"What the hell was I thinking?" repeated Scully, not even glancing over her shoulder. "You're the one who waltzed into our boss's office with no pantyhose! Do you have any idea how unprofessional that is? It will take me weeks to overcome this."
"The look on Skinner's face was unprofessional, I'll grant you that," acquiesced Mulder with a smirk.
"He always checks me out," snapped Scully irritably. "He's just never been given such an eyeful before today, Mulder. What the hell did you do with the pantyhose I gave you anyway?" She reached the door to their office and irritably began fumbling with her keyring to find the appropriate key.
"I couldn't put them on, Scully," Mulder growled testily. "They always snagged on your toenails. And those that actually made it over the feet were ripped to shreds by these talons you call fingernails."
"You destroyed all my nylons?" She started at him, aghast, the keys forgotten in her hand.
Mulder snatched the keys from her and unlocked the door. "I'll reimburse you, Scully," he said, entering the office and settling down at his desk.
Scully watched him for a moment. "Mulder?" she finally prompted.
He had already opened a bag of sunflower seeds. "What?" he mumbled around a mouthful.
"You're just going to... sit there?"
"As opposed to...?" Mulder returned. "If you haven't noticed, I'm not so good at the walking thing, Scully. I figured sitting was more┘"
"What about fixing this?" Scully demanded in a near shout.
Mulder balked. "I don't know how to fix it," he said somewhat meekly.
"Don't you have a theory or something?" Scully's volume was increasing to dangerous levels. Mulder feared that his vocal cords, so long accustomed to his habitual monotone, might crack from the strain.
"I always have theories, Scully," he said somewhat testily, though his attention was diverted by his skirt. It appeared that the garment had magically twisted itself about his hips such that the slit which had originally been in the back (though he had actually put it in the front at first before Scully had angrily straightened him out and told him in clear terms not to be stupid... he had actually enjoyed the slit immensely in the front... no doubt the bullpen would have similarly appreciated it) was now splayed wide over his thigh. As much as he enjoyed the sight, he struggled to fix it, mindful of Scully's wrathful glare.
"But you're the one" tug "who always" tug, squirm, tug "shoots my theories down!" He finally gave up on trying to fix the damn skirt in the chair and stood up, hiking up his skirt and attempting to fix it, obviously unaware that Scully got a full view of his rather lacy black panties.
"For godsakes!" Scully roared in horror, lunging over the desk toward him to right the damage.
From the doorway - the open doorway, Scully noted in dismay - a throat was cleared delicately.
Scully turned her head slightly, aware that not only was the six-plus feet of her body splayed across the desk but that one hand was on Mulder's waist and the other had somehow ended up under his skirt. Mulder was standing up, his legs somewhat indecently spread, and the hem of his skirt around his waist.
The visitor was an office courier, a look of abject horror on her face as she clutched an interdepartmental package to her breast and beheld the incriminating scene before her.
"I'll just leave the package on the..." Her eyes darted nervously toward the desk, its supplies having been scattered haphazardly across its surface during Scully's lunge. "The um... floor! The floor. I'll leave the package for you on the whore... I mean floor!" She dropped the package and fled, slamming the door behind her.
"What the hell does she mean, whore?" Mulder demanded, insulted, skirt hiked up above his spread legs.
"I can't deal with this," Scully muttered, dropping her head to the desk and not bothering to move from her sprawled out position.
"You were the one with your hands up my skirt," offered Mulder.
Scully didn't even raise her head from the desk. "Go get coffee, Mulder... just go get some coffee. You can't mess that up, right?"
"I never mess things up, Scully," Mulder said, a little hurt, as he righted his clothing.
"I need some coffee," Scully mumbled. "And don't forget Sweet 'n' Low."
"Maybe you could straighten up the desk while I'm gone," suggested Mulder as he bounced out the door.
Scully didn't move for a long moment. The pain of the edge of the desk digging into her thigh was almost... therapeutic. Maybe if she stayed there long enough, Mulder would have a fat bruise there when they regained their rightful bodies.
If they did.
Oh God...
Without moving her head, Scully floundered with her left hand around the desktop, feeling for the phone. When she finally located it, she halfheartedly punched in a memorized number, hoping she was hitting the right buttons but not really caring if she wasn't, and fumbled the receiver up to her ear.
"Lone Gunmen."
"Turn off the tape and tell me what you know," ordered Scully.
"What?"
"I said to turn off the tape," she repeated.
"I can't hear a damn word you're saying, Mulder. Er... Scully?"
Oh. Shit. The receiver was upside down. For godsakes.
"Is this better?" Scully mumbled. Since her head was resting on her right ear, she balanced the receiver on her left ear and dangled it over her face in the general direction of her mouth.
"Yeah, yeah," said Frohike.
"Information, Frohike, I need information."
Frohike paused. "Ehhh... Information on what?"
"What the hell do you mean on what?" Scully roared into the receiver... which promptly sent the hapless phone flying from its precarious position on her head to the floor with a loud clatter. "Son of a bitch," she muttered, pulling the phone back up by the cord.
"┘can't reach our informant."
"So... what?" Dread settled into the pit of Scully's stomach.
Frohike paused. "It means that our resources have dried up, Scully. We have nothing to offer you guys. We're... we're sorry."
Scully absorbed that for a moment, trying desperately not to lose her cool. "I... I make a horrible man, Frohike," she confessed finally in a near whisper.
"Maybe you're just used to having been an extraordinary woman," offered Frohike in all seriousness.
Had the situation been different, Scully would surely have noted the sweet, frank simplicity in the Gunman's voice. As it was, she completely ignored it. "Frohike... I... I walk like a girl."
"Scully┘"
"I - I can't put my erection underneath my waistband without everyone knowing what I'm doing."
"Look, Scully┘"
"I... I peed with my pants down."
Pause.
"Frohike, I'm... I'm just no good at this. How am I going to spend the rest of my life ?"
"Wait, Scully... Did you say that you peed with your pants down? Like all the way down?"
"What?"
"Like around your ankles?"
Click
Scully softly thudded her head against the desktop. It was sort of relaxing in a strange, masochistic kind of way.
Thud, thud
She was going to spend the rest of her life as Spooky Mulder.
┘ thud┘
Spooky Mulder... the undeniable king of the paranormal, paranoia, and porn.
┘ thud┘
She was going to have to learn proper urinal etiquette...
┘ thud┘
How to belch the "Star-Spangled Banner"...
┘ thud┘
How to (gulp) masturbate...
"Fox? Are you okay?"
How to... oh Jesus, how to be a straight man.
┘ CRASH! ┘
"Fox!"
Scully jumped to her feet, brushing off the various bits of debris which her suit had acquired during her somewhat undignified fall from the desktop to the floor. And then her eyes fell on... her.
"Agent Fowley," she gasped.
The dark-haired woman smiled faintly, an eyebrow quirked. "Why the uncharacteristic formality, Agent Mulder?" She took a step towards Scully.
Scully backed up a step, bumping into the desk and barely resisting the urge to clamber atop it just to get farther away. "I, uh... What - what can I do for you, um, Diana?" she stammered.
"Let's play a hypothetical game, Fox."
"Um, well, I was just about to┘" Scully began, but Fowley overrode her quickly and efficiently.
"Suppose, hypothetically, a woman asks her old friend and partner to come to her place for dinner. Say, hypothetically, she makes chicken cordon bleu which she knows happens to be her old friend's favorite dish."
Chicken cordon bleu... Mulder's favorite food is chicken cordon bleu. Why the hell didn't Scully know that? Well, because all they ever are together was fast food, so really, she had no way of knowing that and she doubted that Fowley knew that Mulder dreamed about quarter pounders with salsa... wait, what the hell? Mulder was going over to Diana Fowley's house for dinner?
Fowley sat down in a nearby chair and folded her hands neatly in her lap. No doubt a trick designed to give the appearance of nonchalance that she had learned from Mulder. "And suppose, just for the sake of argument Fox, that the old friend never shows up. This hypothetical individual has a history of various ditches, quite a few of which are emotional rather than professional, so the woman of course can see what has happened. Meanwhile, her hypothetical refrigerator was filled with hypothetical chicken cordon bleu for an entire hypothetical week (until she finally took the remnants to a hypothetical homeless shelter), as she waited to see if her old friend would have the decency to call her and explain." She looked at Scully significantly.
Mulder stood her up... Mulder stood her up... Mulder stood her up...
Scully forced her mind from that moot point. The homeless shelters in the area generally accepted non-canned foods only on weekends... and if the chicken had resided in Fowley's freezer for a week, then... uh... so Mulder had made dinner plans with Diana Fowley for the weekend before last. And he had stood her up.
Mulder stood her up...
If Scully could remember correctly, she had gone shopping for a new living room set on Saturday and had dragged a somewhat bored but in no way reluctant Mulder along with her in the hopes that he would help her carry and situate her purchases. He had, not surprisingly, been little help in finding an aesthetic couch; he was unforgivably attached to leather upholstery. But he had been with her all day and he had crashed on the new sofa (and she had bought a sofa-bed just for that purpose, though Mulder hadn't even bothered to open it up before going to sleep) that night, instead of driving back to his place.
On Sunday, he had helped her arrange her new furniture and dispose of the old set, after which he had crashed once more on the new sofa (which he had by then opened up to the bed... only Mulder would be so odd), this time armed with both a remote control and a "Planet of the Apes" marathon. In the middle of Charlton Heston's grappling with the damn, filthy apes, Scully had asked him if he had had any plans and he had given pause for a moment, but then had readily replied that since Nova was a babe - a silent babe who didn't constantly beleaguer Taylor with scientific discourse as to the extraordinary unlikelihood of man being replaced by apes and such - and that Cornelius wasn't so bad himself, the apes certainly had priority over anything else planned. He had then changed the subject quickly with a suggestion of popcorn.
Mulder stood Fowley up... to watch "Planet of the Apes" with Scully...
Scully envisioned all the wonderful things she could tell Fowley, all the wonderfully catty conversations they could have with the other woman thinking all the while that she was talking to Mulder:
⌠Well, to be honest, Diana, I spent an impromptu weekend with Scully and I didn't feel like ruining it by going over to your house.■ Ooo, that was good... she'd have to remember that one.
Or... ⌠Well, Diana, I was over at Scully's house for the whole weekend.■ Suspiciously: ⌠The whole weekend?■ Smirk: ⌠The WHOLE weekend.■ ⌠Why didn't you call, Fox?■ ⌠I just didn't have the energy to get out of her new sofa-bed and go to the phone. You see, my cell phone had been discarded with my jacket...■
Or even: ⌠Well, you see, Diana, when I accepted your invitation, I was a shattered man, a lone and broken man who wholly believe that his delusions of the paranormal had vastly affected his ability to maintain healthy, long-term relationships. This was, incidentally, the condition in which you left me following your departure from the X-Files and your recruitment by the so- called Black-Lunged Son of a Bitch. But I digress. I spent the weekend with Scully, doing normal things like picking out furniture and envisioning her naked body splayed out upon the various cushions as I normally do (well, without the cushions part... sometimes it's a desk, sometimes it's the backseat of a Taurus, sometimes it's even a Delta Airlines flotation device, depending on how short her skirt is and how long it's been since I last had a nice, long, healthy fantasy about her) and I realized that I am not only perfectly capable of maintaining healthy long- term relationships, but that I have cultivated the single most significant relationship of my life with Scully and that it has weathered mutants, global conspiracies, and even your hairdo.■
Okay, that last one was a little much. Except the part about the hairdo. And maybe if God was smiling down at her, the flotation device wasn't too far off either.
But in the meantime, what delectably evil thing to tell Diana?
"Fox?"
Scully shook herself and opened her mouth to zing her, her, Diana Fowley. Finally. The wholly undeserving woman who had not only undermined Mulder's trust in Scully, but had done so without meriting his trust herself.
And then just as the words were about the come out of her mouth, Fowley stepped forward, genuine concern on her face. "Fox, are you okay?" she asked.
And Scully deflated. Completely.
She could justify deliberate cruelty to Fowley to herself... she could certainly swing the Gunmen to believe her justifications as they had believed her when she questioned the woman's loyalties. But Mulder would never forgive her.
And besides, she knew that Mulder had stood up a near-gourmet dinner at Diana Fowley's house just to spend a normal evening with her watching cult flicks. So there.
She sighed. "I'm fine, Diana," she said. "Look, I'm really sorry about dinner. I won't give you any excuses."
Fowley looked at her askance. "No excuses?"
Scully backpedaled fast. "Do I normally give you excuses?" she asked quickly, adding hastily, "Well, you see, I was out jogging and I totally lost track of┘"
"It's okay," said Fowley with a tolerant smile, putting a finger on Scully's lips to shush her.
Uh oh, thought Scully, resisting the urge to dive under the desk. As a woman, she knew what was going to happen next: the post-finger-on-the-lips kiss. The only unclear thing was what she should do to tactfully break the moment before Fowley got too close and Scully gave in to the urge to vomit. Not that it would be such a bad idea to vomit directly into Fowley's mouth, thought Scully evilly...
But she had Mulder to think about.
She grabbed Fowley's shoulders, moved her to a respectful distance, leaned back against the desk and asked conversationally, "Have you seen Scully?"
Fowley blanched, staring at Scully as if she had sprouted another head. "What┘?" Then she apparently thought better of it and shook her head. "Last I saw, she was in the coffee room." She turned to leave, then added, "Has she been feeling all right?"
Oh, shit. "What? What is she... doing?"
Fowley shrugged. "It looked like she having uncharacteristic amounts of 'fun' with a few bullpen agents."
"Fun?" roared Scully.
Fowley flinched.
"Goddammit all the hell, I leave him alone for five minutes with a simple request for coffee and he has to go and single-handedly destroy whatever nuances of professionalism I maintained after that pantyhose incident with Skinner," Scully babbled to herself under her breath, haphazardly sifting through the contents of the desk trying to find the office keys.
"Uhhh... Fox?"
Scully didn't even bother responding. She slammed the office door shut, locked it with a flick of her wrist, and stalked down the corridor to the elevator in hopes of preventing disaster.
Diana watched with an open mouth. Was it her imagination, or was Mulder getting weirder?
She flipped open her cell phone and dialed a memorized number. "Sir? You asked me to find out if something is more odd than usual about Agents Mulder and Scully? You won't believe this..."