I don't own TXF!
A/N: I wrote this last summer when there was a refusal to turn on the air conditioning in my house. And I had to go mow my neighbor's lawn and I thought I was going to die. Anyways...next Thursday at 8 pm, Fox will be airing a new episode of Bones titled "The X in the File." Dean Haglund (Langley) will be guest starring, as well as one other TXF vet (I believe it's the woman who played the super soldier forest ranger in Democrat Springs in "Existence") and there will be several X Files references, including a cell phone ringing the show's theme, as seen in the episode's promo (Brennan: It's just a cell phone. Booth: You hope...). As always reviews are greatly appreciated!
The air conditioning had been running warm for nearly three days. Luckily, they were still in the beginning of the summer, the hottest part of the day was still bearable. Unfortunately, the humidity level was up and even though the heat was bearable, everything was sticky and moist feeling. It was around mid-morning that Dana Scully walked out of her kitchen and around the corner to the office, the darkly stained oak door ajar. Fox Mulder was hunched over his desk, a table fan pointed directly at his face as he skimmed through a newspaper. The sounds of a radio filtered through the air. The radio DJ was listing off the temperature stats for the day.
Scully wiped her hands on the dish towel in her hands and pushed the door open. She leaned against the frame. "Mulder, I need you to work outside."
Mulder sat up and spun his chair around, his bare chest glistening with heavy perspiration. Mulder had never done well in the humidity. He deadpanned Scully with bored eyes. "Scully, you're killing me. Do you feel how hot it is in here? I can't go out there and then come back in to this heat."
"You wanted a house with a yard. And I quote, 'I need a yard to do manly things, Scully, like field work,'" Scully said, her tone mocking and her voice deepening in imitation of Mulder. She rolled her eyes and gathered her long red hair in her hands, piling it on top of her head and securing it with an elastic hair tie. It had been a long three days in the heat. "I'm cleaning your messes in here. The least you could do is mow the grass."
Mulder shrugged. "I'm allergic. I'll be sneezing for a week."
"You're not allergic to grass, Mulder." Her hands rested on her hips and she frowned.
Mulder stood. "Scully, it's hot. I'm dehydrated."
"And I'm a doctor, Mulder. Your health is perfectly safe." Now she folded her arms across her chest and squared her shoulders. He stepped closer with a frown on his face. She stood firmly planted in the doorway and craned her neck back to look at him standing over her. Her eyebrow rose on her forehead, daring him to challenge her request. She poked her finger into his chest. "And I want it all mowed this time. No more crop circles. It's not funny and from the house it just looks like you decided to mow random patches of grass and then call it quits. I'm not impressed with your superb geometry skills." She spun on her heels and marched away from the office.
Mulder made a face to her back before begrudgingly walking to the back door and slipping his bare feet into worn-out Nikes. He grabbed his sunglasses from the kitchen counter and the bottle of water Scully had set out for him. As he stepped out into the morning's rising heat, he could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, back, chest, thighs…and grimaced as it started to tickle his skin as the moisture gathered and trickled down over his skin.
Three hours later, Scully was picking up Mulder's clothes off the bedroom floor when she looked outside. Mulder had run inside nearly twenty minutes before and straight into a cold shower. He was now sprawled out on the floor in front of the television in the living room, trying to find the coldest spot in the house. A breeze filtered through the screens and movement in the yard behind her house caught her attention. She looked outside and groaned when she looked out the window, sighing in defeat. When she turned away from the window, a smile crossed her features uncontrollably.
Outside in the yard, tall grass shaped to form a giant circle swayed in the wind. Inside the circle, grass had been trampled completely flat into the shape of a giant "X."