CHAPTER FIVE A:

#318
Four Queens Hotel
Las Vegas
March 12, 1985
Tuesday

Mulder's whole bitching hotel room was in fucking chaos.

He wasn't supposed to get up from bed, so everyone present strapped him onto the mattress and threatened to bonk him again on the head if he moved. Naturally, he complied, although quite reluctantly. He knew from the very start that it was a trick.

At his right side, Scully was forcing him to down some green tablets to subside the mini pain that was scratching in on his skull. Unfortunately, he found out a while ago that it contained a sedative that would put him to sleep. He could not really sleep through business right now. He came here to Vegas with one goal in mind: make Scully dance. His decision was already made: he would make her dance in the Folies Bergere, the oldest and most prestigious show in Las Vegas today. One month was his only time allotment for this agenda. If he wanted to make that deadline, he was not going to take green sleepy midget pills.

On his left side was a ragged John, who felt quite guilty about what happened (even if Mulder repeatedly assured him over and over and over again that it did no harm), decided to wait hand and foot on his friend. At that moment, John was offering him everything on the hotel's room service menu. If Monica chose that exact moment to wake up from her slumber from the adjacent room, Mulder would definitely go crazy.

Scully shook a fist in front of his face. "If you don't take these fucking pills, Mulder, I'll personally make sure that you do drink them!"

"What's so important about me drinking those pills?!" He wanted to continue with, "Is that poisonous? I know how much you want to cut my throat. Is that your lame way out?" But the threat in Scully's raging blue eyes kept his itchy mouth shut. Keeping his mouth shut had more than that advantage: At least he would not have to down those sedatives.

Scully answered, unlocking the fist and glaring at John, who was reading the description for 'Oyster soaked cabbages with fried beef.'

"BECAUSE THE DOCTOR ASKED ME TO TAKE CARE OF YOU! I'M NOT GOING TO LET A LAZY CHOCOHOLIC MAN GET IN MY WAY! WHEN I SAY I'M GOING TO DO SOMETHING, I'M GOING TO BLOODY DO IT!" she shouted those words out with enough treble to silence a whole gymnasium of noisy High School students. John trapped his tongue shut, eyes wide at them both.

Mulder's eyes also grew out of proportion as he studied the heaving woman before him. Scully huffed the breath she was holding out of her system and offered him the pills once again on her paper- white palms. "Now, will you kindly please take these pills?" Every word was punctuated with false sweetness. Mulder glimpsed at John, then back at Scully and the pills.

"Chocoholic?" he squeaked, making Scully sigh in frustration, and John eagerly returned to his bullshit menu.

"Chocoholic, MISTER Mulder, or alcoholic, such as you." She donned the pills in front of his face again as she said that. "Kindly please drink your medicine."

John licked his lips, patting absentmindedly on his washboard flat stomach. "The cherry coated banana split with side delicacies of - your choice - Oreos, Chocolate Chips, Candy Sprinkles... wow, I think Monica would love this. Regalado, ah, delicioso." He licked his chops once again as the image of the dessert probably floated in his mind like a wandering cloud.

Mulder raised his eyebrows, half- closing his eyes in the process. His headache was getting more and more severe and he wanted to temporarily block the frizzy auburn lady from his view.
If only he had candle wax nearby, he would stuff up his ears too.

With cool calmness, Mulder turned to John. "Buddy, I'd really love to eat whatever you're reading there... but NOT right now. I think I'd like to be alone. Why don't you order a whole buffet and charge it on me?" Mulder caught himself before he could give his friend the puppy dog eyes.

John was surprised by his wish. "Why... no... I can't take any more money from you, Mulder. But I'll go. Monica's probably awake by now. I'll come back later." He dragged his ass from his chair and patted him on the shoulder and Scully on the back. That was the end of John Doggett and his dishes.

Mulder afforded to smile at his success. There was only one more person left.

"Scully."

She rolled her eyes so viciously it almost lodged right into her brain.

"Darling, please go to your room and watch TV ... or something. There are replays of Moonlighting this afternoon, or some soap opera that I'm sure you would-"

"I don't watch soap operas. Moonlighting replays are not until tomorrow, that's because Moonlighting doesn't show until tonight, 9 PM." Sure. Fine. He should have known, right from the very start, that she was a big Moonlighting fan. He should have known from the first time he saw that Bruce Willis picture in her wallet. Geez, Mulder.

He regained his footing on their conversation. "- LOVE to see. Please, Scully, I need to be alone."

She snorted, anchoring the asymmetrical shoulder of her t- shirt securely before it goes on showing more skin. "Why." She asked, no, barked that as if the answer didn't matter.

"I want to be alone, Scully. Is that hard to understand?" he wearily professed, cradling his head on his hand. His redhead nurse gazed at him blankly.

"Not until you drink these."

It was those pills again. Bitch. If he wanted to get her out of his face, then he would lose the chance to surprise her. Bitch. Now he had to take the second option. She specifically asked for it.

"I want to be alone, darling," he inhaled, feeling some bones of his rib crack, "due to my need to make a phone call for Jerry Jayson." There. He had said it. Mulder stared at the redhead defiantly, as if he was holding out a sword and was challenging her into a duel. Scully blew thin air through her cherry lips.

"And who is Jerry Jayson?"

Mulder smoothened a strand of chocolate brown hair over his pillow. "The assistant director of the Folies Bergere." When he mentioned those two familiar words, Scully's eyebrows rose up to an unimaginable height. He allowed himself to chuckle at her expression. "So you see, I need the privacy-"

Before he could finish his statement, Scully jumped onto the bed and straddled him in between her toned legs. She hurled her body against his own, almost knocking his head down to the wall behind them. He groaned as her arms tightened around his neck, squeezing him deathly. Scully hugged him tighter and tighter, until he was afraid that she would just go on and on hugging him to his demise. When she relaxed, though, Mulder was allowed to place his two hands on her back. That was when he recognized the heaving and gasping overtaking the dancer's body. She was actually crying.

"Hey, hey..." He didn't know what to do, honestly. He didn't know what was wrong, too - was she happy that she was dancing in the Folies Bergere? Or was she sad about it? How could he even wrap his head around that?

Mulder began to gently stroke her convulsing muscles under his palm. He could feel wetness on his neck, where Scully's head was buried.

"I'm... I'm ... so..." That was what he could make out of her gasping.

"Hey, Scully, are you ok? I hope you like the Folies Bergere - if you don't, I could always find another show as good as it."

"NO!" She lifted her head from his neck and shook her head hard, forcing some wayward strands of hair to stick to her eyes. The dark rims of her eye bags were wet with tears, with some streaming down to her cheeks. The wetness did not seem part of her, though - it was floating on her porcelain skin. Mulder touched one battered cheek, and swiped away the drops with his thumb. Scully finished the job he started herself. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to burst like that... you must understand: I have forever admired the Folies Bergere. When I read about them in a news article back home, I promised myself that I'll one day get a contract with the show and dance until I cannot anymore." She laughed at that thought with her infamous strings of "ha's." Mulder joined in when he discovered that she was already laughing. "It's... it's a dream come true, Mulder. You just don't know how much thankful I am..." As she said that, her face was buried once again into his neck.

Mulder stroked her hair carefully, still partially unaware of what was really happening. Maybe the gash on his head made him a slow learner overnight.

"Scully …" He removed her face from his skin with his two hands, brushing his thumbs over her sideburns gingerly. He held onto her face to be able to see her eye- to- eye. "I'm still not sure if you are going to be taken by the Folies Bergere. I'll talk to Jayson about it, I'll make you audition for him, and pull a few strings that are needed to be pulled for you. If we are lucky, we might even get a contract." A disheartening sadness coated her face, and for a flash, Mulder wanted to lean in and kiss it away -

Jesus. Maybe it was not the gash on his frigging skull; maybe it was the pills. Mulder was fairly sure that he had a couple of those green meanies before he regained consciousness this morning. Maybe that was making him think all weird.

"I'm sure you will get this part, Scully. You are a fantastic dancer. I cannot, however, promise you a nightly performance, OK?"

Scully nodded, making his thumbs push down to her cheeks. "I understand. I've wanted this for so long that I think even just an opening act could satisfy me for eternity." She grinned, a 100% genuine grin that Mulder immediately adored. He stored the way she looked when she smiled inside of him - somewhere deep that he did not even know where it was.

"What's important right now is that we get you dancing here in Vegas. We have a full month dedicated to bringing your dream to the real world. I promise you that I will do everything in my power to get you what you want," he assured her and she widened that sunshine- filled smile. When he looked into her blue eyes, curious to find the difference between Scully- serious and Scully-happy, he found out that when she smiled like that, her blue eyes were clear. They didn't darken; they didn't seem endless, just clear. Beautifully clear.

Scully nodded once again, reminding him of the time she knocked on his door back in Los Angeles, before she started annoying him with her need for a new wardrobe.

Since this is already settled …" He forced himself to remove his hands from her face. He silently told himself that whoever fell or will fall in love with this woman would either be a very lucky or an unlucky guy. Lucky because she was so precious - making you want to take care of her for the rest of your life and spend that whole time striving to make her smile everyday. Unlucky because she was a bitch mechanism – there was no questioning of that.

"I'd like it very much if you get off of me. If you intend to stay, you might as well remove your jeans," he joked, and her smile became mysteriously cute. She bit her lip, placed a hand on his chest (over his rapidly beating heart - he secretly wished that she didn't feel the rush of it), and pushed herself off of him. When her heat was only just a fluttering memory dancing in his brain, he realized that he missed it already. There was something about Scully that enticed him - not the way that lovers were enticed by each other - but for him, she was just plain enticing.

Scully glanced at the pills on the bedside table, where she left them before. "I guess your pill could wait 'til you finish your phone call."

"Of course. Be totally selfish." He grinned victoriously. Scully ignored him, turning around to head towards her bedroom.

Mulder moved himself near the bed stand to grab the phone.

"Mulder?"

He already had his index finger on the first digit of the phone number Doggett left him when she called him out. He raised his eyebrows, asking for whatever she needed.

Scully leaned her body against the door frame. Crossing her arms under her breasts, she trailed her eyes around the room, as if trying to see if anyone would hear her. When she was more or less secured, she persisted.

"Since you gave me the greatest compliment for my dancing, I will give you a similar compliment. Not necessarily about your talent, but a compliment nonetheless."

Mulder returned the phone back to its cradle. "What's that?"

She looked down shyly, and he did not know whether she was truly shy or just plain embarrassed. "For someone who's 39 years old... I have to say that you are very well- preserved."

Well preserved? "Should I consider that as a compliment?"

Scully tapped on her lips thoughtfully. "Your are well- preserved in physique and spirit. If I didn't know better, I'd say that you are younger than me."

It was DEFINITELY a compliment.

Mulder mouthed a thank you, and returned to his phone call. Scully didn't say anything else. She submitted to the other room without a fight, forgetting about his damn pills.

The phone call was a success. Mulder could not help grinning like a madman the whole day, while Scully was constantly asking him how it went. He kept his mouth zipped, and as his punishment, she remembered the pills and practically shoved them into his mouth. He accepted without any problems, and slept like a baby. It was the first time he had slept peacefully. Usually, he would sleep too fast to remember the great dreams, and too slow that he remembered the nightmares.

When he woke up, it was already late afternoon. Scully was propped up on the vanity table, reading the newspaper, and a fantastic spread (apparently from his good - no, best friend John) from the room service menu was set up near his bed.

"Wow," he groggily said, pulling himself up from the covers. Scully disposed of her newspaper once she heard him stir. "Wow... John must've been guilty."

"Apparently, he was." She shrugged, jumping from her chair and towards him. "Finally you're awake. Finally I could eat." Scully sat on the foot of Mulder's bed, adjusting herself to a comfortable angle, then grabbed a plate. He surveyed the food in front of him, from the sizzling plates of pasta, burgers, fries, and the impressive array of desserts.

Scully, with her back to him, began to pile a plate with everything that's on the table. "Are you allergic to any of the dishes here?"

Mulder licked his lips. He was way hungry. Way too hungry. "No. I don't think so."

"Good," she remarked before he could even finish his statement. When she was done fishing through the delicacies, she handed him a full plate of food. He breathed in the aroma of luxury, loving the heat that filled his nostrils.

"This is good, I have to agree," Mulder commented, tucking a piece of fry into his mouth, not really caring if his words were not connected with her previous comment. His stomach grumbled in anger, asking him to put more of the spread into it.

Scully chose her own food carefully, avoiding the burgers and fries, settling for the pasta and a piece of garlic bread. She told him not to move too much, and she rested the plate close to his feet. Afterwards, she dragged a chair close to the edge of his bed, using the mattress as her table.

She twirled a long strand of white noodle with her fork. "Are you going to tell me what happened over the phone? Or are you going to get another round of forty winks?"

Mulder pretended to grimace. "How bad is that another round of forty winks?"

The noodle on her fork begged others to join it. Soon she was twirling a whole pack of them. Just twirling, not really concentrating on it. He bet she was more interested in what he was going to tell her than eating. "Perhaps 6 bad rounds of forty winks."

He bit into his burger, thoughtfully chewing on the remnants in his mouth. "Doesn't sound THAT bad." He knew that would do her over.

Scully groaned. "You are going to see this," she balanced her plate on one hand

carefully, moving it upward and downward, "on your face if you don't tell me any sooner!"

Never doubt that Scully will never mean what came flying out of her mouth. That was Rule #4.

But Mulder was too pleased with himself to worry about that. He was not going to keep her guessing for long, anyway. So pleased was he of himself that he hardly could keep himself from singing Elvis Presley songs with the knowledge.

So get those stakes up higher...

"I'm dead serious. Dead hell serious, Mulder." She tilted the plate. If she threw that right into his face, she would have a great shot. A hole in one. Mulder drummed his fingers on the bedcovers, snickering at her acid expression. She was a bad tease.

There's a thousand pretty women waitin' out there...

"I'm not telling," he breathed out, finishing off his hamburger. Scully bit her lip, screwing one finger on the plate so as not to flat it out on the cushion.

And they're all livin' devil may care...

"Son of a bitch. You're a beautiful son of a bitch."

Mulder laughed at that. "Thanks for calling me beautiful – I already know I am!"

"Oooh," Scully managed to get out of her system, before sulking heavily back to her pasta. She decided that good food was not worth wasting on a bastard - or son of a bitch - like him. He did not mind. He would be telling her later to keep the suspense

up. After Moonlighting - when she would have gotten her Bruce Willis fix.

And I'm just the devil with love to spare...

There were no more words as they ate in silence. Mulder happily hummed the remaining bars of the song, while Scully heaved and huffed, turning her head away from his slap- happy face. She did make a comment while at it:

"Elvis died 7 years ago."

He disregarded her statement, ending his tunes with the last line: "Viva Las Vegas!"

Viva Las Vegas...

Viva Las Vegas indeed.

END OF CHAPTER FIVE A