From: Louise Marin <mibosh@earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 22:06:05 -0800
Subject: NEW: Midnight Mark-up (1/2) by Louise Marin
Source: xff

Reply To: mibosh@earthlink.net


Title: Midnight Mark-up
Author: Louise Marin
Email: mibosh@earthlink.net
Rating: R (language and mild friskiness)
Category: SRAH
Keywords: M/S UST; MSR; Angst; Humor
Spoilers: Season Six, nothing major, cept A.D. Kersh is a big old meany
Disclaimer: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, and everyone else belong to 
CC, 1013, and Fox.  Uhmmm...don'tsueme.
Archive: Sure.  Just please let me know where it is. 
Feedback: Yes, please.

Summary: Drunken fools, black ink, and territoriality...

Little Notes: This is mostly silliness, with a tiny dash of angst.  
I was up very, very late one night...


Midnight Mark-up - By Louise Marin


Scully had always wondered what would happen in this unlikely 
situation, and now she finally knew -- she and Mulder both got 
goofy when they were drunk and together.  Go figure.

As she lifted her fourth or fifth margarita from the bar and 
tipped it up to her mouth, Scully congratulated herself on the 
amount of motor function she had managed to retain.  She felt 
dizzy in just the right way; the world around her -- the club, the 
lights, the crowd, the music, her partner -- was tilted but not 
spinning.  At least, not yet.

Obviously the alcohol could have been confusing her perception, 
but she swore that Mulder's stool, along with his body, had been 
scooting closer and closer to her own since they had sat down at 
the bar, whenever that was.  Now he wiggled his little butt on his 
seat as he giggled in her ear.  He was relating some story about 
the last time he'd gotten drunk and acted, not surprisingly, 
stupid.  

"And there were dogs, Scully," he was saying.  "Real, honest to 
goodness, living, breathing, I-saw-them-with-my-own-two-eyes Dogs.  
Right there in the alley!"

"Really?!" Scully gasped, and then she fell into a fit of giggles 
herself.  "God, Mulder, that's just...unbelievable!  Dogs in an 
alley!"

"Scuh-leee, I'm telling a stor-eeee!" Mulder whined, and then he 
took a sip of his eighth or ninth whatever-the-hell-it-was -- 
brown water in a double shot glass.  After returning the glass, 
with a bang, to the bar, he cocked his head and grinned into 
Scully's face.  His eyes were round and dreamy, as if he just 
could not understand why she would want to do anything but gaze at 
him and listen with rapture to every word that spilled from his 
mouth.  

And then, without even the bat of an eyelash, he slid his fingers 
lightly onto Scully's stocking-covered knee.  An electric heat 
shimmied up the inside of her thigh.  All the way up.

Scully stiffened.  She sat poker-straight, folded her hands on her 
lap -- consequently trapping Mulder's hand between her wrist and 
her knee -- and tried but failed to be serious and appropriately 
businesslike.  "Okay, Mulder, I'm captivated," she said, licking 
her lips.  "How many dogs did you see?"

Mulder, however, seemed too distracted now to go on with his 
story.  Instead, his face slowly floated even closer to Scully's.  
His mouth was open, his breath soft, and his eyes were fixed on 
her lips.

Shifting on her stool, Scully stuck her leg out and kicked him in 
the shin with the pointy tip of one of the new heels she had worn 
to work.

"Ow!" he yelped.  Pouting, he reached down with the hand that was 
not on Scully's knee and rubbed his injured leg.

"The dogs, Mulder," Scully demanded

"Oh, right!  The dogs," he said, the smile returning to his face.  

He'd shed his jacket and his tie and unbuttoned the top buttons of 
his white dress shirt sometime before they had left the office.  
As he righted himself now, his shirt shifted, and Scully found 
herself entranced by the light wisps of brown hair that poked out 
from his collar.  When he finally continued his story, she was 
only half-listening.

"Anyway, there were three dogs.  And I was peeing, cuz I mean 
what's the alley behind a bar for, anyway?" he rambled.  "So I was 
peeing and then all of a sudden the dogs were peeing too.  But it 
wasn't normal fire-hydrant peeing.  They were peeing on each 
other, Scully.  On each other.  Scully?  Hey, earth to Scully...  
Hey."

Scully finally blinked when she felt him squeeze her knee.  His 
touch felt pleasant but...strange, and she recognized that he 
shouldn't have had his hand there in the first place.  But in the 
same second she told herself it was okay because what the hell, 
she was drunk.  So she turned her gaze up to his face.  He smiled 
at her, and she smiled back, and a lazy wave of delight passed 
between them.  

"What happened next, Mulder?" Scully eventually managed to ask, 
her voice oddly husky.

"The dogs.  Right.  Well, I was just completely taken aback and so 
I went home and I emailed an animal behaviorist about it, and do 
you know what she said?"

"Dogs pee on each other when they want to mark their mate?" Scully 
offered with a smirk.

"Yes!  How did you know that?

Scully laughed.  "You must have been pretty drunk that night, 
Mulder."

He nodded.  "Mmmm hmmm."

"More drunk than you are tonight?

"Oh yeah."

"Why?"  Scully's voice was quiet, and her eyes were locked with 
his.  His face seemed to bob forward and back, toward and then 
away from her, over and over, in slow motion, leaving blurry, 
white and green trails in its wake.  

She blinked and tried to remember how many drinks she had 
consumed.  When she failed, she decided she would just grab Mulder 
by the cheeks and hold him still.  And then, since she was going 
to be holding him anyway, and since his lips looked so soft and 
wet and she had always wondered what it would be like to touch 
them, she decided she would give him a little kiss.

But before Scully could move, and before Mulder could tell her why 
he'd gotten so drunk the night he saw the dogs peeing on each 
other in the alley, the agents were shoved apart by -- again not 
surprisingly -- another woman.  

Mulder's hand fell unceremoniously from Scully's knee as the woman 
wedged herself between their stools and called for the bartender.  
The woman ordered a drink, and then without missing a beat she 
turned and shoved her bountiful, half-covered breasts in Mulder's 
face.

"Hello," Scully heard Mulder say.  He sounded amused, but she 
could not see his face because the woman was tall, of course, and 
her fluffy brown hair was in the way.  

Scully liked to imagine that an aggressive woman like this one 
scared Mulder to death.  But deep down -- or maybe not so deep, 
now that she was drunk -- she was afraid that he was excited and 
pleased by this stranger's attention and her big breasts, long 
legs, and hooker-red lipstick.

Suddenly, Scully wanted the woman out of the way.  Yesterday.  She 
threw back the rest of her drink and then pulled at the woman's 
shoulder.  "Excuse me."

Ms. Look-At-My-Breasts turned to Scully, looked her up and down, 
and then shot her a disapproving grimace that made Scully's heart 
burn.  Then the woman turned back to Mulder and pressed her lips 
to his ear.  

"I can tell you're a gentleman and you'd never ditch Plain Jane 
over there," the woman whispered loudly enough for half the bar to 
hear, "but the second you're done with her, I think you should 
give me a call."

A moment later, the woman's arms began to move.  She was doing 
something between her own body and Mulder's which Scully could not 
see.  Just as Scully was about to attack the woman for making a 
move on her man...uh, partner, she saw the usurper slide her hand 
down Mulder's back to cup his ass and squeeze his left butt cheek.

Scully's jaw dropped.  She sat there and blinked.  And blinked.  
And then in a flash of fluffy brown hair and irritatingly strong 
perfume, the woman was gone, disappeared back into the crowd, and 
Scully could see Mulder again.  

He sat unusually still, staring at the back of his hand, his mouth 
hanging unattractively open.  But then, with a sudden burst of 
giggles, he turned his hand to Scully to show her the phone number 
written there on his skin in black ball-point ink.

Scully felt the ridiculous urge to throw her drink in his 
ridiculous face.  But her glass was empty, and instead she crossed 
her arms over her chest and took a minute to wonder at her own fit 
of jealousy.  That last swig of margarita was hitting her hard, 
and she was glad.  She would be berating herself so hard, were she 
sober, because she knew that were she sober, she would never think 
of Mulder as hers.  Would she?

Whatever.

She shook her head, trying to clear it, but succeeded only in 
making the room finally start to spin.  Then she cursed herself 
for having sworn up and down to Mulder that she could hold her 
liquor as staunchly as any true sailor's daughter.  

Trying to focus on him, Scully saw that Mulder was still admiring 
his conquest.  "This never happens to me," he said in a bewildered 
tone that Scully didn't buy for a second.

"Suuuure it doesn't," she said, wishing he would put his hovering 
hand back on her knee.  But then she figured it would be for the 
best if he did not.  He was tainted now with Ms. Breasts' damned 
black ink.

Finally, finally he dropped his hand to his own knee.  When he 
looked up at Scully, it was with shock and a tiny bit of torment 
over her skepticism.  She could also see that his eyes were 
beginning to droop and she guessed that his 'limit' had been hit, 
probably twice thus far.

The room was still spinning and swaying, but Scully swore that 
Mulder and his stool scooted again towards her and hers.  He 
dipped his head down to hers conspiratorially.  

"Really," he insisted.  "I don't understand where you gets this 
idea that women are always throwing themselves at me, Scully, and 
that I'm always throwing myself at thems."  

Scully tried not to laugh.  The man actually seemed serious, in 
his own ridiculously inebriated way.  

"AhemKersh'sSecretary," she muttered, clearing her throat.

"What?!"  Mulder's head perked up and he hit her with a befuddled 
little grin.  "I never..."

"Maybe not, but she seems pretty convinced that you have."

He shook his head, and Scully swore she saw his eyes spinning in 
their sockets.  "I never," he said again.  "She's not even my 
type."

"Shut up, Mulder.  I saw a picture of her twin on the cover of one 
of those videos that aren't yours."

"Ahh, Scully..." he sighed.  Then he swayed forward until his 
forehead landed on Scully's shoulder, making her teeter.

She grabbed onto the bar to keep them both from toppling to the 
floor.  Rolling her eyes, Scully decided Mulder had had enough.  
She took his half-empty shot glass from the bar and downed what 
was left of whatever it was.  

"Big piles of manure.  That fucker," she said into Mulder's hair, 
which was, by the way, soft and sweet-smelling and delicious.

"Yeah, Kersh.  That fucker...fucker.  Fucker Kersh.  Fuck," Mulder 
mumbled.  Then he turned his face towards Scully's, rubbed his 
cheek against her shoulder, settled in, and closed his eyes.  
"Fucker."

Feeling both wistful and queasy, Scully gazed down at him and 
smiled.  "I think it's time to go home, Mulder," she said, her 
lips fluttering against his cheek.

"Yeah.  Fucker."


By the time they both scrambled into a cab, falling over and 
around and into each other in the process, Mulder had perked up 
again and was giggling like never before.  

"Where we goin', Scully?" he asked when she told the cabby her 
address.  

"My place."

"Why your place?"  Grinning, he slid across the cab's leather 
seat-back to rest heavily against her.
Scully pushed her hand into his hair and scratched his scalp.  
"Cuz I want to."  

"Okay."  

With a growl, Mulder then turned towards Scully and buried his 
face again in her neck.  She kissed his temple, ignoring the 
warning bell sounding in the only tiny part of her brain that 
remembered who they were when the sun was out.  Then, tormented by 
the nauseating bounce and sway of the taxi, she let her head fall 
back against the seat and she closed her eyes.

Twenty minutes later, they entered Scully's apartment with their 
arms around each other's waists.  For support, Scully remembered 
to tell herself.  Then she and Mulder made a beeline for the 
couch, where they both collapsed.  

Scully found herself lying on her side, sandwiched between 
Mulder's back and the sofa.  She held him in the cocoon of her 
arms and legs, realizing suddenly that she had neither the energy 
nor the desire to let him go.

Turning her head, she stared at the ceiling and tried to remember 
to keep breathing.  Her stomach was spinning, and her head was 
spinning, and the room was spinning.  But Mulder, thank God, was 
not.  He was just a warm heartbeat thrumming against her chest.

"Scully, did your mom sew your name into your underwear when you 
were a kid?" he mumbled out of nowhere.

Scully felt proud that she wasn't too drunk to raise an eyebrow, 
but then she giggled against the back of Mulder's head.  "Um, no.  
She wrote my initials on the tags with a black magic marker.  
Why?"

"I dunno.   Why do you think moms do that, Scully?"

She knew that in the morning she'd be ashamed she had to think 
about this one.  "Hmm.  I think they did it in case if we went 
over to a friend's house or something to spend the night our 
underwear wouldn't get mixed up with any of the other kids'."

"Mm.  Prolly.  It's time to sleep, isn't it, Scully?"

"I think so, Mulder."

"M'kay," Mulder sighed.

Scully closed her eyes, but for reasons she would not and could 
not consider, her mind kept flashing back to the woman in the bar.  
The image of the woman's long hand fondling Mulder tortured her.  
She ached as the trespass played over and over and over...

Oh, God.

Dipping her chin, Scully sniffed the back of Mulder's neck only to 
find that the woman's bad perfume still clung to him.  To keep 
herself from retching, she came up with an idea.  

"Let me up, Mulder."

"Uhmhuh?"

"I need to get something.  Over there," she said, and then she 
rolled over, dumping Mulder onto the floor.  He hit with a thud 
and then bellowed his discomfort, but Scully simply climbed over 
him and scrambled to her desk.  

"Hi-Liter, ball point, ball point, pencil...  Ah ha!"  Scully took 
the fat, black Sharpie from her desk drawer, held it up, and 
licked her lips.

Then she bounced across the room to find Mulder settling back onto 
the couch.  He was on his back, his eyes closed and his lips 
curled up in a blissful little smile.  Without a second thought, 
Scully straddled his hips, her skirt riding up around her waist.

Mulder gasped, but then his smile grew into a frisky grin and his 
eyes slipped slowly open.  "Mmm, hi Scully."

"Hi, Mulder," Scully purred with a smile of her own.

"What'cha doin'?"  Putting his hands on her hips, he eased her 
down onto his lap, and she felt the hard arc of his erection press 
between her legs.

Scully giggled.  "What are YOU doing, Mulder?"  

"Mmm, feelin' good."

"I'll bet."  Telling herself she only meant to tease him, she 
rubbed herself against the bulge in his pants, giving him one long 
stroke.  But God he felt good, and God did she want him, and oh 
how she wanted to hear him moan like that again.  

But she knew that if she tried to make love to him right now, she 
would probably throw up.  So instead she settled back down on his 
lap, took his hand, and began to use the Sharpie to black out the 
numbers inscribed there.

"Hey!  That's mine," he whined.  "That never happens.  Wanted to 
show the guys."  He popped out his bottom lip to pout at her.

"Awww," Scully said.  Her tone was patronizing, but she did lift 
the marker from Mulder's skin.  Then she cocked her head as a 
truly naughty thought struck her.  "Okay, Mulder."

"Okay?"  His eyes widened but then quickly drooped again.  She 
guessed he had about five more minutes of consciousness left in 
him.

"I gotta better idea," Scully said, giggling and bumping against 
his erection again -- just because she could, of course.  "And you 
don't have to worry, Mulder, because your idiot bimbo actually 
wrote a '1' before her area code, and that was the only thing I 
scribbled out."  

She shoved his hand in his face so he could see, but he pulled 
from her grasp and slid his palm back onto her hip.  Scully 
shrugged.  His eyes were almost closed anyway, so she turned her 
attention to her new project: his forehead.

Mulder, however, seemed to have other ideas.  Scully felt him 
slowly slip his hands around to cup her ass.  She hesitated for a 
moment, enjoying how warm and how nice it felt to have him 
touching her and pressing against her.  There were other places 
she would like to feel his firm but gentle contact, but her 
mission was too important for her to spend much time wishing his 
hands would go there.  

Just as she was fumbling again to fix the pen properly in her 
grip, however, Mulder began to sit up, squeezing her ass and 
leering naughtily. 

"No, you don't," she said, pushing and pinning him down with her 
free arm as she raised the pen above his forehead.

"Unpf...  Scully?  What are you doing?"

Scully giggled.  "I'm putting my name in my underwear, silly."

"What?!"  He scrunched his eyes shut and shook his head 
petulantly.  "Nooooo..."

Scully rolled her eyes and huffed a strand of hair from her face.  
"I gotta do this, Mulder, so just shut up and lay still," she 
commanded.  And then she pressed her rear back firmly against his 
palms in an attempt to distract him.  It worked -- he settled 
right down and began to knead her pliant bottom.

A moment later, Mulder's eyes slipped blissfully shut.  Scully 
bent forward, kissed his forehead, and then began to write as 
slowly and carefully and clearly as she could, dizzy as she was.  

"Scully, I didn't stay at friends' houses much when I was little," 
Mulder murmured as she worked.   "But my mom still put my name in.  
Why?"

"I dunno, Mulder.  Maybe she was hoping, for you," Scully 
suggested.  Then she capped her pen and smiled.  "There, all done.  
Just right."

He cracked his eyes open.  "Whaduz it say?"

"I'll let you read it yourself, Mulder."

Mulder shifted beneath her, trying to get up.  "I wanna see," he 
said, but Scully held him down.  He didn't put up much of a fight.

"You can't read it right now, anyway, Mulder.  Cuz you're stupid," 
she said confidently.

"I am not ssoopid."

"Yes, you are."

"Mmmmm."  He turned his head to the side and closed his eyes.  

Scully giggled one last time at the cleverness of what she had 
written on Mulder's forehead.  Then she collapsed down on top of 
him, settled her head on his shoulder, and passed out.


She awoke to the feel of something tickling her nose.  She 
sniffled and twitched, but the tickling just got worse.  It felt 
like hair, soft and feathery, teasing her face.  

And it smelled like...

It smelled like...

Mulder.

Scully's eyes snapped open.  The world was bathed in the hazy dark 
gray of pre-dawn.  As her vision cleared, she found she was 
looking at a sideburn.  Mulder's sideburn.  She was wondering if 
he was ever going to get those silly things trimmed when she 
realized she was drooling in his ear.  

"Sorry, Mulder," she murmured and then closed her mouth.

At least, she tried to rationalize, she no longer had to wonder 
why her mattress was breathing.  Not to mention what the 
hard...thing was that was poking the thigh she seemed to have 
wedged between Mulder's legs.  

Scully bit her lip, stifling a fierce laugh.  Her mind was foggy 
and her humor wry, but the horror running through her was real and 
profound.  Their current...entanglement, however it had come about, 
was unacceptable.

She needed to get up, to move away from him.  For a thousand 
personal and work related reasons, they weren't supposed to get 
this close to each other.  Ever.  Such intense intimacy would be 
far too dangerous to the  partnership they'd spent years building 
and protecting.

But Scully's body felt like a block of lead, and Mulder's body was 
supple and warm beneath her.  His abrasive cheek pressing against 
her chin and lips felt pleasantly masculine.  So, too sore, stiff, 
and oddly comfortable to stretch or roll or sit up, she lay still 
and wondered what the hell they had done last night.  

She remembered drinking.  Getting more drunk, in fact, than Scully 
had been since college.  She had no idea how long it had been for 
Mulder.  Her nose twitched again against his hair, but he remained 
dead to the world; it must have been a while.

Scully also had a vague memory of collapsing with Mulder on what 
seemed to be, now upon closer consideration, not her bed, but her 
couch.  She was unsure, however, how long she and Mulder had taken 
to pass out.  Or what they had done in between.

Dangerous territory, Scully told herself.  Fighting a surge of 
frustration, she swallowed hard, expecting to find her throat dry 
and sour.  

Her mouth did taste like three day old beer, but it was wet.  Too 
wet.  She swallowed again.  A wave of nausea enveloped her.

"Shit," she murmured.  Then she finally rolled off of Mulder and 
slunk through the shadows to the bathroom.  She threw herself at 
the toilet just as her stomach lurched, twisted, and then 
exploded, luckily, into the basin.

Despite her petite size and her puny stomach, Scully's retching 
was loud, and tempestuous, and well out of her control.  She 
prayed that Mulder was too far gone to hear her and realize that 
she couldn't hold her liquor after all.  He would come running to 
hold her hair back like the mother-hen he could be, the one she 
hated to indulge.  The one who would, like her, be reminded of her 
cancer.  

"Oh God," she rasped when the heaving finally slowed.  At least, 
she told herself, the darkness of the little room spared her a 
good look at the mess she had made.  

Expelling a deep breath, she leaned heavily on the toilet seat.  
The porcelain was cool against her sweaty palms.  Acid burned her 
throat and tears stung her eyes.  Her head was throbbing.  But her 
stomach felt so much better.  

With a sigh, Scully concluded she wasn't going to die.  She just 
had to get cleaned up and changed, throw Mulder out of her 
apartment, and then sleep the rest of this misery off.  She was 
reaching up to flush, thanking God that Mulder hadn't awakened, 
when the bathroom light flicked on.

Pain lanced straight through Scully's eyes to the back of her 
head.  She shielded her eyes as Mulder's groggy voice called out 
from behind her, "Scully?  You okay?"

Scully opened her mouth to speak, but before she could find her 
own voice she made the mistake of glancing down into the toilet 
bowl.  The sight and aroma of regurgitated alcohol mixed with last 
night's dinner sent her stomach into a tailspin.  

She heaved again.  Right there.  With Mulder looking on over her 
shoulder.  At least, she thought, he had the courtesy not to touch 
her.

When there was finally nothing left in Scully's belly to expel, 
she hung her head in the toilet.  Her cheeks were on fire.  She 
could feel Mulder standing next to her, watching her, pitying her.   
Laughing at her.  When she glanced over she found his knees just 
inches from her face.  She dared not look up at him.

As she spit into the toilet one last time, Scully wondered if the 
voluptuous woman she suddenly remembered hitting on Mulder the 
night before could vomit daintily, like a lady.

"I'm fine, Muller," she murmured impatiently, hoping he would go 
away.  To underscore her statement, she flushed the toilet.

Still hiding her face, Scully moved to the sink and began to wash 
up.  Mulder remained silent and still next to her.  She braced 
herself for the wholly inappropriate joke she was sure would be 
flying from his mouth any second now...

But he said nothing. 

"Mulder, some privacy, please?  I can do this myself," Scully 
growled.

Still he said nothing and did nothing.  He was standing just 
behind her, and as she sucked water into her mouth, swished, and 
spit, she fought the urge to elbow him in the stomach.

"Mulderrrr, go," she groaned when her mouth was empty.

"Scully..."

"What?"

"Scully?"

"What?!"

"Scuhlly."

With sharp movements, Scully slathered Crest onto her toothbrush.  
"Really, Mulder, this is a fun game, but you don't need to be here 
while I brush my teeth.  In fact, I think it would be best if you 
went home now and got ready for work and we forgot this ever 
happened."  

She heard Mulder gasp behind her.  "Work," he whispered, as if 
speaking the word aloud would usher in the apocalypse.

"Yes, Mulder, work.  That place we have to be in ohhh ninety 
minutes or so."

"Scully," he said again.

"Mulder!"  

Scowling, Scully finally turned her eyes up to the big mirror over 
the sink.  When she saw Mulder's reflection, she dropped her 
toothbrush and brought her hand up to her mouth.  "What the..." she 
began to ask.  And then she remembered everything.  

Her first impulse was to laugh, which she did, giggling through 
her fingers.  Her second impulse was to pack a bag, catch a plane 
to anywhere-but-here, and never look back.  But just about all she 
really could do was stare.  And stare.  At Mulder's forehead.

"Oh my God," she whispered.  Oh my God.  

Mulder's face was blank and pale, stark in contrast to the black 
letters.  The words were backwards in the mirror but written in 
two neat rows of her own big block print: 

PROPERTY OF DANA SCULLY

Property of Dana Scully.  Abruptly, Scully spun around and looked 
up at Mulder.  As she shook her head, her mouth fell open.  But 
she quickly found that she had nothing to say for herself.  What 
had she done?

"Scully, you marked me," Mulder declared.

"What?"  Scully had a flashing vision of dogs cavorting in an 
alley.  It was harmless enough, until this same vision proceeded 
to blend seamlessly into one of herself straddling Mulder's 
dangerously aroused lap and tagging his forehead.  Shit.

"You pissed on my head!" he asserted, his voice cracking.  

"You let me."

"I was drunk!"

"So was I!"

Mulder looked at his hand and the phone number Scully had begun to 
scratch out.  "Yeah, drunk and jealous, I'd say," he mumbled.

A speck of anger had flared in his eyes, but the corner of his 
mouth quirked up in an infuriating little smirk that made Scully 
want to give him a black eye to go with his branded forehead.  Her 
face burned like the sun, her stomach churned, and she thought she 
was going to throw up yet again.  

What have I done? she wondered again.  Mulder was amused, the 
bastard, and Scully had revealed too much with her drunken but 
perfectly clear penmanship.  The memory of his erection feeling 
hard and oh-so-good pressed between her thighs last night came 
unbidden to the front of her mind.  

Mulder's erection!  Good God.  Scully struggled in vain to push 
the memory away, thinking that maybe she was indeed a dog in heat, 
after all.  She remembered last night far too well, now.  She 
remembered her spinning head, her hypersensitive skin, her 
jealousy, her arousal, her desire to...kiss...

"Hey!  Scully!  Hellooooo."  Mulder waved his hand in front of 
her, pulling her back to the present.  He had been alternately 
ranting and laughing just a few inches from her face for some 
time, his own face candy-apple red.  And black, of course.  But 
Scully had hardly heard a word, so lost was she in her battle with 
her own unacceptable truth.

"What...what, Mulder?" she asked, trying to look anywhere but at him 
and her revealing handywork.

"I said, you say you weren't trying to mark me, to claim me.  If 
that's the case, are you going to explain this or what?"  Bending 
low, his eyes roguishly twinkling, he shoved his marred forehead 
in Scully's face.

Scully winced.  She could hardly look at him, and yet she could 
hardly not.  The letters on his skin were so...big.  So obvious.  
Possessive.  How could she even begin to explain?  How could she 
take back this confession she had not meant to make, even to 
herself?  How long would Mulder laugh at her?

"Mulder," Scully finally began as calmly as she could.  "We were 
both very, very drunk, and...ah...together.  And I don't see why we 
have to make a mountain out of this.  It was a silly drunken 
prank, and I just...  I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote 
that.  I wasn't thinking at all."

"Weren't you?" Mulder asked quietly.  His tone was skeptical, but 
his voice was low, dark.  Scully wondered if it was disappointment 
she heard.  His face wasn't laughing anymore.

For a long moment, Mulder searched Scully's eyes.  He seared her 
with the same dark green intensity he reserved for The Truth.  He 
was waiting for her to give more of it away.  As if she hadn't 
done enough damage already.   And Scully wasn't even an alien or 
mutant.  Well, for the most part, anyway.

Eventually the tall devil saw something he liked amidst the 
humiliation and frustration rippling through Scully's body.  His 
eyes began to twinkle again, and he grinned -- a big, fat, 
pompous, I'm-the-man Muldergrin.

Great.  Scully wondered why she even bothered trying to lie to him 
anymore.  She knew exactly what she'd been thinking when she put 
her name on him.  And he knew it, too.  

Contemplating escape, Scully glanced at the open bathroom door.  
But Mulder saw and scowled.  Before she could make a break for it, 
he leaned forward and placed his palms firmly on the edge of the 
sink, trapping her between his arms.  Scully's heart sank a few 
inches, but she had known there was no way he was going to let 
this go.

"Really, Scully," Mulder drawled impishly, "I'm flattered, but 
couldn't you have just sent me a valentine?  Maybe one with a nice 
removable name tag inside?"

Scully felt a sudden, ridiculous urge to growl and snap at him.  
"A valentine?  Mulder, I'm gonna...  I'm..."  In one fluid movement, 
she pushed from the trap of Mulder's arms, grabbed him by the ear, 
and shoved his head into the sink.

"Hey!  Ow!"

Scully ignored his protest.  She reached around and held him 
firmly by the scruff of his annoying neck.  Then she turned on the 
faucet.

"That's hot!" he complained.  

Scully tested the water to find that it was warm, at worst.  
"Baby," she muttered.  

A moment later the water ran down Mulder's face and into his 
mouth, muffling his protests.  Scully rubbed soap over her hand 
and began to scrub his forehead.  

His skin and hair were soft and warm, and Scully felt distressed 
at how much she liked touching him this way, washing him.  And 
despite his grumbling and the fact that he was sputtering water 
all over the front of her blouse, Mulder's body had relaxed under 
her firm caress.  

Shaking her head, Scully tried to ignore the intimacy of their 
contact, concentrating hard on erasing the offending statement.

Property of Dana Scully.  

Scully half-chuckled.  Fat chance.  This was Mulder the Unruly.  
Mulder the Ditcher.  Mulder the Breaker of Protocol.  Mulder the 
Tease.  Mulder the Flirt.  Mulder the Master of Shallow Sexual 
Innuendo.  If he was truly hers  -- if he would ever be hers -- 
Scully thought she could at least get him to behave every now and 
then.  But when had that ever happened?  

Property of Dana Scully, indeed.


(End Part 1/2)



Midnight Mark-up (2/2) by Louise Marin -- mibosh@earthlink.net


After a few minutes of Scully's scrubbing, Mulder cracked open his 
watery eyes and peered up at her.  "It's not coming off, is it?" 
he garbled.

"It is," Scully lied through clenched teeth.

Mulder frowned.  He pushed her hands away, rinsed the soap from 
his forehead, then looked up into the mirror.  The letters had 
faded only slightly.

"Scuuuuuully?  What exactly did you use on my head last night?" 
Mulder asked slowly, as though he were afraid of the answer.

Scully bit her lip and considered lying, since Mulder didn't seem 
to remember all the details of her crime.  But then she looked at 
the useless soap still dripping from her hand.  Who was she 
kidding?  "Ah, I guess we'd better call Sharpie."

Mulder's eyes widened.  "Sharpie!  Shit, Scully, that stuff takes 
weeks to come off!  What the hell were you thinking?"

"I told you, Mulder, I was drunk.  I wasn't thinking.  At all."

Mulder folded his arms across his chest and looked down his nose 
at her.  His eyes were dark, but his lips twitched as if he was 
trying to hold back another infuriating grin.  "I guess that means 
you weren't thinking about this morning's staff meeting either, 
huh, Scully?"  

Scully gasped.  Somewhere between her drunken stupor and her 
desperate attempt to undo what she had done to Mulder's forehead 
and to their friendship, she had forgotten the early morning 
meeting their boss had demanded they attend.  "Oh my God.  
Everyone will..."

"See."  Mulder rubbed his forehead.  His face turned serious, and 
soft.  "I didn't know...  But last night we...  You marked me, 
Scully," he said quietly.

"I did no such thing," Scully snapped.  God, why did he have to 
bring that up again?  And why did he have to find so much 
amusement in her humiliation?  Even now she tingled with the 
memory of him hard and strong between her legs, of his warm hands 
on her hips and then later her ass, his fingertips sliding up and 
down the sensitive crevice...

Scully shook her head.  She had an unwanted vision of herself and 
Mulder walking into FBI headquarters with her heart on his 
forehead.  Their colleagues, friends and enemies alike, would see 
just how much she needed her partner, how much she wanted him.  
How vulnerable she was in front of him.  She looked down at 
herself, and despite her skirt and her albeit wet blouse, she felt 
naked, peeled, like a fruit, all tender flesh and fragile sinew.

"I have to go," she blurted, afraid he would embarrass her further 
by insisting they discuss her 'feelings.'  Without looking at him, 
she fled into the living room to gather her purse and her jacket.

"What?"  Mulder stormed after her.  She could almost feel his 
breath on the back of her neck.  "Scully, wait.  I thought we were 
going to call Sharpie.  Where are you going?"

"Away...home," Scully said absently as she opened the front door.

"But Scully, you are home."

Scully stopped.  "You're right, Mulder.  You leave."

"What?"

"You.  Out."  Dropping her purse, Scully placed her palms on 
Mulder's stomach and pushed him toward the open door.  She got him 
backed up to the threshold before he firmly planted his feet and 
grabbed onto the doorjamb.

"Mulder, go," Scully insisted.

"No."

"Yes."  She gave him an ineffective shove.

Mulder rolled his eyes.  "No way, Scully.  You put this on me," he 
smirked, dipping his head, "and I'm not going anywhere until you 
get it off.  Unless, of course, you want me to go in like this."

Scully sighed, her body sagging with resignation and sudden 
exhaustion.  Behind his air of amusement, Mulder's eyes were 
pleading with her -- as usual -- to clean up the mess they'd made.  

"Fine, let's call Sharpie," she said as she turned and walked away 
from him.

A moment later Scully frowned out her living room window as she 
waited to be connected to the Sharpie company.  The sun was only 
just beginning to rise, and she was not surprised to hear a 
recorded voice tell her that the Sharpie customer service lines 
wouldn't be open for another hour and a half.

"Not open," Mulder said for her as she hung up the phone.

"Not until about the time we're due at that meeting."  Scully 
slumped into her big easy chair, feeling defeated.  She watched 
Mulder as he pursed his lips, the gears beginning to spin in his 
head.

"The Internet, then," he said after a moment.  Then he launched 
himself at Scully's computer.

Scully read over Mulder's shoulder as he sat at her desk and 
searched the Sharpie official website.  There was plenty of 
information on how and where to buy Sharpie products, as well as 
what they were good for, but there appeared to be nothing about 
how to remove the stubborn ink from skin.

"You're not coming up with anything," Scully stated.

Mulder grunted and continued his search, spreading out now to 
sites about household cleaning products as well as pens in 
general.  Scully let him ignore her for another minute or two and 
then she headed back into the bathroom.  After a lot of rummaging 
through drawers and a little comparing of colors, she thought she 
had found a solution to their...problem.

"Anything?" she asked Mulder as she returned to the living room.

He pushed the mouse away from him, turned, and pouted at Scully 
over his shoulder.  She took that as a 'no' and plunked her bottle 
of Loreal No. 15 Cover-up down on the desk in front of him.

"No way, Scully," he said instantly.  "No makeup."

The foundation, a color called Autumn Bronze, was too dark for 
Scully.  It was the one she hadn't used since long before she 
started on the X-files, the one she had been saving on the off 
chance she'd ever end up vacationing at the beach again in her 
lifetime.

Scully held the bottle up next to Mulder's face.  He grimaced, but 
Autumn Bronze would look, well, almost fine on him.  

"Come on, Mulder," Scully said, tugging on his shoulder.

"Scully, what part of 'no way' didn't you understand?  Ow!"

Scully had grabbed him by the ear again the moment the obnoxious 
question flew from his mouth.  She dug her fingers in and dragged 
him whimpering back into the bathroom.  

"Shower, Mulder," she commanded as she let go of him and stepped 
back into the doorway.

Mulder rubbed his ear, pouting at her in an obvious play for 
sympathy he was not going to get.  Scully glared at him; she 
hadn't pulled him that hard.  

"Yes, master," he muttered.

Scully frowned at his forlorn tone but nodded over his compliance.  
She knew she should go now so he could undress, but she hovered in 
the doorway.  Mulder's eyes, still twinkling with mischief, locked 
with hers as he reached down to undo his pants.  

Scully's mouth dropped open rather wantonly, and her heart did a 
little flip-flop in her chest.  Swiftly she stepped backward into 
the hallway, pulling the bathroom door closed in front of her 
before she could see anything she shouldn't.

She spent the ten minutes Mulder was in the shower telling her 
body to behave itself.  Their friendship couldn't get any better, 
only more complicated.  Too complicated.  Romance was out of the 
question.

But, when the water had shut off and he called for her, Scully 
pushed the bathroom door open to find him naked from the waist up.  
He wore his work slacks, but the rest of him was all shiny hair, 
lean muscle, and glistening skin.  

She wondered for a moment if he realized they were just going to 
put the makeup on his forehead.  Then she saw the smallest hint of 
a smirk on his face and figured he had remained half dressed 
simply to remind her of what she had all but admitted.  The 
bastard was teasing her, even now.  She wanted to strangle him, 
but when she dragged her eyes away from his chest and looked up at 
what she had done to his forehead, she supposed she deserved the 
torment.

"Well, what now, Scully?" Mulder asked, his muscles rippling as he 
planted his hands on his hips.

Scully lowered the toilet lid and told Mulder to sit.  "The ink 
faded a bit more while you were in the shower," she said as she 
stood between his legs and inspected his forehead.  "Tomorrow is 
Saturday.  Let's just get through this meeting, keep our jobs, and 
then if all else fails you can stand in the shower until Monday."

Mulder glanced at Scully's shower.  "Be careful what you wish 
for," he warned with a naughty leer.  

Scully felt her cheeks heat up again.  She clenched her teeth and 
narrowed her eyes at Mulder in a warning of her own.  With a 
dramatic sigh, he plunked his chin into his palm, supporting his 
head as he tilted his face up to the light.   

Using a sponge, Scully began to dab the makeup onto Mulder's 
forehead.  She worked clinically, with sharp movements, like the 
responsible doctor she'd always thought she was.  But it took 
effort to ignore the heat coming off his bare chest and the sweet, 
clean Mulder-smell that surrounded her. 

"Do we really have to do this?" Mulder asked, his frown depending 
every time she touched him.  "The makeup's gonna show, Scully.  
People will talk."

"As if that's ever stopped you before, Spooky," Scully said, 
chuckling despite herself.  

"Try Spookette, Scully," he grumbled, touching his forehead and 
looking less than amused.

"Oh, Mulder, it's just a little cover-up," Scully sighed.  "Look, 
if someone asks, tell them you were in an accident and I said it 
would be better to cover up the damage than to show up battered 
and bruised at work.  Or tell them a suspect beat you up.  Hell, 
tell them I beat you up."

Mulder snickered.  "You think I look whipped now," he said 
sarcastically.

Scully shrugged and continued applying the makeup, trying not to 
analyze this act of covering up her claim on her partner.  For a 
few hours her stalwart denial had been broken.  She had been as 
nearly naked in front of him as he was now in front of her.

Maybe -- okay, certainly -- some part of her did want to have him, 
to mark him as hers and no one else's.  He was a brilliant, noble, 
gorgeous man.  He was her best friend.  But some things were 
simply not to be, and words -- of love, of desire -- no matter how 
indelible the ink, would eventually fade away to nothing, over 
time or death or disappointment.  She had to take these words 
back.  Before anyone got hurt.

"At least," Scully said for Mulder's sake, "the makeup is covering 
it.  And as long as you stay out of bright lights, I doubt anyone 
will notice."

"Sure," Mulder mumbled, sounding completely unconvinced.

"You look fine, Mulder.  Trust me,"  Scully said without thinking.

Mulder snorted.  "Scully, have you seen my forehead??"

Scully tried not to flinch.  "I was drunk!" she insisted again.  
"And you let me do it."

"Hey, I said no!"

Scully frowned, silently admitting and regretting that she had 
violated him.  But then she remembered Inebriated-Mulder pawing at 
her throughout the evening.  "You didn't put up much of a fight, 
though, did you, Mulder?"

Mulder cocked his head and then looked down at his upturned hands.  
He clenched his fingers a few times as though he could still feel 
her flesh pressed into his palms, distracting him.  "I didn't, did 
I?" he said with a grin and a leer.

"Mulderrr," Scully warned.

"And neither did you," he said quietly.

"Mulder!  I.  Was.  Drunk!" Scully barked.  

Hardly noticing that Mulder's face had fallen, she slapped some 
powder on his forehead to set the makeup, and then she turned and 
walked away from him.  When she came out of her bedroom dressed in 
her robe and ready to take her own shower, he was gone.


The day they'd been informed of its time and location, Scully and 
Mulder had agreed to stay quiet during this morning's 
informational meeting regarding the new travel expense policies 
about to be applied to all FBI mobile divisions.  Scully figured 
they had suffered enough reprimands for 'unnecessary' expenses 
since the X-files had been snatched away from them and Mulder had 
been left to his own devices.

Characteristically, she arrived at the meeting precisely on time.  
The first thing she noticed about the giant, crowded conference 
room was that the air inside was hot.  Too hot.  People were 
complaining, and she overheard some chatter about the heater being 
stuck on high.  

Sighing, she scanned the room's huge oval table.  Mulder was 
already there.  He had, thank God, positioned himself with his 
back to the windows so that his body was lightly silhouetted, a 
dusky shadow falling across his all-important forehead.  

Though Scully refused to look anyone in the eye as she took a seat 
near A.D. Skinner, Mulder and the agents around him seemed calm 
and together.  Keeping her fingers crossed, she concluded that her 
partner hadn't been noticed and hassled about his made-up face.  
At least, not yet.

The meeting began and, as expected, turned out to be a grand 
example of bureaucratic tedium.  Scully tried to pay attention, 
but as the minutes and then hours passed, the heat in the room 
continued to rise.  Her eyes flashed constantly to her partner.

By ten o'clock she could feel her pantyhose sticking to the backs 
of her knees.  But that was, of course, the least of her worries.  

Though everyone was sweating, no one looked as wet or as miserable 
as Mulder.  His blue shirt was damp around the collar and down the 
center of his chest.  His short hair was beginning to look rather 
soggy, and beads of sweat visible from where Scully sat across the 
big table had gathered on his brow and were trickling down into 
his eyes.  He sat with his hands on the table, his fists clenched, 
as if he was trying with all his Mulderness not to fidget.  Or not 
to throw himself across the table and ring Scully's neck.  Or... or... 
he was trying not to reach up and wipe the sweat -- and the makeup -- 
from his forehead.

Oh, God.  And judging by the constipated look on his face, he was 
about to cave.

Feeling dizzy, Scully turned to her left and gave Skinner a 
discreetly pleading look.  It was ridiculous to keep them all in 
the meeting when the heat was so miserable.

If Skinner saw Scully's plea, his reaction was undetectable.  
However, a few minutes later when there was a break in the 
discussion of yet another new policy she was sure her partner 
would insist on disregarding at every turn, Skinner rose and 
cleared his throat.  When all eyes in the room were on him, he 
suggested that if no one had any urgent information to share, they 
would continue with the meeting after the heater had been fixed.  

Scully saw Mulder breathe a sigh of relief and reach for his 
briefcase.  As he pushed his chair back from the table and began 
to rise, Kersh -- that fucker -- said, "Before we go, Agent Mulder, 
why don't you tell the group about some of the creative 
punishments I've handed out in response to your incessant breakage 
of some of our most important travel regulations.  As an example 
to the others.  Please."

Mulder, visibly startled, stuttered rather uncharacteristically. 
"I...  Uh, I mean, you, Sir...  Uh, you...  Um, big piles of 
manure?" he whimpered.  Then he shook his head in silent apology,
which consequently released a big ball of sweat from his brow.
The drop slid down into his eye, making him blink as though he were 
batting his eyelashes at A.D. Kersh.  Urgently, Mulder reached up
and wiped the sweat -- along with most of the makeup -- from his
forehead.

The murmuring began almost instantly.  "What's on his head?" 
Scully heard people asking.  "What does it say?" they wanted to 
know.

"Oh, Mulder," she whispered, dropping her chin to her chest and 
rubbing her own sweaty temples.

After several long seconds, Mulder recovered his wits and smacked 
his palm over the letters just as some young agent called out, 
"Property of Dana Scully!  It says Property of Dana Scully!"

Jeffrey Spender jumped up from his seat next to Diana Fowley.  
Dizzy as she was -- again -- Scully thought she heard him exclaim, 
"Well, no shit!" 

No shit.

And the room erupted in laughter.

Scully looked around at her colleagues and her bosses.  Most of 
them had respected her.  Now some, especially the younger agents, 
were laughing at her outright, practically in tears.  Some agents 
pointed.  Others looked embarrassed as they giggled, and they 
wouldn't meet her eyes.

Several of the bosses and a couple of female agents, however, 
weren't laughing at all.  Diana, in particular, gave Scully the 
evil eye, looking as though she were about to whip out her claws, 
spring across the table, and shred her into little bits of 
humiliated woman-flesh.  And Scully almost had a mind to let her.

Amidst the chaos, she heard the word property whispered and 
shouted a hundred times.  Her face had turned to fire, and now the 
room started to spin.  Faces were distorted by ridicule and her 
own humiliation.  The door looked so far away and the path to it 
was blocked by a sea of bodies.  

She looked at Mulder, as if he could bail her out.  He was 
slouched in his seat, scratching his head.  She wondered if he was 
going to even try to explain this one.  After a moment, he looked 
up at her with a shrug and a sheepish little grin.

One of the younger agents followed Mulder's gaze.  "Yeah!  Go 
Scully, go Scully," the man started to chant when he saw her.

Mulder's cheeks turned pink.  He bowed his head in apology for the 
young agent and the rest of the circus, but Scully couldn't 
accept.  Furious and humiliated, she forced her way through the 
crowd of special-agents-turned-pre-pubescent-imbeciles, wrenched 
the door open, and slipped out into the hall.  

"As if anyone didn't already know who belongs to who around here, 
Mulder," was the last loud, laughing comment she heard before the 
conference room door clicked closed behind her.

She went straight to her desk in the bull pen.  She would bury 
herself in background checks and expense reports.  She would 
forget the words she had written, the words that she knew weren't 
even true.  Everyone knew.  And they had laughed.

It didn't take long for other agents to begin trickling in.  As 
far as Scully could tell, they were ignoring her, returning to 
their own work.  For just a moment she talked herself into 
believing that the events of last night and this morning would be 
forgotten, like a nightmare receding through the monotony of just 
another workday.

She was wondering where Mulder had ended up when she raised her 
head to see him coming down the hallway.  On his heels stalked an 
entourage of snickering agents and administrators.  

Scully rose when Mulder came around her desk.  His eyes were hot 
with mischief, but they were also dark...dark with hurt.  She had 
hurt him.  "How?" she asked quietly.

Mulder didn't respond, didn't act as though she had even spoken.  
Instead, he clamped a hard hand down on her shoulder.  With his 
free hand, he scooped up -- of all things -- a Sharpie from her 
desktop.  He opened the pen with his teeth, then spit the cap over 
Scully's shoulder.

Scully's eyes widened as he held the Sharpie up to her head.  
Using his pinky he pushed her hair away to clearly expose her 
forehead.  

"Mulder, don't," Scully said as she wondered what God-awful 
statement he planned to brand her with.

His eyes narrowed.  "Five years, Scully.  How could you not know?"

"Know what?"

"This," he growled.  Then he lowered the pen to her head.  

Scully waited to accept her punishment, but before the tip of the 
pen could touch her skin, Mulder stopped.  "Oh, hell," he said and 
tossed the Sharpie back over his shoulder.  His hand crept around 
to cup the back of Scully's neck.  His head, his face, moved 
slowly closer to hers, as it had done the night before but without 
the drunken confusion that had seemed to always make him miss his 
mark.

Scully gasped, her chest swelling as his lips touched the corner 
of her mouth.  "Mulder, what are you doing?"

"Revenge, Scully," he whispered against her skin.  "Sweet 
revenge."  And then he tilted his head and devoured her mouth.

His kiss clawed at her as possessively as his grip was tight on 
her neck, holding her to him.  All Scully could do was curl her 
hands over his shoulders and hold on for the ride as he traced the 
word 'mine' over and over on the flat of her tongue and the roof 
of her mouth.  He had said revenge, but this felt more like a 
promise, a true branding, flesh searing flesh, binding them 
together, for all to see.

When his tongue finally retreated, he pulled away with a quick nip 
to her bottom lip.  "Now everyone knows," he said breathlessly 
into her ear.  "Now you know."  Then he pushed past her to his own 
desk, ignoring the applauding crowd gathered around them.

Scully closed her eyes, trying rather unsuccessfully to block out 
the spectators.  She could still hear them.  The roar of their 
cheers, laughter and catcalls hit her in waves.  What the hell had 
just happened?  

When she opened her eyes, even Skinner was flashing a grin her 
way.  Pleased?  How could most of the bureau -- save, of course, 
one hideously scowling Diana Fowley -- be pleased that right there 
in the middle of the bullpen she and her partner had...  She and her 
partner had...

Scully sank slowly down into her chair, then swiveled around to 
face Mulder across his desk.  "Mulder, did you just pee on me?"

Mulder looked up from the report he had been -- supposedly -- 
working on.  His eyes were twinkling but unreadable as he studied 
her face.  

"Fair's fair, Scully," he finally said with a smirk and a shrug.

Scully blinked.  "W-what?" she asked around the lump lodged in her 
throat.  Mulder the Tease had struck again.  She licked her lips.  
She could still taste him there.

Mulder sighed and shook his head slightly.  Then he leaned across 
the desk, his face coming to hers, his breath brushing her mouth.  
"Was it as good for you as it was for me?" he whispered.  His eyes 
had gone feral and -- finally -- serious, and she feared as well 
as desired that he would devour her.

Just to torture him, however, Scully leaned back in her chair and 
pretended to think until a worry line spread across his forehead, 
underlining her claim on him.  She felt the corners of her mouth 
curl up despite herself.

"I hear there's a nice alley behind Casey's Pub," she said.

Mulder's eyes widened.  Then he flashed her a genuine, comfortable 
smile -- a rarity.  "Is it lunch time yet?" he asked excitedly.

Scully smiled back, and she could feel something like contentment 
touching her eyes, her lips, her heart.  Taking his hand across 
the desk, she caressed the backs of his fingers and then, turning 
him over, the inside of his wrist.  Satisfied with the little gasp 
of pleasure her touch pulled from him, she reached into the 
Styrofoam cup that held his pens and retrieved another Sharpie.  

With a shaking hand, she wrote on his palm: I Want to Believe.


-fin-

End Notes:  This is what happens when you stay up till 4:30 in the 
morning extolling the virtues, or lack thereof, of Mulder/Other 
stories with Ropobop.  Thanks, Robbie!  Ahem.  Anyway, this was my 
first and quite possibly my last attempt at humor.  It was a lot 
harder than it had looked.  Feedback?  "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Scully 
said to Mulder.  In my dreams.

Check out my other fic here: www.angelfire.com/la/xspot

Special Thanks: Robbie, Jen, ytwolf, Lisa, Lena and anyone else 
with whom I might have discussed this with over the last four 
months.

Thanks for reading!

Louise Marin - mibosh@earthlink.net - www.angelfire.com/la/xspot