Yadda yadda in Part One

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The conscious members of the project began to cheer.

"Yes!" screamed the Red-Headed Man joyously, pumping one fist in the air. "It worked!"

"The Beekeeper's Association of America?" Crewcut Man asked proudly, playfully punching Krycek on the prosthesis. "That was a nice touch, Alex."

Krycek beamed, thinking it would be an even nicer touch when the Beekeepers Association actually started arriving.

"I've got the popcorn!" Marita exclaimed, distributing the buttery snack in stainless steel bowls taken from the alien autopsy rooms upstairs.

Darin turned one of the chairs around and straddled it. Gazing at the audio surveillance monitor with a mouthful of popcorn, he replied, "I'd kill for a television monitor."

The Well-Manicured Man took the seat next to him with a grunt. "Back in my day, we had no television. We had the screens of our imaginations. We had to take these voices and, with our minds, give them shape and poise. You youth of today, you've had it all given to you. There's nothing left to the senses!" He consulted his wrist for the time. "Damn! I missed Baywatch!"

"This will be a hundred times better than Baywatch," Blevins enthused.

Dickerson held his three broken ribs together long enough to take a seat next to Krycek, who was too excited to break three more of them.

Overcome with emotion, the Red-Headed Man began to cry.

"Here we go," muttered the Crewcut Man, remembering how the Red-Headed Man's similar histrionics during Steel Magnolias when the Consortium held their Julia Roberts film festival. "You're not sitting next to me, Wanky One. Last time you got my popcorn all soggy."

"It's everything we ever wanted!" the Red-Headed Man exclaimed, blowing his nose loudly into a handkerchief. "And here, after four years, it's all coming together so blissfully!"

Blevins put a comforting hand on the Red-Headed Man's shoulder. "He hasn't been this happy since we got Gary Hart and Donna Rice together."

"Let's be frank everyone," the Crewcut Man advised from the bar, trying to rouse Pendrell with a series of kicks to the side. "Putting these two in a luxurious hotel room isn't going to guarantee their consummation anymore than you're going to guarantee Mulder believes you just by suggesting there's an alien in -- " He broke off, eyes alight as he pulled up a chair. "Hell, this could get interesting!"

*

Crandall Oaks Inn Almeander, KY

"This is just great," Scully said wearily once the baggage carrier had left them. "The honeymoon suite. Or Larry Flynt's Kentucky headquarters."

Mulder threw his duffel bags on the bed. "It's our own little slice of Graceland, Scully. The Jungle Room. As expensive as low-brow gets."

Scully plucked one of the bottles of champagne from the ice, and her face turned as pink as its contents before she shoved it back into the bucket. "This is wierd, Mulder. We come here, unannounced, no reservations...so how come the champagne is iced down?"

Curiously, Mulder grabbed one of the bottles himself. "Liquid Lust. This stuff is $20 a bottle."

"I'm not even going to ask," she muttered, falling backwards onto the bed resignedly, kicking his bags into the floor.

Mulder examined the bed and lifted up the edge of the lace spread. "I wonder if this sucker rotates."

With a soft click, Scully watched as her reflection in the ceiling began to slowly spin. "Of course."

"Oooh," Mulder teased softly as her faced passed by where he was crouched over the controls. "It has four speeds."

"Don't you dare."

Stopping the bed, Mulder jumped on, landing parallel to her and propped his head up on one fist. "A waterbed, too."

Scully opened her eyes into his face, laughing without a sound, and smiled. The smile quickly disappeared as she used his chest as a launchpad and hefted herself off the bed.

"Ooof," Mulder replied, grimacing.

"Mulder, we're being set up."

He fought to get air back to his lungs, and finally managed, "What?"

"Those stories, Mulder." She nervously pulled all of her hair away from her face. "Those stories...this hotel room...something's not right here."

"My paranoia had to work its way into your bloodstream on tonight of all nights?" He asked in mock-regret.

Arms crossed, she glared at him. "Don't you realize how bad this looks, Mulder?"

He laughed up into his own reflection. "I see you're up to speed on the Bureau's latest anti-schtupping literature."

Sinking into one of two velour leopard-print recliners, Scully sighed. "You're not taking me the least bit seriously."

Mulder raised his head just enough to look at her and laughed again. "Not in *that* chair, I'm not."

"You know that protocol's a tricky game," she said, suppressing a smile. "The fact that we're in a room like this would make it easier for them to discredit us."

Mulder pulled himself up into a sitting position, hair mussed, looking ludicrous in his jeans and t-shirt on the fussy lace with the heart-shaped sateen pillows behind him. "Discredit us how? It's not our fault a bunch of beekeepers decided to converge on Dog's Ass, Kentucky, leaving only one room available."

"We could've gone off our main route and found another hotel," she replied, closing her eyes. "That's what they'll say."

"*They* won't say anything, Scully." He played with the brocade on one of the pillows. "If we went off course, we'd be driving for another hour. Risk Management would get us for driving tired, or Bureau Services would accuse us of mispending on either the gas mileage or the hotel room. If they're going to discredit us, they're going to do it regardless of what we do. Screw 'em."

She sighed. "That doesn't help us if they've fixed the game. If they prove otherwise."

"Prove what?" Mulder asked, exasperated. "Trace amounts of libido in your urine sample?"

"It would be a stupid reason to rein us in after all the times we've violated protocol," she admitted sleepily.

Mulder got off the bed and stood over his bags. "Hey, if they're going to reprimand us anyway....we might as well have a little fun."

Her eyes flew wide open, like he knew they would.

He grinned disarmingly. "You be Nancy Spungeon, I'll be Sid Vicious...we'll trash the place like the Bureau punks we are."

Laughing softly, Scully closed her eyes again.

Mulder grabbed one of his duffel bags and walked into the bathroom, pushing the door halfway shut. "I have first dibs on the couch."

Unaware that there was a couch, Scully opened her eyes and found the sofa across the room. "Mulder, it's bright pink."

The toilet flushed. "Are you suggesting I'm not secure enough in my manhood to lay down on a pink couch?"

"I'm just saying that you should prepare yourself for a serious taunting." Scully stretched her legs and listened to her knees protest. "Are we still going over this case file?"

Reading her mind, he said behind the door," It won't hurt my feelings if you wanna go to bed."

"Thanks," she said, as he walked out of the bathroom still wiping toothpaste off his chin.

He'd traded his t-shirt for a baggy tank top that was halfway tucked into a worn pair of sweats. Pushing his glasses onto his nose, he flung the jeans in the general direction of the chair matching Scully's. "Bathroom's all yours."

She had dozed off, and woke again startled, mostly because of the glasses.

(Well, don't look at him, then.)

"What'd you say?" she asked.

Absently, he looked up from the file, already open on his knees as he slumped forward on the guady couch. "Bathroom's all yours."

She smirked. "Does it stink in there?"

"No more than it did when I walked in," he said drily. "Patchouli oil, if you can believe it."

She groaned and leaned forward to grab one of her own bags. Mulder wasn't lying about the oppressive presence of the patchouli oil. It even clung to the towel she used to dry her face. She stepped out of her slacks and pulled her shirt over her head. She was too tired to even shower. Popping the suitcase open, she dug around for her nightgown. She could've sworn she had it there.

Opening the door half an inch, she called out, "Mulder?"

He made a strangled sound of surprise and she watched him stumble backwards. "Dammit."

"What?" She opened the door half an inch more.

"I almost fell in the Jacuzzi," he said sheepishly.

"Could you hand me my overnight case?" She curled her fingers around the door's frame. "It's the smallest one."

"I only see a bigger suitcase, Scully...sure you had three?"

"I *always* have three."

He stood in front of the bathroom door. "Was it in the backseat?"

"It was in the floorboard, by my feet."

Yawning, he grumbled, "I missed it, then." He pulled on running shoes and pushed back the curtains on the view the Bureau was paying for. There were suddenly a lot of vans outside. People were standing around them talking excitedly and up wire mesh boxes by the handles. "Oh, shit."

"What, Mulder?"

"The beekeepers are here," he said fearfully. "And I just switched back to boxers from briefs."

"Mulder...."

"Fine." He stepped away from the window. "But if I come back with a bee up my ass, it's on your head."

"Just get my suitcase."

Swearing intensely, Mulder closed the door behind him and waited for the elevator doors to open. When they did, all he had to hear was the buzzing to decide the stairs were a better choice. He took them towo at a time in a near panic, skinning his palm on the railing. In the lobby, there were more people gathered with the wire mesh cages. He stood there horrified for two whole minutes, wondering why everyone was staring at him, before it occurred to him that he had his hands protectively on his own butt. He dropped his hands casually and, throwing his precious sang-froid to the wind, made a mad dash for the car, prepared to kill the first thing that dared buzz at him.

He stopped just short of actually running *into* the car, jabbed the key in the lock, twisted it, pulled the door open, grabbed the case and slammed the door. Scully's lap belt clattered to the pavement. "Fuck," he hissed, and was about to jab the key in again to put it back when he realized the seatbelt hook-up was glowing.

*Glowing.*

(What the -- ?)

Panic now replaced by intrigue (and not the car), Mulder put Scully's overnight case down and examined the glowing attachment. He pushed the belt release button down and it faintly illuminated his hand. That's when he realized that the seatbelts were installed backwards. He pondered the suit he and Scully might have against Intrigue's parent company until he realized that if they had actually bothered to put the seatbelts on when they got in the car, they'd have known right off the bat that the seatbelts didn't work, thus negating the legal issue. Law sucked.

Using the corkscrew extension of the Swiss army knife on his keyring, Mulder widened his view into the inside of the seatbelt for just an instant, and saw an almost impossibly small cluster of...well, he had no idea what they were called, but Scully had found one in her ink pen once. A listening device. They'd been bugged.

And how.

Shit.

He used the knife extension to rip through the nuclear war-resistant burlap of the strap. Sure, he could've dragged Scully outside, but he really *wanted* to lose one more rental car security deposit for the Bureau. Two more and he got a three-day suspension. If he could finangle it for a Wednesday, he'd have a five day vacation without actually subtracting from his massive build-up of vacation. Memphis was calling again. It made his pelvis twitch just thinking about it. They'd both be suspended, in fact. Scully could go, too. They could eat fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches together on Beale Street, and he would buy her some cheesy-ass sunglasses and a --

Finally, the strap had let itself be severed. He held the seatbelt portion in his hand like a burning ember, grabbed her overnight case and ran back into the hotel in the same sissy, undignified way he had run out.

Mulder tore down the hallway leading to their room, slammed the door again and was surprised that the tasteless suite could somehow inspire calm.

"Mulder?" Scully called out fearfully, and he heard the strain in her voice of a woman who had considered the possibility that her partner had been shot in the parking lot and left for dead.

"It's me," he said, still clutching the seatbelt.

"Dammit, Mulder." He heard her stomp across the ceramic tile. "You were gone for 20 minutes! You'd damn well better have a bee up your ass!"

"It could be arranged," he said, flipping it by the piece of strap, back and forth, back and forth. Oh, hell...whoever it was, they knew *all about* the bee thing. Mulder swallowed numbly. They'd probably authored the bee thing, just to get to him. Those bastards.

"Put my suitcase outside the door."

He pushed it over and turned his back. "Go ahead. I'm not looking."

She blindly groped for the handle, and Mulder kicked it closer to her fingers.

"What were you doing out there?"

"Tell you in a minute," he said quietly.

Opening the bathroom door and kicking the case out of her way, she stood there. Mulder held back an urge to roguishly whistle. "You said you didn't have a gown like that."

"Shut up, Mulder." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I refuse to wear a bra to bed and it's chilly in here."

He nodded and walked to the light switch, throwing the room into darkness. "I want you to see something, Scully."

She backed away as he approached her. "What?"

"This. Look."

"Mulder, I demand to know what I'm about to touch."

Wishing he had chosen a place closer to the mini-bar so he could've handed her the complimentary summer sausage, Mulder opened his fingers and a soft glow of crimson outlined her silouette faintly. "Look."

Opening her eyes, Scully decided that it wasn't anything nasty unless Mulder's detached from his body and glowed. "What is that?" She took it from him.

"I don't know," he said emptily. "But the inside of it looks like that device you found in your pen, plus three years of scientific advancement later."

"They were listening?" she asked, winded.

In the dark, she couldn't see him nodding as he uttered, "They heard *everything.*"

*

Consortium Headquarters

"Damn!" The Red-Headed Man hit the table hard enough to stir everyone's drinks. "They're on to us!"

Dickerson put his face in my hands. "They're not going to read my story now," he mourned. "All that work, all that emotion. And they'll never know it!"

Moodily nursing his drink, the only conscious member not sitting, the Crewcut Man steamed quietly. "What's the point of my cautionary tale if they don't get to the cautionary part?"

"At least they started to read yours," Dickerson said in a whine that threatened to become a sob.

The Crewcut Man slapped Dickerson paternally on the back. "Was this your first story, son?"

"You're my dad?" the younger agent asked happily.

Chagrined, the Crewcut Man sighed. "No, no, just a figure of speech."

Dickerson sat back down. "Oh. Yeah, it was my first story."

He removed his hand. "No one reads your first story. It's just how things work."

The whole room was in shock. They knew they'd have to evacuate the scene. Like Dickerson's premiere story going unread, it's how things were done. They'd leave as they had come in -- unfulfilled. Not ever their best attempts at prose had been able to guarantee that these two would insert point A into point B, adhere themselves with one another's fluids and throw down on some paranormal lovin'.

The Red-Headed Man was prepared to dismiss everyone on the list, except for the unconscious members, who would be given a "memory wipe" and the Well-Manicured Man, who hadn't *needed* a memory wipe since the Bush administration. So, minus those three, that left eight. One, two, three...no, there must've been some mistake. He counted again.

"Dammit!" He hit the table once more. "The Elder left with his story while no one was paying attention!"

The Crewcut Man fought to remember if he'd ever been in the room. "Guys, about three minutes in, he excused himself for the bathroom. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen him since."

Blevins looked like he was about to overload his motherboard with 100 megabytes of whup-ass. "That son of a bitch is doing it again!"

Nodding glumly, the Red-Headed Man surveyed the door. "He was here long enough to get his hard copy and disk back. Then he left before the door activated so he wouldn't have to request special permission to -- oh no!"

"What now?" the Crewcut Man bellowed.

Shakily pointing at the door, the Red-Headed Man said numbly, indicating the Cigarette-Smoking Man, "He's the only one with the deactivation code!"

Marita gasped. "You mean we're trapped in here?"

"Ding, ding, ding!" chimed Krycek. "Show Ms. Clairol what she's won!"

The Crewcut Man picked up their unconsciously smoking leader and shook him violently by the shoulders. "Rise and shine, old man! Give us the exit code!"

But in his programmed squeaky Tiny Tim falsetto, the Cancerman happily answered, "Deny everything! Deny everything!"

*

Crandall Oaks Inn Almeander, KY

Even though Scully knew the answer, she asked, arms still crossed, "What are these people listening for?"

"Maybe it's just a Nielsens thing." Mulder twisted his mouth bitterly. "Maybe they just wanted to know what we'd watch on television."

She sunk down into the leopard print chair once more, arms now laying across the sides of the chair, fingernails dug into the velour. "What about the beekeepers, Mulder? You said they're really here. Do you think whoever's behind this called them in?"

"Mark this down as a rare occasion," he replied wryly, "but I think that's stretching it."

"So who *is* behind this?"

"Them."

Her fingernails drummed impatiently. "Them who?"

"The whole Them family, Scully." Removing his glasses with one hand and rubbing the bridge of his nose with the other, he smirked. "Who else would it be?"

"I don't recall you mentioning a Smut-Writing Man," she quipped. "Someone's playing a joke on us, Mulder."

"A bit complex for a joke," he scoffed. "Sending us some erotic literature with us as the main characters, only amateurly written at best, sure. I might buy that theory. But bugging our car? Sabotaging our hotel stay? And bugging our room?" He rolled his eyes. "Thought it *was* my understanding that the Syndicate only brought out the sci-fi, hi-tech crap for the important stuff, I can't see an individual having the money, connections or ingenuity to bankroll this kind of thing. Besides, the story styles -- for what little talent they showed -- were so disparate that it had to be a group. A group who knows us very well."

"You know," Scully said distantly. "I didn't think they were *all* so bad. Some of them struck me as being very well written."

Mulder laughed until he realized she wasn't joking. "Okay, so you give the Exacto knife story points for accuracy and that sick-ass bee story points for originality, but there wasn't anything well-written about one of them. I've read *field reports* that turned me on more than that crap."

"Which field reports?" she inquired, sincerely interested.

Dismissively waving his hand, Mulder closed his own eyes and yawned again. "The object of the stories was to get us thinking about sex, Scully. So that we would come to this hotel room and do it. So they could give the audio tape to the highest bidder, who could use it as a basis to discredit us and reassign us."

"Did you ever consider that maybe they're just trying to put us together?" Scully watched his face carefully. "I mean, just to forward their own agenda, of course..."

"They wouldn't know romance if it crawled into their orifices and took over their bodies, okay?" He said, tired. "So, yeah, for their own agenda. The stakes would be higher then, for both of us."

Mulling over that, Scully finally said, "We're at least pretty sure Krycek wrote that one story."

He nodded. "I've heard some reports recently of where men had, after traffic accidents, attempted to press charges against the other driver, stating that as a result of the accident, they'd taken to hanging out in gay bars and dating other men. I knida wonder if something similar hasn't happened to Krycek, because of the arm loss. Post-traumatic homosexuality."

"Sounds like an X-File," she said, smiling.

"Yeah. Be a damned shame if *that* one fell through the cracks and never got investigated, huh?"

She laughed as he excused himself to go to the bathroom. Once he had the door securely closed, he pulled the "bug", the seatbelt attachment, out of the waistband of his sweatpants and dropped the toilet seat cover so he could sit down. He toed his shoes off and stretched his legs out. Of course, he felt ridiculous speaking into a seatbelt, and wasn't sure how to proceed. But after darkly asking "Is this thing on?", the rest seemed to spill naturally.

"Of course it's on," he said smoothly. "Unless, not surprisingly, one of you bumbling morons forgot to activate it. I'm no mechanical genius, but usually things aren't lit up unless they're on, so it's open-mike now, live from the Crandall Oaks Inn honeymoon suite bathroom. I hope you're all jumping out of your skin right about now.

"I used to have respect for you guys. Okay, respect isn't the right word. A grudging admiration for your ability to fuck two things up for every one thing I manage to figure out. We're working at cross-purposes, I know. But at least I never underestimated my opponent by imagining you guys as I am now. I picture a bunch of self-important stuffed shirts gathered around a huge oak table. Am I warm? In the center of the table is whatever speaker is broadcasting my voice. You're just sitting there, pathetically waiting around for a good lay. Most guys do this is a bar. You're not even good enough to be *that* pathetic. You're sitting around waiting for *me* to get laid." Mulder snorted softly. "Hope you brought a comfy chair and a drink. Because, if you've learned anything by surveilling me, all I do is sit around watching *pre-recorded people* get laid, and unless the tape's really good, it's pre-recorded people just pretending to get laid. But at least I have nine channels of it right through that door. What do you have? Me, talking into a seatbelt, being broadcast who knows where. The diagnosis is in: you're pathetic. More pathetic than me. Who knew?" Mulder laughed. "Nice to not be at the bottom of that heap.

"But I digress.

"I know what you're thinking. You think I haven't heard the rumors? 'Fox Mulder *must* be gay, because he hasn't pinned his pretty partner yet.' Well, hate to break this to you, Krycek, but it isn't so. Now, I have nothing against homosexuals. But you happen to be the homosexual who shot my father. Call me crazy, but I'd sooner turn your head into a lawn ornament than drop my pants in your presence.

"You think I haven't thought about what Scully and I might have together? Of course I have. You think that when she emerged from that bathroom a few minutes ago, I didn't have to catch my breath and swallow my fear of how beautiful she is? She's phenomenal, she's perfect, she's brilliant. She's so *together*, on the mark. She's true. You think if, for a minute, if I could die and make all of her problems go away...? You think I wouldn't do it? I'd be eating my gun right now.

"But with those admissions, I have to admit that I'm afraid of what she'd say if I ever asked her...what if she ruffled my hair like I was some kid and walked laughingly out of my life, telling me to get back in the fucking sandbox?" Mulder wasn't quite sure where that metaphor had come from, but continued. "What if she deserves better? And if not, *why* not?

"It's too bad your marionette gag didn't work. It's too bad we're not so suggestive and so easily manipulated. When I make such overtures to Dana Scully, it's going to be on my own -- probably awkward and laughable -- terms. Not because a bunch of horny old 60-somethings wanted to live through me vicariously. That's kind of sick, don't you think?

"Oh, and whoever came up with that bee scenario?" Mulder narrowed his eyes. "You're the sickest of the sick. You disgust me, and I had always considered myself a person who liked disgusting things. Consider the bee's feelings, huh?

"Well, I'm done." Mulder sighed. "I just came in here to remind you what complete failures you are. Mission possible, sure, but not happening. Have I mentioned you're pathetic? Right.

"I'm sure you have other listening devices around the room, but somehow, I feel I can't just leave you on the back of the toilet. I'm a decent human being." He dangled the seatbelt by the piece of strap in his fingers. "You should be entertained somehow. Oh, look, it's the romance radio. You put your money in and choose your music. And -- I have change." He briefly frisked himself before he remembered his sweatpants had no pockets. Shrugging, he wedged the seatbelt between teh twoel bar and the wall right next to the speaker. On the back of the toilet was a laminated booklet that was chained down, a musical menu. He flipped through it and spoke to the towel bar. "Number 0932 is... The Best of Lawrence Welk. Hmmm. Nah, you old farts probably like that kind of thing."

He leafed through it. "1497 is...Charro Sings Broadway Standards. I'll keep that one in mind. 2032, German speed metal, volumes 1 and 2. No you guys would *hate* that. Of course you would. That's why I'm going to play it for you tonight. Good luck transcribing the words." Mulder turned to leave the bathroom and grab his jeans when a manicured finger snaked around his arm and indicated a number in the book near the bottom of the page.

Scully stood there with a handful of quarters, hair spilling out in an auburn halo.

"It's the loose change angel!" Mulder said, suddenly self-conscious and flush. He read the corresponding entry to the number she picked out. "But Scully...that's evil."

She raised both eyebrows. "My point exactly."

He took the quarters out of Scully's open hand and deposited them in the coin slot. "The music that'll get some people laid, huh?"

"German speed metal?" she shot back.

He tossed the book back onto the toilet, its long chain clinking against the side of the tank. "Anarchists need love, too, Scully." He punched the number in, and asked her calmly. "How much did you hear me say just now?"

"The tail end," she said vaguely.

Mulder searched her face. Unfortunately, he believed her.

She pushed the bathroom door open and waited for him to leave before she closed it, leaving whoever listened on the other end of the device alone with four dollar's worth of the Bay City Rollers.

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