Get Up, Mulder

Fanfiction
Title:	Get Up, Mulder
Author(s):	Tesla
Date(s):
Length:	22K
Genre:
Fandom:	The X-Files
External Links:	online here
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Get Up, Mulder is an X-Files story by Tesla.

It was the winner of a 2002 Spooky Award.

Reactions and Reviews

Why This Must Be Read: Because it answers the troubling question of just how Mulder and Scully managed to get back from Antarctica in Fight the Future. And because it has Scully!Comfort and UST. Who doesn't love Scully!Comfort and UST?

Scully wants Mulder to get up, but instead he thinks about their long trip back from Antarctica. This is a really fun fic that examines something that a lot of fics and canon itself frequently gloss over - the physical repercussions of the active lives our favorite agents lead. The tension and UST between Mulder and Scully is really perfect here - compelling but not all-consuming. It's one of my favorite post-Fight the Future fics, and I hope y'all enjoy it!

Confession time: the first time I read it, I thought Mulder was being a little whiny. But I love him better now, so it's all good. Tesla's writing is smooth as silk and no one writes a better Mulder voice. Enjoy!

This is my first attempt at commenting on an XF fanfic story since I joined LJ...so I'm kinda nervous about being among such illustrious critics, having read your comments over recent years with great enjoyment and admiration. But enough of the flim-flam!

I did enjoy reading this story and don't think I've ever read this one before, which was quite a surprise to me (I thought I'd read almost everything worthwhile in the entire fandom). The recurring "Get up Mulder" theme gives the narrative a certain rhythm and shape, and it's also an intelligent fill-in-the-blanks kind of story, which had me thinking: " Ahh, so THAT'S how they could've got back" (well, give or take a few gaps here and there, but I don't mind that). It was also a relief to me that this was a no-sex story, and realised I was holding my breath whenever there were any bed scenarios...don't misunderstand me, I do like my NC17 in the right context, but really dread those long-winded, overly-descriptive sex scenes which fanfic writers almost feel obliged to include even when the protagonists are sick, or physically exhausted. I'm usually pretty good at suspending my disbelief when reading fanfic, but some of those kind of scenes are often stretching the point to say the least!

This was fun to read, & the characters were believable to me; Mulder enfeebled (but with good reason) and Scully was doctorly, caring and firm with Mulder without coming across as too much of a bitch(why do some people think Scully has to be portrayed as a ball-buster in order for her to appear empowered and strong?)

I wonder about the way Scully's portrayed in fic sometimes. I think some writers genuinely don't like her as a character (which I personally can't understand at all). I thought "Get Up, Mulder" had a great "voice" for her, though.

I'm never really sure what to say in these fic discussions (which is one of the reasons I rarely comment here), and I'm sure "I love this story" (and I did!) is not really sufficient. So. I think it works for me on several levels: 1) it answers the question of "How did Mulder and Scully make it back to Antarctica?" and it even takes account of the fact that Mulder hadn't finished healing from his gunshot wound (something FTF didn't really deal with; he went from limping along after having recently woken from a coma to being able to clamber around the precarious environment of a subterranean spaceship, managing to avoid nearly falling to his death); 2) I guess I just have a soft spot for "poor, bedraggled Mulder." Yes, he complains a lot, but he often does so with his trademark cynical wit; 3) I liked how Scully took care of Mulder in a way that was both tender but also very matter-of-fact -- she's very much the no-nosense doctor here, but without veering into stereotypical "Ice Queen" territory. As I said, she's still quite tender and very caring. But not overly so -- she's not the excessively "mothering" type to a woobified Mulder that's seen in some fics.

Okay, well. Hmm.

What I like about this fic is the premise. I’ve always liked FTF Antarctica gap-filler fics, and this is certainly one of the better ones, at least plot-wise.

From the edge of the crater in the ice, to an international weather station (Where? That’s what I want to know), to a cargo vessel, to an airplane bound for Caracas, to another airplane bound for D.C. The details tesla fills in do a pretty good job of grounding the radical situation Mulder and Scully have found themselves in, at least considering how short the fic is. Scully coughing up goo, Mulder being violently seasick, Mulder telling Scully he was shot in the head, them having to wait in Caracas for Scully’s passport to arrive, those are all parts I like. (Not wild about being told Scully is shitting goo, though. Some things I genuinely believe are better kept ‘off camera’.) I also find it interesting the way they keep knocking against each other emotionally, instinctively hanging onto each other while everything around them is transient and foreign.

The problem is, I really don’t care for this Mulder characterization. The whole fic feels like Scully fussing over him, and him being fussy and difficult, when he’s not being suddenly stricken by moments of frat-boy lust.

This was clearly a point where a nice guy would let go of his partner's firm little ass, and wake her up. But Mulder had already warned her he wasn't nice, right?

Ew. It’s not that his hand is on her ass, or that he wishes to keep it there. Those things are understandable. It’s the way it’s phrased: “firm little ass” and the way he justifies copping a feel. “You’re fault, Scully, I warned you I’m a prick.”

He does have some nice moments (like when he is worried about her respiration and Scully catches him with his ear to her chest, that’s a sweet moment and I thought the fic could have made a lot more of it). But for the most part, when he’s not being a prick or showing his concern, I find him rather boring. He doesn’t have the kind of rich inner life that I look for in a Mulder characterization.

Also, he calls Scully “honey,” at which I think my brain actually made a needle-scratch sound.

I don’t know what I think of Scully’s characterization. I like that she seems fairly on the ball in this fic, but her persistence in doctoring Mulder gets kind of boring, especially when for the most part he just does his best to wave her off. And I don’t recall there being a single description of her fixing anyone with an incisive look, or studying them with an intent gaze, or any such thing. She doesn’t do anything "stoic" or "stern" or "determined" or "deliberate" or "careful" or "cautious"; there are certain descriptors commonly used in reference to Scully (far more of them than I’ve listed, of course), and this fic seems to have almost none of them. Minute to minute I’m mostly fine with her characterization, but by the end, as a whole, it just feels wrong.

The problem is, I really don’t care for this Mulder characterization.

This is not Mulder at his best, I grant you. It's true, there is a complete absence of a rich inner life. He's lying on the ground unconscious, and these are his uncensored thoughts and memories during that interval, being punctuated by Scully yelling at him to get up. His brain is not being filtered, so it's all right out there, including Scully's "firm little ass" and her unguarded remarks about what her stools look like. (She was still in shock and I gather wasn't filtering much either at that point.) The memories themselves are not exactly stellar. He was also in shock, suffering from a head injury, exhaustion, dehydration, and hypothermia. He'd just drunk a cup of coffee laced with whiskey, too.

And I don’t recall there being a single description of her fixing anyone with an incisive look, or studying them with an intent gaze, or any such thing. She doesn’t do anything "stoic" or "stern" or "determined" or "deliberate" or "careful" or "cautious"; there are certain descriptors commonly used in reference to Scully (far more of them than I’ve listed, of course), and this fic seems to have almost none of them.

But the story is very tightly written in third person, limited to Mulder's POV. He wouldn't be remembering her as any of those things right now. He's lying unconscious, with his memory being jogged by her yelling at him; he's remembering events that happened while he was falling asleep or barely conscious or tossing his cookies.

This Mulder is OOC for me, just as this Mulder is in character for you. I thought that was an assumption we all make every time we discuss the important but subjective matter of characterization. My assessment of him as out of character is equally as valid as your assessment of him as in character. The only difference is that I like my assessment better, obviously, and you prefer yours. And ultimately, I form my opinion based on the same essential process of perception, reasoning, and yes, emotion, as you do.

What I like best about this story is its structure. Though I didn't know for certain until the ending, this story isn't taking place during FTF at all. It's all taking place during an off-screen early season six case set sometime while Mulder and Scully were exiled from the X-Files, when they were on "fertilizer duty" for domestic terrorism. (In a post 9-11 world, that's no longer where FBI fuck-ups get posted. But anyway, that's where they are.)

Scully's telling him to get up now, but he's too warm and he's too tired. He'd rather think about the long trip home from Antarctica, despite the fear and the fatigue and the pain and the nightmares. There's something about that experience that he gravitates to when he's this unfiltered, when he has lost consciousness. Everything that happens in this story is being narrated to us by a man who is lying unconscious on a concrete floor after being cold-cocked by a faceless terrorist.

"Get up, Mulder" is the first line, almost the last line, and it's the Greek chorus of this play. As Nailbelle has pointed out, its repetition provides structure, by changing the scene; however, every time Scully says it, she's yelling to the unresponsive man lying on that concrete floor, whose concussed brain then spirals back to another memory of the trip home.

Just as M&S get away from the ship just in the nick of time, before it takes off and blows a huge hole in the Antarctic ice shelf, Mulder wakes up and gets up off the floor and out of the building just in time to escape being blown up by the bomb. (Just like they nearly got blown up in Dallas, back at the very beginning of FTF.) He saved her, she saves him. It's what they do. It's been a tough year and so I forgive Mulder's somewhat churlish reply, murmured under his breath as he's herded to the ambulance. It's his narrative so he gets the last word. "I'm up."

Hooray! You figured it out! I thought there was something like this going on, but I thought I'd have to reread and didn't have the heart. It's really a clever, clever mode of storytelling.

I just have to do a rave on Tesla. For personal preference reasons I haven't read everything she's written--there's a Scully-hate factor that screwed things up for me at one point--but I would say that she is the sveltest, slickest, most economical stylist that every inhabited Xdom. She and Kel; they share the honors. Her prose is light and pleasurable to consume like whipped cream, but like the cream one whips it is thick and rich with implication. It is also, for the most part, good-tempered and funny. Even when she turned Mulder into a vampire.

As for Mulder being Mulder: of course he isn't. He's unconscious and wounded and in pain, and he's dreaming about being unconscious, wounded, and in pain. His lizard brain is recalling bits and pieces of his difficult history, each of which Scully stars in, and his attitude is compounded of aggravation, lust, and a profound desire for oblivion. He shamelessly refers to Scully's firm little ass *because he's unconscious, wounded, and in pain on a cold stone floor." It wouldn't be all that surprising if he fantasized a rape because she is really irritating him. Lizard brain. Cut the guy a break.

What actually comes through here is how much Mulder depends on Scully, how thoroughly he has accepted her partnership and cherishes her loyalty. That is what the repetition of "Get up, Mulder" signifies; she gets him going and brings him home.

Considering I'm the one who recced this, I feel like I should have some essay on why I love it so. But, I don't. I just like it. I like FTF gap-fillers and there aren't many out there that do it for me, but this one surely does. But I love Tesla's stuff (with the exception of her M/O series, which really rubs me the wrong way and not just because it's M/O) and this one of my favorites. I get the criticism that both of them might be slightly OOC, but I figure they've been shot, frozen, intubated and generally screwed over in just about every way. By this point in the movie, they have been traumatised in so many ways (the bombing, the hearings, the resignation), so for me, everything in this fic reflects that. Mulder's "honey" is not at all jarring to me. It works for me given the overall circumstances and I actually like that little bit.

This was pretty good. There are nowehre near enough "return from Antarctica" fics out there. (and I was quite underwhelmed by certitude to be honest - found it quite tedious in places and some of the characterization didn't work for me.)

I can buy exhausted, concussed, borderline whiny Mulder, considering he's actually bleeding out on a concrete floor. Not my fave portrayal of him but it still works, so in this respect the story is doing its job.

The 'honey' threw me though. Right there with you Amyhit, my brain too made a needle scratch sound (such a perfect way to describe this feeling, when something pulls you out of a story abruptly.)

I'm surprised though that Scully seems relatively unscathed. (loved the TMI about the retching and shitting goo - very efficient way to 'anchor' things down.) If I were to write an Antarctica piece I think my Scully would be more banged up and disoriented than that. But hey, YMMV

I must be the only person who thought the 'firm little ass' mention was hot - I don't mind it too much when Mulder is being all macho and inappropriate. Could be a cultural French thing. Our men are plenty inappropriate but we still love them. *shrug*

I like Tesla's Mulder a lot, and I think one of the reasons is that he sounds like a guy. She doesn't try to neuter him.

THIS!

And while we're at it may I say how much I can't stand Metrosexual!Mulder? Mulder's gonna oggle women, have inappropriate sexual thoughts, watch porn (plenty of evidence of this in the show) and be more often than not insensitive about his partner's feelings or not knowing what the hell to do with them. He might be a snappy dresser but he's not going to give a crap about the thread count of his bed sheets or the shade of his curtains. And I don't see him pouring his heart out or agonizing over his feelings for any length of time either (unless cornered to do so - as in FTF)

And that's fine with me.