Chapter Text
It didn’t mean anything. At least, that’s what she had been telling the crowd in the women’s washroom for the last 30 minutes. Who knew heavily cuffed trousers paired with a mere button-up, only a couple sizes too large, could end up being the hottest piece of office gossip?
Scully took a breath as she strutted through the main floor, ignoring the mass of eyeballs aimed at her. She hoped something was on her face, or maybe she just wore these oversized men’s clothes really well. Anything but her coworkers having found another reason to question her professionalism. It seemed that, in a petulant attempt to prove to themselves that they were better than her, they were all desperate to find anything to discredit her.
Her hope was shattered when she heard a tall man whisper “I know whose pants those are.”
She walked by the chuckling group of men, keeping her head high to avoid having to look at anyone, along with the added bonus of feigning indifference.
As a man hollered in her direction, Scully wondered both how they could be permitted to act this way in a workplace, and how anyone could be questioning her professionalism out of everyone in that room.
She made her way towards the elevator when a man came up to her with a dubious expression. Scully quickly made a u-turn to the ladies' room, hoping he would be gone when she left.
They didn’t even seem to notice her entering as they chatted in the stalls, “Did you see Spooky’s partner walk in today?”
There was a giggle, “Oh yeah, all dishevelled in those big men’s clothes.”
She rolled her eyes and turned on the tap, hoping that they might notice and leave her alone. The investigative side of her wanted them to keep talking. A bigger part of her, the part that had been caught making out with Norman Wilson at a sophomore party, wanted them to leave her alone.
They only went on, “I think I may know how she worked her way up the ladder.”
“I just can’t believe she would show up to work like that, it’s so unprofessional!”
Scully turned off the tap aggressively as they walked out of the stalls, stopping awkwardly to gawk at her in realization. She stared back fiercely, hiding her blush of embarrassment under a blush of anger. Her stomach turned as her body threatened to cry. There was a cork in her throat, and she was desperately hoping everything would settle before it was violently screwed out.
Scully couldn’t have them see her like that, she had to maintain her professionalism, or the rumours might as well be true to them. She bit her lip and calmed her body, trying to seem as unfazed and cold as possible.
“I borrowed them because my own clothes were stained by my blood,” she deadpanned, hoping to shock them into silence with the clinical delivery of her words.
“First time?” One of the women smirked, earning a nudge from her friend, and two glares.
An older woman walked in, seeming to have heard what was going on, “Why did you have access to his clothes instead of your own in the first place?”
Scully looked around and saw that the room had suddenly gotten more crowded. There weren’t many women in the Hoover Building, but it seemed to Scully that they were all in this very washroom.
She had been viciously surrounded many times on the job, but her usual response of pulling out her gun or maybe yelling for backup wouldn’t work in this situation. The tactics that could keep cryptids and criminals away had no effect on the people in this office. She swallowed hard as her eyes raced between the many women in the bathroom, trying to control her voice and sound as calm as possible. She was a professional, she could prove that.
“It was very late when we got to his house-” Scully managed to squeeze out.
“I bet it was,” a fourth lady interrupted.
Scully tossed over a glare and continued, “Because of the case we were on, it was too late to drive so far, he let me sleep over.”
“I bet he did.”
She blinked to dry her eyes, and cleared her throat, “We were in separate rooms, not that I have any obligation to explain this to you.”
“Why didn’t he drive you home?”
“Nothing happened!” She snapped.
The ladies' room went quiet, and Scully found herself sweating at the sight of every single eye silently tracing her every single move. She took the opportunity to finally storm out, trying to compose herself as more and more eyes from outside the washroom fell on her, despite her pounding heart. She raced to the elevator, breathing heavily, slamming the close button repeatedly as another agent tried to step in.
The agent stuck his arm in between the doors and excused himself as he pressed a higher floor button. She stayed as silent as possible as he leaned in, “You know, I would buy you new clothes if you ever slept over at mine.”
Scully white-knuckled the bar in the elevator to stop her knees from buckling, trying desperately to slow her breathing. She rushed into the office as soon as the metal cage allowed her, and slammed the office door behind her, Mulder sitting up in surprise.
“Long line at the bathroom?” he deadpanned.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It seems everyone was too intrigued by the 'office slut’ to bother with lines,” she said under her breath.
“What?”
His face paled, realizing the situation was much more serious than he had anticipated when he heard the door shut. He had gotten a couple of pats on the back on his way in, people had paid more positive attention to him today, but other than that everything was fairly normal, he thought.
“While you were off getting high-fived in the hallway, I was getting sneered at after every step.”
“Scully,” he frowned, “what happened?”
“Mulder, “ She started, pulling at her skirt, “everybody thinks we’re sleeping together.”
“They already did.”
She shook her head lightly, “They believed that as a theory, Mulder, as an office rumour. Now they think they know.”
“What changed?”
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose harder. “The clothes, Mulder.”
His jaw dropped, he hadn’t even considered that. Scully must have known it was going to happen, and not said anything in the morning. They simply did not have any other clothes. You’d think that other FBI agents would have gotten used to that kind of last-minute problem-solving by now.
He swallowed hard, feeling a tumbling skyscraper of guilt at the fact that she was dealing with all of the backlash while he (for once) walked around with a slightly elevated social status. His jaw clenched. “What did they say to you, Scully?”
She buried her face in her hands. “They think they know everything about us, Mulder. They think they know better than me.”
He sighed, grabbing her hands and gently pulling them down. “They’ve always thought they know everything about us, Scully. The truth is that they’ll never understand us, as this proves, but that’s okay. We understand us. We understand us enough for this whole office and more.”
“What if I want them to understand, Mulder?” she huffed, pulling her hands away. “You don’t get it, Mulder, you don’t get what it’s like for your entire career and personality to be redetermined by a rumour.”
He choked out a bitter laugh. “Don’t I?”
Scully pursed her lips and furrowed her brows, pausing to find a counter-argument. “You may be perfectly fine with everyone calling you ‘Spooky’ and discrediting your work, but you can only get away with that if I am respected, Mulder. How long do you think this department is going to last if it’s run by the office meshuga and the office slut?”
He dropped his gaze to his desk as he fiddled with a pencil. “This meshuga has run it without you for years, Scully.”
“Until they sent me to shut it down.”
Mulder’s lips tightened. He took a breath and bravely shot his eyes up to hers, scanning her furrowed brows and red cheeks. His tone softened, “Scully, we’re stronger than some office rumours. They’ll go away.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” she sputtered, refusing to match his calm voice. “They don’t just go away, they follow you around like a shadow. You of all people should know that.”
He stood towards her and began to speak, but she backed away, shaking her head. “Forget it, Mulder.”
“Scully, wait.”
She grabbed the first manilla folder she saw on his desk. “For what?”
His eyes darted around her face as he tried to think of an answer. To talk about it, not that they ever did that. To kiss and make up? Anything? Anything to stop her from getting cold, to stop her from immediately distancing herself.
As he stood there, thinking, Scully sat back down and read through the folder. He watched as she sat up straight and turned her body away from him, her one free arm crossed over her torso. His chest felt nuclear. His stomach resembled that of a kid who had just eaten a bowl of raw cookie dough. He was a damn good profiler, but he didn’t need to be to know what had just happened. Cold.