoebe Green’s mind games. He also managed to work his way through a majority of the female staff surrounding him. He’d make it clear from the first encounter that it would never be more than two consenting adults indulging in adult behavior. He wasn’t looking for his one true love. And romancing them, though the various techniques came easily, was not an indication of any desire to make permanent a temporary liaison; something lasting beyond a few rolls in the hay. He knew when to cut any fragile ties that might develop. He didn’t have time to waste on such trivialities. He was going to change the world and it wouldn’t be with his dick. Love and attachment had no place in his life anymore. Not after Phoebe.
But then had come Diana.
Leggy, dark haired, blessed with a steel-trap mind and an incredible set of tits. Yes, she was older than him, but she listened to him, encouraged him, praised him. And eventually she’d joined him in his bed, as well as in his explorations of a small and rarely mentioned off-shoot of FBI investigations classified as X-Files. Unexplained phenomenon. He found himself besotted with them, and with her. She lay next to him through many nights and had soothed him after the nightmares that’d plagued him most of his life. Diana encouraged him to seek out regression hypnosis to find answers to questions he’d been asking since his sister had vanished. She told him she loved him. He’d said, “Marry me,” and she’d said, “I do.”
He should have known better. But he loved her, too. And five months later she was gone. She took his love, his trust, his belief, his newfound quest, and used those things as an excuse to rip them asunder.
What good is innate charm when it comes at such a price? What good is seduction when it only postpones an inevitable loss? What good is love and intimacy when they only wound?
He sat in the half-empty apartment that was now his alone for three straight days. Diana hadn’t taken any of the alcohol, so he worked his way through the half-empty bottles of Chivas Regal and Absolut, sipped at the sickly-sweet brandy she liked before bed, pounded shots of Jose Cuervo. He didn’t bother turning on a light when the sun set. His phone didn’t ring. He didn’t shower and ate straight from containers of Chinese food and the flat boxes of pizza he had delivered. He watched mindless television or sat in silence. He didn’t bother with the marriage bed; his couch was good enough to sleep on and had room for only one. It was fitting because now he was only one. The loneliest number.
By the morning of the fourth day, he had a plan. He knew what he had to do. No more distractions, no more giving in to the weaknesses of the heart. Nothing but seeking the answers to his questions. And those lay within the X-Files - he was more certain of that than ever. He got back on his feet, dusted himself off, and went back to work. He fought harder than he ever had before for those discarded and dusty files. And finally, finally, they officially set him free from the serial killers and the pedophiles and the worst of humanity and sent him down to the basement of the Hoover building. He lived and breathed the work there. He buried himself in years, decades, of unanswered questions, certain that he would be the one to uncover the truth of what had happened to his sister, and to the larger mysteries of existence that everyone else seemed so uninterested in delving into. This was his mission. This was his calling. Nothing else mattered.
Then came Scully.
He opened his copious bag of tricks, both innate and learned through experience, when he found out she was on her way. He read everything he could find on her before she showed up. And when she did, he established a boundary from the get-go, addressing her not as Agent or Dana, but simply as Scully. He dialed up the charm, the casual game of seduction he knew so well, fully intending to use it against this usurper and cause her to trip up, to make a mistake that would force her away in either shame or disgust. He honed the sharp edges of his sarcasm and was prepared to cut her deeply with his casual disregard. He was already skilled at pulling women into his orbit. Combined with what he’d learned from Phoebe and Diana about the fine art of the emotional drawing and quartering of one’s prey, he didn’t think Scully would last a month.
But somehow, somehow, she saw him and who he truly was. Listened to him. Respected him, even if she initially bought into his reputation and thought him spooky and unhinged. She offered him her soft underbelly on the first night of their first case. And despite his determination to treat her as the spy she’d been sent to be, he couldn’t help but show her vulnerability in kind. He told her about Samantha.
And she stayed. She stayed despite his bad behavior and his obviously practiced performance; the means of disarmament that’d always served him so well before. And soon he realized she was just as unhinged as he was, just as passionate. Not in the same ways, of course, because she was firmly rooted in science and the desire to prove his extreme theories wrong. But she was fearless and feisty, infinitely curious, and willing to go beyond what any sensible person might do in order to further his cause. Even as she slowly came to realize he might be right more often than not, that this singular obsession of his took precedence over everything else, she stayed. Scully always stayed.
Seven years on, seven years of heartache and grief and losing more than they’ve gained, she remains by his side. And somewhere along their journey it’s become less about the work and more about the two of them, what they’ve built together. He occasionally worries that maybe he hasn’t always been honest enough with her, that she took his early subterfuge at face value, even after he'd dropped all pretenses. He worries that he may not be the man she thinks he is, and that eventually she'll figure that out and leave him.
He gets up and pulls her from her seat at the empty local pizza place in Nowhere, Nebraska just as the jukebox begins to play the last song he selected after feeding it quarters on the way to their booth.
“Mulder, what are you doing?” she grumbles in mild annoyance. It’s been a long day and they’re both dead on their feet. And now he’s dragged her away from the first slice of sausage and mushroom already on its way to her mouth. Her fingers are slightly greasy as he clasps them in his and gives her a little twirl before pulling her close.
He can do this kind of thing these days, when they’re in the field and not likely to be seen and reported for conduct unbecoming of Special Agents with the FBI. He can get them adjoining rooms, with their respective connecting doors left unlocked for clandestine visits after they’ve showered away the remains of their day. He can fully and unabashedly use all those powers of seduction and charm that he’s honed over the years. And Scully reaps the benefits. They both do. It works every time now. His myriad talents are a necessary evil.
“I’ve got you under my skin,” he tunelessly croons in her ear, murmuring along with Frank on the jukebox. “I’ve got you deep in the heart of me. So deep in my heart you’re really a part of me,” he finishes, gazing down into vivid and grudgingly tolerant azure eyes. He dances her in between tables and across the empty tiled floor as the horn section revs up and kicks in.
“Aren’t you a bit young to be a Sinatra fan, Mulder?” she asks after a minute or so. He catches the corner of a smile she’s trying to suppress.
“They’re called classics for a reason,” he argues. “Old Blue Eyes will never go out of style.” She finally relents a bit of her reserve and lays her cheek on his chest. “Tell me something, Scully.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” she asks, peering up at him with fondness. The tone she's using is one she normally reserves for small children or fat little puppies.
“Did I,” he hesitates, “…did I seduce you? Has everything led to this because of something I did years ago?”
She bursts out with a short, sharp peal of laughter and pats him on the chest with her free hand. “Don’t be an idiot, Mulder. I seduced you.”
He grins down at her and they dance a little more, the lone waitress shooting them a mildly curious look from her perch at the counter housing the cash register.
“I would sacrifice anything, come what might,” Scully begins softly singing, negating any advantage she might’ve had over him for being such a nerd and celebrating Frank Sinatra’s genius. “For the sake of having you near. In spite of the warning voice that comes in the night and repeats. How it yells in my ear, ‘Don't you know, little fool, you never can win?’”
But that’s the thing. They have won. And right now, that’s good enough. Right now, it’s everything.
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