Author: Tracy
Category: DRR, humour
Rating: PG
Summary: "You broke it," he said with surprise.
"It was an accident," she protested. "I didn't mean to."
Archive: yes to XFMU
Notes: Thanks go to Traci, who challenged me to write this story – although it was supposed to be for another fandom, I'm sure she'll be happy with this result. g
XxX
John took a step back and assessed the damage. It wasn't so bad, he told himself. Not if you looked at it at an angle with your eyes half closed. In the dark. From across the other side of the room. He shook his head, let out a slow whistle and then turned to face the woman beside him.
"I can't believe you did that."
"Me either," she said, obviously as shocked as he was.
"It's all banged up."
Monica nodded and ran her hand over the dent. "It's not that bad though, is it?"
He took a step closer and tried to open a drawer. It refused to budge. "You broke it," he said with surprise.
"It was an accident," she protested. "I didn't mean to."
John snorted and tried another drawer. "Yeah, an accident in the on purpose, deliberate, premeditated kind of way," he said, shaking the cabinet after the second drawer came out about two inches and then stopped cold.
"Okay," she conceded. "So the action was deliberate. But the result was an accident, and you know that."
"Semantics, Mon. But what about the premeditation? You forgetting about that?"
"That was . . . you know as well as I do that I was provoked."
"That's beside the point. You defaced FBI property. Actually, you more than defaced it. You broke it. You killed it dead. You –"
"John, you're not helping. We need to fix this."
"Sorry," he said, but she could tell that he wasn't. He yanked at the drawer again. "I don't think we can fix it. I think we're gonna need a new one."
"No, no we can fix it. We can buff it out or something."
"Mon, it ain't gonna work. It's completely busted." He paused, grinned, and then decided to chance it. "That's some upper body strength ya got there."
She stared at him for a moment and then laughed; a warm, tinkling sound that filled the basement and made his own chest rumble in amusement. "You did dare me," she reminded him.
Oh yeah. He had too. He'd completely forgotten about that. "So what are you saying here?"
"Nothing," she said sweetly. "Only that if I'm going down for this, then you are too."
He grinned as her threat hung in the air. Now that he knew better than to call her bluff he figured that he'd better step up and take a bit of responsibility. "So, how do you think we should explain this when we requisition a new one?"
"Couldn't we just . . ."
"What?"
"Leave it for a few days and then say that it's a remanent from Mulder's tenure?"
John grinned. "You want us to lie to the requisitions officer?"
"It's not as if we know her personally," she dangled. "And for all we know Mulder beat it with the yellow pages on a daily basis. He could have weakened the structure. Technically, this might not be our fault at all."
"That's true," he mused. "He probably even kicked it a few times. You can't tell me that Scully didn't frustrate the hell out of him way back when."
Monica nodded and smoothed her shirt. "Exactly. And besides, we really don't want anyone knowing the real reason, do we?"
"That's also true."
She reached out and pulled him in for a long, lingering kiss. "And it's partly your fault."
"I guess," he conceded, wrapping his arms around her and groaning as she licked his neck.
"So unless you want to put the real reason on the requisition form . . ."
He could just see it. Reason for the replacement of office furniture: I dared my partner to slam me against the filing cabinet and fuck my brains out, so she did.
Monica kissed him again. "Maybe we could sell it as collateral damage in a team building exercise?" she offered.
He exhaled slowly and pushed her onto the desk. The strong, sturdy desk, that didn't look like it was going to collapse anytime soon. "Yeah, that'll fly."
End.