Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: House rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole. (Dean Winchester-Supernatural) Vol4.6.2011 on scifi_muses on LiveJournal
Setting: Season Six Episode: Dreamland

AN: The lyrics aren't mine, but I could resist a tribute.

It was a long, long drive from Las Vegas.

"The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin', that's what I said…"

Scully's right eyeball throbbed.

"The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand, or so I have read…"

Beside her in the passengers seat, Fletcher in his guise as Mulder, attempted to do some sort of rock, bump, head bang thing, warbling along with the inane lyrics.

"My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo, I love to sink her with my pink torpedo….Big bottom…Big bottom, talk about bum cakes, my gal's got 'em…"

Scully's hands had never moved faster as she snapped off the stereo so fast, the car was left only with Fletcher's keening in Mulder's nasal voice.

"Hey," he protested loudly, reaching for the stereo again before she slapped his hand away. He yelped and nursed his stinging fingers.

"You are driving, so shotgun gets the stereo!"

"I am driving, and you are a passenger, and speaking of guns…"

Fletcher pouted. "Come on, Dana, it's the Tap, what's not to like about them?"

Scully's nail ticked against the steering wheel.

"You know, Spinal Tap, only one of the greatest bands of all time!"

"Weren't they fictional," she pointed out darkly, somehow unsurprised that Morris Fletcher would find a make believe band one so completely amazing.

"Well, yeah…but you have to admit they hold candle right up there with the Beatles and Led Zepplin."

"With openly, misygonist songs that make fun of women's body image issues?"

"Well, it's supposed to be ironic," Fletcher tried to rationalize. "You know, making fun of the songs in the industry that, you know, are mysognistic and make fun of women's body image issues."

"And you didn't like songs like that when you were younger?"

"Okay, so maybe a few…hey! Who says I am old enough to remember that period in rock and roll history!"

"I looked up your file, Fletcher." She knew he was surprised at that, and frankly she was pleased that he was stunned. "I have people who know people too, even super-secretive agents like you."

"And why would you look me up?"

"To see just what kind of scum I'm dealing with," she retorted. "And I have to admit I was vaguely disappointed that all we turned up on you was your penchant for mid-priced call girls."

"Hey," he howled in outrage, "no one knows about that."

"Really, because I'm fairly certain it's a well known secret at work."

Fletcher scowled. "Look, alright, I'm no saint. But you've see my life, a man needs to find some ways to…escape from time to time."

"I'm not here to pass judgment on you, Mr. Fletcher, I am simply here trying to get my partner back.

"Your partner…your precious Mulder," Fletcher snorted through Mulder's aquiline nose. "Is he really so much better than me you'd send me back into that hell hole just to get him?"

Her delicately upturned eyebrow spoke volumes, and clearly not ones he liked hearing.

"Okay, so perhaps our personalities don't mesh. But really, Dana, why are you wasting your time hanging around with Mulder for? I mean, you are a doctor, you could be…saving lives or something."

The fact that he hit on a longstanding argument between herself and Mulder did nothing to cool her irritation with him. "I'm here because I believe in Mulder's work."

"His work? What work is that? So far as I can tell, he got kicked on kiddy duty for sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong. And you keep getting drug along with him. Tell me, is it fun having a promising career go down the tubes, all for the sake of being right."

Scully did not like where this conversation was going at all. "Do you really think that is all that Mulder does?"

"Honey, we've been chasing him out of our work for years. He's like that pesky little puppy you can't keep out of your yard, he keeps digging up holes, hoping to find a bone, and leaves nothing but a mess." Fletcher sniffed. "And best as I can tell you're the one who keeps getting sent in there to clean up the mess. Now, tell me, is that how you envisioned your FBI career when you got in here?"

No, she grudgingly admitted to herself, it wasn't how she envisioned her career at all. She had seen herself as being field agent working in Violent Crimes, or some other field where her pathological skills would come in handy. She hadn't expected to chase aliens or Bigfoot, to be drug before OPR on multiple occasions, to have to explain and justify her work to hostile people. She hadn't expected to be working grunt work at this point in her career.

"You know I'm right," Fletcher needled. "You know I am. Mulder brings you down, Dana. He keeps running off, doing half-cocked things, and you get hit in the spray. Just think, though, if he weren't there for you to constantly have to baby-sit? You could pick up the pieces of your career! You can recover from this Kersh thing, I could see to that. And maybe since I'm his new golden boy, I can put a good word in for you too. You can come back from this, I can see to it."

Was he out of what little mind he had? "You want me to betray Mulder, the man who has literally gone to the ends of the earth to save me, to keep you in a nice cushy seat, while I go on to have the glittering career I always should have had?"

"Yeah," Fletcher replied, as if this made perfect sense.

Well it earned one new reaction out of her…laughter. Large, loud peels of laughter, giggling and chortling in the car as she tried to glance at Fletcher in Mulder's body, and unable to do so fell into laughter once again.

"I don't get it, what's so funny?"

"You," she snorted, trying desperetly to keep the car straight on the road while blinking tears out of her eyes. "You seriously think I would do something like that?"

"I would figure a woman as intelligent as you are…"

"Oh, it has nothing to do with intelligence, Fletcher, it has everything to do with character, of which you have very little." She coughed and spluttered, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand, the late, desert sunshine blurring her vision as she did so. "Oh dear lord, Fletcher. Have you ever had a single, non-self-serving, decent thought in your whole, misbegotten life?"

"Self-serving, I was offering to help you!"

"Why, so I could side with you and not go and fetch Mulder from whatever dungeon you conveniently had him shoved in? So I could allow you to steal another man's life wholesale, so you can tarnish the good work he's done, and destroy what was most important to him?" Anger returned, as she calmed down from her hysterics. "I saw you got rid of the pictures of Samantha on his desk. Where are they?"

"Samantha?" He frowned, clearly not following.

"The little girl."

"Oh, those! I didn't throw them away, if that's what you are implying. I stuck them in a drawer, they are safe." He looked disgruntled she would imply otherwise. "I know all about her, and about his family too. Gees, did they really name him Fox on purpose?"

"It's a family name." Or so Teena Mulder had told her once.

"Look, I get it, I'm not a total cold-hearted bastard. The kid sister, she was cute. And that would be a nightmare, to have your kid sister taken while you were in charge. I've got two kids, and as much as the little bastards hate me, I know how I'd feel if someone came in and took one of them." Surprisingly to Scully, something softened in Fletcher, the cynical edge blunted for just a moment. "But I'd leave the work of finding them to the professionals. And I wouldn't carry this out for years, blaming aliens, or conspiracies, or whatever other crazy thing that was out there, just to avoid the hard truth."

"You think his sister is dead? Do you know for a fact she is?"

"No," Fletcher snapped, frowning out the front window. "I can't say anything like that ever came across our desk. All we deal with is weapons, aircraft, new toys for bored generals somewhere in Washington looking for something to blow up. All I know is that if Mulder's right in this, it's been years. Let her go and go live a life. I mean, Jesus, you saw his place before I got in there. He didn't even sleep in a bed! And do you know the last time he had any intimate knowledge of a woman was?"

She did, but it was none of his business. "Mulder is happy with his life as it is." At least she assumed he was, he never seemed to indicate otherwise.

"Is he really? Is that why he watches more porn in a night than I get to see in a year, and that's if I get lucky enough to have a night at home alone without Joanne and the kids, and there's no game on TV."

"So you are prepared to judge a man based on his personal matierals and the state of his apartment?"

"I'm just saying, he's in a dead end job he hates so much he breaks the rules to do what he really wants. He works everyday with a beautiful woman who as far as I can tell he's never once tried to make the moves on. And he lives in an apartment that makes my college dorm room look like a luxury palace. I just call them as I seem them, sister." Fletcher obviously felt like that settled the score.

"Maybe he's never tried to make a move on me because he has a thing called respect, for himself and the women he's with. I know that is a foreign concept to you, considering your display with every female who crossed your path this week."

"Come on, you can't say you didn't like it," Fletcher retorted.

"Gun, remember what I said about it."

"What, really…that again?"

"Fletcher, perhaps it is strange to you, but women like to be treated like human beings. They like being treated as intelligent creatures who have minds and brains, who can work and operate independtly of a man. You never know, if you caught on to that, you might just have a better relationship with your own wife, who I'm sure is likely pissed off at you for treating her like less than nothing for years."

He looked taken aback by that statement. "Really?" Had the thought really never occurred to him?

"You really are hopeless, aren't you?

"Look, I know women are smart?"

"Do you?" Judging from the way his poor wife carried on the other day, she somehow doubted that. "If I hadn't told you that I have a medical degree, would you have assumed I was a doctor by training?"

"Yeah,' he replied perhaps a triffle too quickly.

"Really?"

"Okay, perhaps not, but that doesn't mean I assumed you were stupid."

"You assumed I was stupid enough not to figure out the truth about you."

Scully had him there. "Alright, I did, but who would believe those type of things anyway, if they are sane and rational." He tried to shoot her a winning smile. It didn't work."

"You asked me why I stuck around with Mulder?" She smiled as she thought of that first day in his office so long ago now. "Because Mulder never assumed that I was stupid, in fact he embraced that I wasn't. He challenged me first off, he pushed me intellectually and made me see things that my strict scientific training never allowed me to even consider. Mulder never assumed that because I was a woman that I couldn't keep up with him, he never assumed that I somehow slept my way to the top, or that I was there to try and seduce him away from his work. He saw me as his partner and as his friend. And whenever I was in trouble, Mulder was the one there pulling me out of it, making sure I got home alive to my family. He was the one who held my hand when I lay close to death at the hospital, and by hook and by crook found me when I was taken. Mulder has drug me down? If anything, he's the reason I'm still sitting here alive. And no matter what happens, no matter how much it would be better for me to dump him and walk away…I can't, and I won't."

There was a long silence following her words, somewhat thoughtful, before Fletcher ruined it by saying something.

"You're in love with him, aren't you?"

Scully closed her eyes and prayed for patience. "I do care for Mulder deeply. But whatever that is, it isn't any of your business."

"You are, you are totally in love with him! Oh this is brilliant!" Fletcher was excited beyond reason. "Oh, don't worry, you're secrets safe with me, but, you know I could help you here, between you and me. You know, a little quid pro quo, I help you with Mulder, you help me."

"Help you with what, exactly?" If he meant keeping Mulder's body, he had another thing coming.

"No, I don't know…maybe I could just disappear. The FBI could do that, right?"

"So you can escape the responsibilities you have to your wife and two precious children?" He really was disgusting.

"The insurance will take care of them just fine, just please…I don't want to have to go back." He was pleading now, hands folded in front of him. He really was a pathetic sort of creature, wasn't he? And what in the hell did he think he could manage with Mulder?

"I'm sorry, Fletcher, we all have crosses we have to carry. I think it's about time you picked yours up for once."