This one is from a Twitter prompt by @magnetitemsr: “What if Mulder and Scully are upset with each other and caught in a snowstorm?” NSFW 

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They were never going to make it to Shinesburg. They were thirty miles from their destination in snow that was so thick having the headlights on made visibility worse rather than better.

They had gotten a late start and the weather had turned as they hit the mountains. The last town they had passed through was at least an hour behind them, and the only things nearby that Mulder could make out through the curtain of snow was The Lone Pine Party Store (dark, with a For Sale sign in the window), and the Sleepy Hollow Cabins, a line of tiny brown log cabins that sat along a snowy riverbank that ran parallel to the road. While lit, their sign said “No Vacancy,” though there were only a smattering of cars in the parking lot.

They were hungry and overheated from the air blasting out of their rented Mercury Sable, which seemed to have only two settings: High Heat and You’ll Die Here.

Scully had a white knuckle grip on the Oh Jesus bar above her door when the car tried to fishtail for the third time in five minutes. It was the last time Mulder would rent a rear wheel drive car anywhere north of the 40th Parallel

“Okay, Mulder, we’ve got to stop,” she said, bracketing the hand not already holding on to the dashboard in front of her, “we can’t keep driving in this.”

Mulder reluctantly agreed that she was right and pulled into the parking lot of the Sleepy Hollow, having to give it a lot of gas to get through a line of snow a plow had recently left across the driveway.

He threw it into park and cut the engine, rolling down the manual window a few inches to let cold air blast in from outside.

“Think it’ll die down any time soon?” he asked, turning to her, and couldn’t figure out why she  leveled a glare at him. “I mean, it says ‘No Vacancy.’”

He gestured toward the sign that was just to the left of their parked car. Most of the sign was taken up with a picture of a cartoon sleeping Bambi, the ‘No’ part of the vacancy sign a slowly blinking neon pink.

“I don’t suppose the Disney copyright lawyers get out here very often, huh?” he asked her. She remained silent and not amused.

She pushed out an annoyed sigh and unclipped her seat belt. She wouldn’t look at him.

“This storm is supposed to last for close to 40 hours. It wreaked havoc in the upper Midwest for the last two days and just picked up a bunch of moisture from the Great Lakes.”

“Oh,” Mulder said, feeling guilty and stupid for not checking the weather ahead of time, “well, let’s go see if we can get rooms. We’re in the middle of nowhere, I doubt it’s actually full.” He still couldn’t figure out why she was pissed.

Scully reached up to where her neck met her shoulder and rubbed it, wincing.

She sighed again, “let’s go.”

The wind hammered at them as they walked a short way to the lobby, which was only slightly larger than the cabins on its property. There was a large sign sponsored by Coors Light that said ‘WELCOME SNOWMOBILERS’ tied to one wall, snapping sharply in the wind.

The clerk looked up when they walked in, a gust of wind and snow coming in with them. It smelled of Pine-sol with an underlying current of mildew thrown into the mix. They were close to the river, probably nothing ever stayed dry.

There was a vending machine in one corner with a portable table set up next to it supporting a small microwave and an ancient coffee maker Mulder recognized from an episode of Hill Street Blues.

“Can I help you?” said the clerk.

“Two cabins, please,” Mulder said confidently.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have any vacancies.”

Mulder threw the clerk a look of incredulity.

“You mean to tell me that every single one of these cabins – 30 miles from the nearest… anything… are completely booked?”

The clerk looked offended.

“All but one, yes,” she said, “we’re right on a snowmobile trial sir, and have excellent ice fishing on Pucksataw Lake,” with this, she hooked a thumb over her right shoulder, ostensibly in the direction of the aforementioned lake. “We stay pretty full year round.”

“All but one?” Scully said quietly from Mulder’s shoulder. She had managed to keep a hopeful edge to her voice and the clerk’s eyes softened as she turned toward her.

“The heat hasn’t been working in that unit and with this weather, I cannot in good conscience rent it out to anyone.”

Scully pulled at Mulder’s elbow and he turned toward her.

“Maybe we just wait for a plow to go by and we can follow it to the nearest town,” she said, her voice low.

Mulder was about to answer her when the clerk piped up.

“Oh, there won’t be any plows coming by.”

Mulder turned back toward her.

“Don’t tell me we’re on a seasonal road,” he said. His normal affable charm had left him fifteen miles ago.

“The plow’s already been by today,” she said, “and with this weather the county’ll have all the plows out on the highway and closer to the county seat. We probably won’t get dug out until tomorrow at the earliest.”

Mulder chanced a look out the window at their rented sedan, which was perched somewhat haphazardly in a makeshift parking spot, already building up accumulation of snow on its roof.

“How does your conscience feel about two people freezing to death in your parking lot?” he asked.

The clerk bit the inside of her cheek and considered them.

“You’re dressed pretty warm, considering,” she finally said, and Mulder couldn’t help but think considering what? “I’ll give you the room,” she said, leaning under the counter. She stood and slid a key on monstrous green keychain across the top of the desk. “No charge,” she said,  “and no paperwork,” then leaned forward, “if y’all get hypothermia or frostbite, there’s no record you were ever here.”

“Are you planning to dump our bodies, or…”

“I’m planning not to let you sue me.”

“I promise we’re not litigious,” Scully piped up from his elbow. He’d almost forgotten she was there.

The clerk narrowed her eyes at them.

Mulder stood at attention and raised two fingers in a salute.

“Scout’s honor,” he said, picking up and glancing at the key, “unit 11?”

The clerk nodded.

“Last cabin down,” she said, “it’s a double. I’ll bring some extra blankets by in a bit.”

Mulder thanked her and they made their way carefully through the accumulating snow, stopping at their rental car to pull their overnight bags out of the trunk.

The pathway leading to the cabins had been shoveled earlier in the day, but was already carpeted with several inches of new snow, which squeaked under their dress shoes as they walked.

The cabins were set up prettily along a river that was too fast moving to freeze, and raced along beside them, dark and gurgling. There were towering pines between each cabin and Mulder had to admit that in any other circumstance he might have found the tableau charming and quaint. As it was, considering he was about to have to spend a cold night under the same roof as a still-fuming Scully, the entire scene was rather less than captivating.

Both their shoes were soaked through by the time they reached the cabin, a less than auspicious start to an already inauspicious evening.

When Mulder finally got the cabin door open, he noticed that snow had drifted a few inches in under the door. It hadn’t melted.

Scully shuffled in behind him, dropping her bag in a small chair just inside the room. She turned to assess it as Mulder shut the door on the storm.

“I thought she said it was a double,” she said, looking skeptically at the small bed in the center of the room. Other than a table and two chairs (one of which was currently holding all of Scully’s belongings), and a small dresser with a TV on top, it was the only furniture in the room.

“I guess she meant the size of the bed,” Mulder said, giving it a skeptical eye of his own. His six-foot frame would barely fit in it, as is.

Scully looked over at him and her expression said I am not fucking happy about this .

“Maybe I can sleep in the tub,” Mulder suggested, only half-serious.

Scully walked over to the bathroom door and peeked her head around the corner. She turned back to him, the look on her face even less amused, if it were possible.

“There’s only a shower.”

Her attitude was getting to him.

“You know, if you hadn’t insisted we go back and pack up more warm clothes, we probably could have made it to Shinesburg before the storm hit,” he threw at her.

“And if you had listened to me telling you the weather report yesterday when you told me about this case, you wouldn’t have needed to go back and repack!” He tried to remember whether or not she’d told him about the weather. She probably had. He probably hadn’t been listening. He was about to apologize to her when she went on. “And you’re going to be damn happy I told you to pack warmer clothes now that we’re stuck in this piece of shit cabin with no heat!”

And like that, any thought of apologizing went out the window.

“Well,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “I’m just glad I’m stuck somewhere with such pleasant company.”

She glared at him for a moment and then went into the bathroom, slamming the door closed behind her. 

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