palette in the moonlight | x-files teen au

xi. quietness and faulty telephone cables

Scully groggily enters the English room the next day. As soon as she sits down and opens her notebook to check yesterday's notes, a hand slams it closed.

"What are you, mental?!"

"Good morning to you too, Lanie." Scully says, flashing a sarcastic smile at her outraged classmate.

"Don't fuck with me, Dana! How could you hurt my boyfriend like that?!" Lanie shouts, earning them both a bunch of confused looks from fellow classmates.

You mean, ignoring the fact that your boyfriend, on top of being a misogynistic, racist asshole, chose to seal his fate by beating up my friend? Gee, I've got no idea what got into me, she considers saying.

"Project's due soon. Would suck to have a hospitalised lab partner, no?" Scully cups her chin in her palm.

"That's bullshit, Dana, and you know it." the brunette hisses. "I felt for you when Arnis paired you up with Spooky, I really did, but if you wanna go ahead and be -- Ms Spooky, then, I'm afraid we can no longer be friends."

Scully decides to skip the obvious question, which would, obviously, be, "We were friends?"

Instead, she just shrugs. Lanie groans and angrily storms off to her seat.

Monica enters the classroom right before the bell signalling the beginning of class rings. She quickly runs towards Scully's desk, and sits down next to her.

"What's up with Lanie? She's looking at you like you ran over her puppy," she jokes, pulling out her books.

Mr Orton, the English teacher, enters the classroom.

"You could say it that way, yeah."

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At four PM, Scully decides to call Mulder.

As she walks downstairs towards the phone, her older brother, Bill, is just getting off the phone with his girlfriend.

"Get out, I'm on the phone," he hisses, covering the lower end of the handset with his hand.

"Monica wasn't at school today, I've got to tell her what'll be on tomorrow's math test," she quickly lies.

"Or, you could stay on the phone, and I could tell mom and dad all about your," she raises her tone slightly as she finishes the sentence, "sexual adventures."

Bill Junior grunts. "I'll call you back in a few, babe. Yeah, hear from you then."

Dana waits for him to leave the room, and then dials the number.

Two long beeps pass before somebody picks up the phone.

"Hello? Who is this?" a female voice answers. Scully guesses that it's Mulder's mother.

"This is, uh, Dana Scully. I'm looking for a Fox Mulder?"

"Alright, please wait a moment."

Two more long beeps.

"Hello?" she recognises the sleepy voice answering the phone this time.

"Hey, Mulder." she replies.

"Oh, hey. How'd it go with Tarren?" he asks, his voice a little more energetic now.

"Two weeks Saturday detention. Turned out pretty well. You feeling any better?"

Mulder nods. He doesn't remember that nods and shrugs and basically all of his conversational skills don't translate well when the other person can't see you until it's too late.

"... Mulder?" she calls out, unsure if he's still on the line.

"Yeah -- Yeah!" he suddenly realises and mentally slaps himself as he finally answers.

"Sorry, uh, faulty phone cable."

Mulder's always been excited to be able to give someone his phone number. TV made it seem cool and exciting, anyways.

"Hey, yeah, here's my number, call if you wanna hang out."

He was excited til he realised he hates phones. He hates having to make up words and phrases for how he feels or why he feels the way he feels.

It's so much easier to shrug at a "why" question and nod or shake his head at a "yes or no" question. Why complicate it?

"You should come over," he simply says.

"What?" Scully asks, confused.

"Uhm, I mean," he starts, "I won't be at school for a while, but I'm thinking of catching up a little. English and Chemistry notes, you know."

Scully, on the other hand, loves phones. Talking is so much easier (and lying, too) when the other person can't see you.

What are you grateful for? The ability to mouth a long "fuuuuuuck" without the person on the other side realising.

Were Monica and John right? Is he trying to ask her out, in a way?

Is she overreacting? Most likely so.

"Yeah, sure, when?" she replies, trying to sound as patient as possible.

"Friday? 'Cause it's the end of the week, I mean, and I'll probably be back by Monday." he suggests.

"Would 6-ish work for you?" Scully asks.

He realises he's about to nod again, and stops himself. Force of habit.

"Uhm, yeah, 6-ish sounds great," he answers.

"Right. Where do you live?" she wonders, fiddling with a red ink pen that Bill left behind earlier.

"Morten street no. 3," he replies. It takes him a second to remember his own street.

"Got it. Morten's no. 3, Friday, six PM." she finishes.

"See you then." he shakily replies.

"See you." she responds, and he hangs up the phone.

She finally leaves the red pen alone, and calls Bill back into the room.

"Thank you for your tolerance." she jokes, handing him the handset.

"Thanks for being a pain in the ass." he hisses, sticking his tongue out at her.

She reciprocates.

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Meanwhile, Mulder flops back down onto his bed.

How can talking over the phone physically exhaust someone more than talking to the same person -- well, in person?

He closes his eyes. If Scully's coming over, he should probably clean up his mess of a room.

Hm.

Maybe later.