Archive: Gossamer & Ephemeral only. Otherwise, get the author's (that's me) permission.
Disclaimer: Fox Mulder and Dana Scully belong to Chris Carter, 1013 productions and some other big corporation. They are used without permission.
Author's Notes: Thanks to Alfre Woodward, and her use of the word trifling in the Spike Lee joint "Crooklyn."
Dedication: BeckyD

Mulder sank bank onto his sticky couch, luxuriating in the shift and squeak of the leather cushions as he settled. His curved index finger tugged down and into the well of his tie's knot and he lifted his feet to the coffee table. He put the point of one wingtip to the back edge of the other, pursed his lips and pushed.

"Pop!" onomonapaiead Mulder and his shoe hit the rug with a dull thump. He commenced to wiggle his toes within his gray-blue sock. All five were very happy to be free, so he wiggled them some more.

He pulled off his tie, propped his bent elbow on his thigh and turned his slightly bleary gaze around his living room, all the while wondering how he should dispose of the length of tailored silk spilling over his palm.

Should he perhaps...fold it...and wedge it between the couch cushions? Should he perhaps...fold it, and wedge it under the couch cushions?

Nah, thought Mulder looking down to either side of his lap, I'd have to move my ass, and tossed the tie in the direction of his desk. It landed, half on and half off the top of the slightly moist surface, before plaffing to the ground.

Grunting once, Mulder closed his eyes, rested his head atop the back of the couch and concentrated on becoming one with the moment...the heat...the quiet...the furniture...the creep of barely nascent sweat at the crooks of his arms...the weight of his hands and legs and pelvis heavy on his seat...the push and pull of air through his lungs, gentle bellows, inexorable and subtle like the tide in the ocean eternal...the sweaty cramping leather of the other shoe.

Whining a most masculine and understated whine, Mulder banged his heel against the coffee table edge until he shucked the remaining shoe off and away from him. Like its fellow, it fell to the rug with a dull thud (which was more like a sharp thwap, actually).

Mulder, content to wiggle all ten of his toes, sat there for several long moments, wiggling his toes.

As he sat, he realized that he could sit like that, wiggling and or wriggling his toes, for a very long time.

As a matter of fact, he did sit like that for a very long time-- that is, long neck curved to allow the back of his dark head to rest atop the back of his dark couch, slouched in his dark suit- pants and partially unbuttoned dress shirt (lavender, one of his best colors, but not the best complement to gray-blue socks), long legs bent and supported by feet propped on the coffee table and his eyes half lidded and heavy from heat and other things, warm and relaxed and waiting things.

Mulder inserted the nail of his left middle finger beneath the nail of his left thumbnail thinking that it was a shame that no one was around to appreciate this slouch. He had it on good authority that as slouches went, it was fairly lethal.

Then he thought, maybe he should call Scully.

He hadn't eaten since breakfast, and Scully might still be at the bureau...maybe she could get them some take-out...

Mulder's eyes slid over to the telephone. He gauged the distance between his arm and the end table where his telephone was. In order to gauge the distance better, he squinted. Squinting he realized that he would have to get up to reach the telephone. What if he did get up off his butt and call Scully and she still didn't come over with take-out, what then?

Mulder slouched. Mulder pondered. Mulder pondered and slouched. In the midst of his pondering and slouching he realized that he was caught on the horns of a huge existential crisis-- Was it better to pursue a hope for the future, or a cherished connection with the past?-- which was actually the present seeing since he had yet to sever the connection between the seat of his couch and the seat of his pants-- but then, weren't both options just elements of nostalgia?

"Hm," he grunted, and pouted, ever so fetchingly. This was also a wasted gesture. All the more tragic because the pout accompanied the slouch, and Scully might already be home-- which was in Maryland, never mind where she went to church, when she went to church.

On the other hand, Scully might be on the road, and he was hungry.

Mulder's pout softened, his tongue slipped out and caressed his mouth from lower lip to right corner.

His gaze slid over to the kitchen doorway.

What did he want? What could he have? What could he use to tempt Scully?

He snorted--minutely, because it was very hot, and didn't want to expend too much energy-- and thought that maybe he could lure Scully with food. But what was the point in luring Scully with food, if the object of the lure was to reel her into to his place bearing food?

The top of Mulder's tongue massaged his soft palate, summoning a specter of something sweet and smooth and light on the tongue, subtle and airy and a little bit crumbly-- or was that crunchy?-- he wanted, he wanted... Mulder's forehead rippled and his face assumed a look of concentration, his eyes drifiting out of focus as he reached into the dim recesses of memory...a trifle. He wanted a trifle.

He wanted one now, in a brandy glass-- preferably a clean one-- and he wanted it with all the goodies inside and all the other good stuff sprinkled on top, and he wanted it served on a napkin so he could rest the required bit of garnish on it before taking up his silver plated spoon and sliding through the creamy top and into its licksome innards, and he wanted it shared.

He remembered that trifles, even runny one's made of stale cake and cheap jelly, tasted good.

Cheap jelly and stale cake, he might be able to do. Maybe. But he strongly suspected that he only had butterscotch pudding and a jar of maraschino cherries on hand.

Mulder thought about it: Maraschino cherries and butterscotch pudding. That wasn't too way off, was it? If he had some pound cake lying around he was set. That realization brought him to his feet, albeit slowly. He pushed the lower third of his three middle-most fingers to his cheek, crooked his pinky near his mouth, and cocked his thumb by his ear, took a deep breath and while padding on tingling feet to the kitchen muttered, "Scully, it's me."

Mulder stopped in the doorway, uncrooked his hand, scratched his chest and said, "Scully. It's ME."

Then Mulder shook his head. His thumb and forefinger lit on his chin and he came to a stop. "Hey, Scully?" he said, and followed it up with a grin, "'S'me."

He tripped. Caught himself, and moved to his ancient and blameless refrigerator. It hummed neutrally.

"Hungry, Scully?" Mulder asked of the air in general when he reached the refrigerator. Not receiving any answer, and choosing to attend to the business at hand, he grabbed the door handle and jerked the refrigerator open.

He leaned over, leaving enough space between himself and the door when it swung open that it would become his support. He steeled himself thinking, Maraschino cherries, maraschino cherries... and opened his fridge.

As there was only a bottle of Jolt Cola and a tin of Vienna Sausages on the shelves Mulder didn't have much looking to do...but he stood in front of the open refrigerator thinking, Maraschino cherries, maraschino cherries, anyway. He did this for two reasons only: one, the air coming out of the refrigerator was cool, whicking away the sweat beading his skin, sliding down the opening of his shirt like tiny practical hands and two, he didn't really want to open any of the refrigerator compartments.

It had been that long since he'd cleaned the refrigerator.

Steeling himself Mulder flipped open the dairy compartment and released a small torrent of duck sauce packets. Ignoring them he grabbed out the jar of maraschino ---Woops, jar of maraschino juice and one maraschino cherry stem. At least the juice wasn't green. He held the jar closer to his face and tilted his head and it towards the kitchen light. Well maybe once upon a time it had been green.

Mulder shut the refrigerator door and made to step away from the fridge. The slither of the duck sauce packets against his feet brought him up short. Mulder stared down at the duck sauce packets.

Duck sauce, he realized, was kind of sweet.

And he had some honey. McDonald's brand honey, in the junk drawer, with the packets of McDonalds's relish. If he added the honey to the duck sauce, and he could got a couple of those single serving pound cakes (or was it sponge cakes?) from the minimart down the street-- he had some twinkies, he could gut those, and he might even have time to dig up his sunflower seeds and unshell them . . .

Mulder realized what he was thinking and shuddered.

He dashed to the living room proper and reached for his telephone. It toppled off the phone rest with a clatter. Mulder dove for it. Slamming his hands shut beneath it right before it hit the floor. It bounced off his closed hands. He tried to catch it again. It shot up between his hands like a slick trout and bringged.

He eeped.

Again, It bringged. Mulder slapped it out of the air, onto his couch, and dived after it. Getting hold of the phone after much squeaky squirming he struck the 'talk' button a glancing blow at an odd angle with his pinky.

"Yee--OUCH!" he cried and dropped the phone.

"Mulder?" came Scully's voice, tinny, through the speaker.

Immediately he dropped on his knees beside it. That also hurt, but he refrained from appropriate outburst.

"Hey," he said.

"Mulder?" came Scully's voice, tinny and alarmed from the speaker.

"Yeh-hello," Mulder said around his finger.

"Yeah, hello-- Mulder, is that you?"

"Yeah," he replied, still around his finger.

"It's me," She sounded doubtful.

"Scully," he said reassuringly.

There was a pause. Followed by a silence.

Mulder spoke to break the silence. "You have dinner yet, Scully?"

"No." she clipped. Then she sighed. "I've been stuck in traffic."

"You have?"

"I meant to do go to the grocers but. . ." she sounded listless.

He made a generic noise. "You're stuck in traffic."

Scully sighed again. "Been stuck in traffic."

"Hot day to be stuck in traffic."

"Yeah." She sighed again. He could hear her breath blanket the mouth piece of her telephone.

"Scully, you far from my place?"

"No, actually. Not at all."

He took a deep breath. "Whyn't you come over for dinner?"

"Excuse me?"

"Instead of heading out all the way to your place, come eat here?"

"Come over for dinner?"

"Yeah, get off at the exit and we'll have dinner, here."

"In Alexandria? That's a great offer, Mulder. But I'm not really in the mood for dinner."

"You're not?"

"No, Mulder, I'm not." she sounded upset.

"You okay, Scully?"

"No, I've spilled --"

"You haven't even passed my exit, come over, we could do something sweet."

"Something sweet?" she echoed.

"Like uh," he shuddered thinking of butterscotch pudding maraschino/ honey/duck sauce sauce, shelled sunflower seed trifles, "I'll figure something out. But if you don't, it's . . ."

He couldn't even hear Scully's eyebrows, her end of the connection was so quiet. "I'll see you tommorow," Mulder said.

"Wait," Scully said and paused. "I did get some ice-cream. And it's melting all over my upholstery. How 'bout I bring that over?"

"Bring it over." Great, now he was echoing.

Later, showered, and shampooed, only to find that his only clean towel was covered with a strange smell that was not only odious but resistant up to two and a half washes, Mulder welcomed home a wilted Scully.

She leaned back a little, most likely taken aback by his showered and shampooed and unusual bareness.

"I got sticky," he replied. "It's hot."

"Unh-hunh."

What he used to dry himself was clean. He'd ripped his distressed-red, 100 natural fiber t- shirt free of the dry-cleaner's plastic. But it had been his only clean shirt. Which left him his basketball tank, which was clean, and . . . appropriate considering the weather, and other warm and waiting things.

Scully, though, Scully was still in her suit.

"Mulder," said Scully, over her shoulder, "there really isn't any need,"

"It's my pleasure," Mulder replied, his hand still closed around her arm as he ushered her to the place of honor. "Really, just have a seat, and I'll --- " he looked around, "be right back."

Scully sat at table. She heard Mulder open the freezer door. She heard Mulder drop something on the kitchen floor. Her eyebrow rose. She folded her hands in her lap and studied the 'table'.

There were two settings. Her's, a nice plate, a heavy spoon, tarnished looking enough to be silver, lay atop a Hooter's napkin.

His, a matching plate, chipped, red enamael and gold trimmed also bearing a paper napkin, a Long John Silver's napkin, fancy folded but listing to one side. The vase belonged to Mulder and was, as far as Scully could tell, a rather large erlenmeyer flask. The flower that rested within it, she'd picked up at the grocery store.

A toaster was between them, the extension cord connecting it to the wall draped over Mulder's empty chair. It was plugged in, and radiating heat. Mulder had left her with strict instructions not to look into it to see what was toasting. "Y'know, Scully," Mulder said entering, he was carrying her icecream, and the bag of walnuts she'd bought, and a dish of what looked liked sliced bananas and a wet brown plastic bottle, "It's really lucky you'd done all that grocery shopping."

Scully made a noncommital noise in non-reply.

"What was that, Scully?"

"Traffic was at a crawl. It made sense to pick up some things at the supermarket if I was going to spend that much time in walking distance of it."

Sorry about her inconvenience, Mulder wasn't sorry wasn't there.

"And what are we having?" Scully asked.

"Hold your horses." He sat, grinning, "It's coming." He took her plate and his in his hands and held them, waiting.

The toaster oven went off. Two pop tarts came flying out of the sprung toaster.

Mulder caught the poptarts in the plates. He scooped out her icecream, cookies and cream, plopped a scoop atop a poptart for her, and a scoop atop a poptart for him, looked at her, slightly wilted in her blouse and pasted within her jacket and dropped another scoop of icecream on her plate.

"Mulder, this is.."

"Ah-ah! Le piece de resistance," and he held up the moist brown bottle between his hands. Scully did her eyebrow thing.

Mulder did it back. He flipped the lid, upended it over Scully's icecream and squeezed out a brown, chocolately, rich looking stream, which promptly solidified on the ice cream.

"Oh my god," Scully said, not unlike the first time she thought she saw a little gray man."Magic shell."

"Here, Scully," Mulder replied. "This one's for you." And winked.

End