gravity files → crossover fic

2. closer

Scully stares at her partner as if that's the craziest thing he's ever told her.

"An apocalypse, Mulder?"

Mulder can tell she doesn't believe him, but keeps going anyways.

"End of days. Armageddon," he continues, "or Weirdmageddon. That's how my source chose to call it."

Scully blinks, but her expression stays the same. Mouth slightly open, furrowed eyebrows, and eyes pinned completely on him, expecting him to somehow clear up her confusion. Make it all... make sense.

An expression that screams, "Mulder, that's crazy."

"Weirdmageddon?" she feels bad for staring at him that way, she really does.

He nods.

His beliefs are all he thinks he has, and when devaluing them, she recently can't help but feel like he thinks she's devaluing him, too.

She shakes her head to clear her mind. He's looking at her expectantly.

"Mulder, who's your source, exactly?" Scully asks, her expression neutral once again. She doesn't have to make it obvious that she doubts him.

Mulder pauses, looking out of the driver's side window. There's nothing to see, but he's trying to figure out how to form his sentences carefully.

He turns back to face his partner.

"A -" he cuts himself off, "A 13-year-old boy, from Gravity Falls, who claims to have-"

He cuts himself off again. Scully's about to make that face again.

He hates that face.

"-To have firsthand experience with whatever creature is causing the event - Weirdmageddon," he stops talking, waiting for a reply.

He doesn't have to wait for long.

"A 13-year-old boy?" she asks, "Mulder..."

She's not mad, or disappointed, he knows that. She's just shocked. But it feels like a slap in the face.

A couple of years back, it wouldn't have. Or would it? He can't remember.

He nods, turning his head away.

"Do you," she starts. How does she say this without sounding rude?

"Do you believe him?"

Mulder shrugs, looking at the road ahead once again.

He doesn't care about being called spooky at the office. He doesn't care about Skinner or some irritable FBI agent with a hair in his ass mocking his beliefs.

But when Scully clearly doesn't believe him, and when she tops it off by talking down to him, as if he's a little kid, that strikes him.

She probably doesn't realise she's doing it, he thinks.

"Mulder, it's just, you believe in lots of things...." Scully starts, as calmly as she can, "and I just don't want you to be disappointed."

A "screw you, Mulder" would've been enough, he thinks.

Spooky Mulder who believes anything and everything, and Spooky Mulder who's going to idiotically believe himself dead.

"Listen, Scully, I know that -" he takes a deep breath, gently tapping on the dashboard with his free hand, "- I know that I can be wrong, and that I can be a handful, and sure, I'm sometimes one and often the other, but I know, that we'll find something when we get there."

He refuses to turn around.

"I'm sure of it."

And Scully doesn't know what to say, so Scully stays silent.

And Mulder doesn't know why he said what he said, so he, too, stays silent.

_________

a/n: double update today yikes!!