AN: It hain't mine, ne'er was, ne'er will be…
This is just a 'priming the pump' sort of drabble to keep the juices flowing for my multi-chaptered X-Files fic. (Yes, I'm shamelessly using Alias, bwahahahah) I've never written anything for Alias, and this will likely be all sorts of wrong…but I pictured it in my head and it demanded to be written. So, there ye have it. I'm on'y trying to keep the Muse appeased…
The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
"Just think about it, okay? Promise me that much…? She eyed him hopefully, not really expecting an answer; he knew that, but felt compelled to promise her anything in that one moment. So, he did the smart thing and kept his mouth shut.
Now, days later, he glanced up and locked eyes with her across the large conference table. He knew she was reading his thoughts in his eyes, but he couldn't look away. She tore hers away from him and – impossible woman! – opened her mouth, interrupting the speaker. "Excuse me… I must step out for a moment…" and she shot an unreadable look back over her shoulder; could have been at him…but then again, maybe not.
He decided for her and, after allowing a judicious amount of time to pass, he flicked the button on his phone to give off a little 'chirp'. "I apologize, everyone – I'm expecting this…?" he left it a question that, nevertheless, didn't beg an answer, and rose quickly with the phone to his ear. Once in the hall, past all the unforgiving glass walls, he dropped the pretense and the phone into his pocket and quickened his step.
Loosening his tie before he ever got to the eighth-floor landing, he wiped a careless hand at the sweat slicking his brow; felt it beading and falling in rivulets between his shoulder blades. Good. It cleared his head to take the stairs and six flights of them were so much the better…
Rushing out the fire escape door, remembering – at the last moment possible – to kick the loose brick in the jamb to keep the door from locking them up there, he took cautious steps around the rooftop protrusion and scanned the perimeter quickly. There, about thirty yards to his left, he saw her laid out like a banquet. Her skin, gloriously exposed, tanned and smooth, begged for his touch.
"I knew you couldn't resist," she said suggestively, as he began stripping away his staid professional layers in a slow, playful tease. He bared himself to her readily and when he peeled away the last of the world they tried to escape as much as possible, she let out a little gasp. "Oh, Vaughn…" she attempted to suppress her mirth, but it escaped in bubbling laughter, "those are even more ridiculous than the Tazmanian Devil's you wore last week!"
He squinted at her in the bright sunlight and plopped beside her on the large terry cloth square. "You're one to talk – a Tweety Bird bathing suit? For an adult? Come on, Syd…" He laughed lightly, layers of care sloughing off with the sound, "Pass me the sun block, will you?"
She cocked an eyebrow at him, filling the glance with promise, "Only if you rub some on my back, first…" her eyes glinted, "Sylvester…"
Fin