Summary: He, or this case, she who dines with the devil should have a long spoon. Jim Keats had taken this rather literally. Alex/Jim, (sort of) and pure, unadulterated crack-fic.

A/N: I mentioned to a friend that Alex/Jim would be nice, long before it turned out he was, you know, evil incarnate. She pointed this out to me later, and dared me to write some Devil!Jim/Alex, with the prompt of the old saying, 'He who dines with the devil needs a long spoon', although I ended up including more 'Devil' sayings. I only hope it's as much fun to read as it was to write.

Disclaimer: Ashes to Ashes and characters are the property of Ashley Pharaoh and Matthew Graham, no copyright infringement intended, and no money is being made.

Alex Drake was getting used to finding strange things on her desk. It seemed to be the main dumping ground for odd messages, cryptic clues and anything remotely unusual or plot furthering. But this was new. Someone had decided to leave her a spoon. It was silver, with a long handle, and perfectly inoffensive, it just shouldn't have been on her desk.

She picked it up, and turned it over. 'Now who the devil could have left-'

'Hello, Alex.'

Alex looked up to see Jim Keats perching on the edge of her desk, apparently having appeared from nowhere. He was smiling broadly, which was never a good sign.

'Oh, hello, sir.' She held up the spoon for his inspection. 'You... don't know anything about this, do you?'

'Oh, yes. That's one of mine.'

'One of yours?' Alex was getting the feeling it was going to be one of those days- the sort she had every day. 'So what's it doing on my desk?'

'Well...' For the incarnation of ultimate evil, it was amazing how sheepish Jim could look. 'I was, ahem, wondering if you might like to have dinner with me.'

'And so you've given me a spoon, because-'

'I thought you might need it. You know what they say- he, or in this case, she who dines with the-'

'Ah, so this is a 'chat-up line', or rather, spoon,' Alex said, adding in some air-quotes for emphasis. 'I'm sorry, you should have made yourself a bit clearer, sir.'

Jim pulled his glasses off and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. 'Well, like they say-'

''They' do say an awful lot, don't they?' agreed Alex.

'I might get all the best tunes, but they never say anything about the best chat-up lines.' He moved a little closer to her, shifting along the desk edge.

'Oh well, seems 'they' got something right.' Alex shuffled some paper work in a business-like fashion and tried to ignore him.

'But it's true, I do get all the best tunes.' Jim was now leaning in very close. 'I buy compilation tapes.'

His hand crept over hers, and their eyes met. 'We could listen to some.'

Alex paused for a long moment. Then she smiled her most charming smile, extricated her hand from underneath his, and patted his cheek.

'Oh, Jim. The day I agree to a dinner date with you is the day you can dig out your ice skates and get to work that way.'

Fin.