By The Way by Slippin' Mickeys red_phile@yahoo.com CLASSIFICATION: H, MSR RATING: R SUMMARY: I think CSM put it best: Payback's a bitch, Ivan. KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully romance SPOILERS: None. DISCLAIMER: I could say that any similarity to actual persons (or television characters) or places is purely coincidental. But we all know that that would be a flat out lie. A more honest statement would be that similarities to persons and places are frequent, intentional, and occasionally brazen, but generally fragmentary, inconsistent, and disguised with fanciful invention. Except for Mulder and Scully. I tried my damnedest to keep them in character as consistently as they are kept in the show. (Anybody who has seen "The Red and the Black" knows that that leaves the floor WIDE open to variation.) So, because of this, I must say that I don't own 'em, and sadly, I'm making no money. But if I DID, and I WAS, my life would be vastly more interesting, and I'd be a much happier person. Of course, I'd be a retired graying surfer, but I digress. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: To the loyal support of the XFFFA (X-Files fanfiction Anonymous) over at the XFFFA site ( http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/2355/ ) , which I recommend for anyone who's hooked on fanfic. And also for the Fleet of the INOD (International Navy of Davey) ( http://www.geocities.com/~the_inod ) who help me keep my sanity by filling my spinnaker with the wind that is David Duchovny. (Which can fill my sails and keel my boat ANY TIME). And of course, to the chat chicks of Monday night. ARCHIVE: Go for it! Just keep my name and email address attached, and let me know where it's going to be so that I can visit! FEEDBACK: I dig it more than applesauce and marzipan, and only slightly less than David Duchovny. red_phile@yahoo.com NOTE: In this little world, Kersh doesn't exist, and Moose and Squirrel still are the sole proprietors of the X-Files. By The Way By Slippin' Mickeys XxXxXxXxXxX "By the way, your butt called, they want your head back." Dana Scully was livid, and she couldn't help but mutter under her breath to her partner as he huffed out of their office. When he paused abruptly in the doorway, she quickly shoved on her glasses and became instantly fascinated with the file in front of her. Fights with Mulder were like pulling teeth, and she didn't feel like getting into it with him. Again. "Excuse me?" His voice had that petulant edge that usually just added to her annoyance. She sighed and took off her glasses, looking up at him with an irritated glare. "Nothing, Mulder." "No," he said, becoming a little more assertive and pushing his way back into the room, dropping his coat on his desk and leaning into her personal space, "you said something." His voice became a little more whiny and sarcastic, "share with the class Dana." The acerbic edge he put on her the pronunciation of her first name drew her almost over the brink of civility. But if *that* was how he wanted to play it, *fine*. "It was nothing, Mulder, and by huffing off like that and leaving you're only proving my point." "You had a point?" He asked sarcastically, and regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He remembered that she did indeed have a point, and it was actually a very good one. Scully looked at him a moment, her mouth open and poised to say something, but she dropped her head back to her desk and didn't grace him with an answer. Instead, she offered a well-timed and poignant, "Fuck you, Mulder." "I'd love to, but frankly I've had better offers today." Scully was getting more furious by the second. Now he was just talking for the sole purpose of pissing her off. And God help her, it was working. She was seriously considering flipping him the bird and leaving the room, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of having the last word. So instead, she gracefully stood up, and put her file away in the cabinet. She tried to maintain her classic composure, but she couldn't help but slam the drawer shut when she was done. She walked back to her desk, completely ignoring her stewing partner. Mulder wanted to shake her up. He knew she was furious at the moment, and quiet justly so, but he wasn't in the best of moods either, and it felt good for some reason, to piss her off even more. So, he asked her a question he was sure would ruffle her feathers- nothing like cutting your nose to spite your face. "You've never reached orgasm, have you Scully?" He was expecting an instant blush and a startled, "WHAT?!?" or perhaps even a "what the hell does that have to do with anything?" but what he got was drastically different and most certainly un-Scully-like. "Oh yeah, Mulder, every few minutes. In fact, I'm having one right now." Mulder stood there with his mouth hanging open. There had never previously been a time in his life when he'd been void of a clever comeback or witty retort, but Scully had instantly and prudently rendered him speechless. She turned back to her desk and smiled smugly, chocking up two points for herself. Ha, she thought to herself, beat the bastard at his own game. He opened his mouth a few times, trying to say something, but nothing would come out. Finally, he glared at her, growled, nostrils flared and fists clenched, and walked briskly out the door. Scully watched his retreating form. She took a deep breath and smiled smugly. She then noticed that he left his jacket sitting on his desk. She picked it up and shook it. Right on cue, she heard the jingling of keys in one of his pockets. She looked from the coat to the door, back at the coat, and then back to the door. Her grin spread widely, and she sauntered over to the door, throwing the lock with a definite and victorious flick or her wrist. Several minutes passed, when she heard light footsteps come down the hall and stop in front of their office door. She waited with a triumphant smile on her face for her partner to try the door, but the handle didn't turn. She turned back to her work with a disappointed sigh. XxXxXxXxXxX Fox Mulder stood in the hallway with his hand poised above the door handle. He took several deep breaths and tried to calm himself down. They were both rational, mature adults. They didn't need to argue like petty teenagers just to prove whom was right, and whom was wrong. Mulder knew he was at fault. He'd lied to her again, and ran off, even after swearing repeatedly to himself and to her that it would never happen again. He would be the bigger person and apologize. He hated being at odds with Scully anyway. He took another deep breath and thought through what he was going to say to her, then he bowed his head, and turned the handle. And it wouldn't budge. It was locked. Scully had locked the door. Scully. Locked. The God. Damn. Door. All previous thoughts of maturity and reconciliation flew out of his head in an instant, and his anger flared up fifteen times what it had been before. He brought his hand up to pound on the door, but hesitated and brought it back down, making fists with his hands and clenching his jaw. Five deep breaths later, he was not only more angry, he was furious. He wanted to yell and scream and vent, but even more so, he wanted revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge. He formulated a plan, and headed for the elevator. When the doors finally closed, he had his best vainglorious smirk plastered on his face. XxXxXxXxXxX Mulder ran up the flights of stairs to his apartment and quickly grabbed his extra set of keys and 52$ from his emergency stash. Well, emergency stash was a glorified term for tearing apart every pocket in every jacket and pair of pants he owned. He shoved them deep into the pocket of the pants he was wearing now and got back into the waiting cab. "Back to the FBI building please." "You're the boss, buddy" The cabby said back. Damn straight, Mulder thought to himself, looking back on the events that had caused this whole ruckus. He'd gotten a call the day before about some sketchy lead on the actions of the Syndicate, and instead of telling Scully the whole story and bringing her along, he'd given her yet another brush-off answer and gone by himself. The lead turned out to be total bunk, and Scully had been reamed out by Skinner when they'd missed their meeting with him later that day. Scully had come in to work this morning with spit-fury and reamed HIM out. Instead of apologizing as he probably should have done, Mulder had gotten defensive and actually pulled the issue of his slightly higher rank on her. His whole argument was childish and stupid, but he couldn't seem to let it go. Seeing Scully so completely hot and bothered mentally took him to places he probably shouldn't go, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. Now, it was past the point of who was right and who was wrong, this time, his manhood and his pride were on the line, and he was bound and determined to one-up her no matter what the cost. The cabby dropped Mulder off in front of the parking garage entrance and waved when Mulder dropped him a large tip. Mulder quickly disappeared into the bowels of the garage in search of Scully's car. After about 30 minutes of fruitless searching, he hit gold. Her car was right near the elevator, parked in one of the larger spaces, giving her easy access to the elevator and allowing her to open her door all of the way to get in. He took out the extra car key she had given him after she had locked herself out twice and got in the car. He pushed the seat all of the way back, adjusted all of the mirrors, changed the radio station from classical to heavy rock, and turned the volume all of the way up. Then, as a final insult, he started the car, moved it to the opposite end of the garage, farthest away from the elevators, and two floors down, and parked it in between two larger trucks that were each taking up a little of the parking spot. Smugly surveying his handy work, he opened the door the inch or two that it could open and squeezed his way out. He stood behind the car, heaved a long, self-satisfied sigh, and got into his own car, smirking the whole way home. XxXxXxXxXxX "That bastard!" Scully couldn't believe it. After searching for nearly an hour for her car, she'd finally found it, and she knew just how it had gotten in it's current location. "That BASTARD!" She yelled again, surveying the scene, trying to determine how the hell she was going to get in. She was considering having to open the damn trunk and crawl in through the back seat. She looked at herself in the reflection in the rear windshield. Her nostrils were flared, and eyes were blazing. She took a few cleansing breaths, all the while formulating a plan. Then, she pulled out her cell phone and made a call. "Frohicke? Its Scully, I need a favor." XxXxXxXxXxX Mulder stepped out of the kitchen licking the last traces of pudding off of a (lucky) spoon. His phone rang, and he threw the spoon back into the kitchen, it landed squarely in the sink. "Mulder," he said cheerfully. "Mulder, its Frohicke. Hey, I've got something I want you to take a look at, think you could come over here right now?" "Uh, sure, Frohicke," Mulder replied, still on the successful-revenge-induced high. "Hey Frohicke, you okay? You sound, I dunno, nervous." "Well, um, Big Brother might be listening… Just get over here, Mulder, will ya?" "Sure, be there in a few." Mulder hung up the phone, grabbed his leather jacket, and shut the door behind him, whistling all of the way. XxXxXxXxXxX Mulder threw open the door angrily. He threw his keys on the coffee table and flopped down on his couch. He'd been at the Lone Gunmen's headquarters for over three hours, while Frohicke kept him thoroughly busy showing him old pictures of crop circles, trying to pass them off as new. Mulder didn't know if the man was stupid and just forgot he had a photographic memory, or if he had actually been fooled into thinking they were new himself. Byers and Langly had been mysteriously absent, and when Mulder questioned Frohicke about their whereabouts, he just mumbled something about "drop the childish pranks and shag." Mulder dropped the subject with a strange look. Finally, about three and a half hours into it, there was a phone call, and when Frohicke came back from answering the phone, he acted as if he suddenly lost interest in everything he'd wanted Mulder to see and told him --"that was pretty much it, thanks for coming over." Mulder rubbed his eyes, heaving a heavy sigh, and reached for the TV remote. He clicked the power button, and nothing happened. He twisted his arm around in a few directions to see if that would help. It didn't. Getting more irritated by the second, he got off the couch and pushed the manual power button on the set. And it still wouldn't turn on. He checked to make sure it was plugged in, and then went back to the couch, pushing all of the buttons on the remote. Suddenly, he heard the sounds of a trumpet, gradually getting louder. He looked closely at the TV, but there was absolutely no picture. He got off of the couch again and put his ear up to the television speakers. The music wasn't coming from the TV. As the song got louder, he recognized the tune. It was Chuck Magione's "Feel So Good." He'd remembered telling Scully on more than one occasion, in more than one elevator how irritating the song was. He glanced over at his stereo speakers, and sure enough, the light was on, and the song that would prove to be the bane of his existence was gradually resonating from there, getting louder each measure. He walked up to the main unit, and pushed the stop button. And Chuck played on. He hit the power button. And Chuck played on. He began hitting every switch, furiously hitting button after button imploring the music to stop. And even louder, still- Chuck played on. The music was getting so loud, Mulder was afraid the neighbors would start to complain, and then suddenly, gloriously, the song ended. And then it began again. Even louder. Chuck Magione had never felt so good in his life, and it was driving Mulder slowly mad. He tried to reach behind the stereo to unplug the entire unit, but the large bookshelf that it was sitting on, was screwed firmly up against the wall. He couldn't get to the outlet. The music hit the most irritating high note Mulder had yet experienced, when the phone rang. He picked up the portable and went back into the furthest kitchen corner trying to get as far from the music as he could. "Mulder!" He yelled, struggling to let himself be heard over the din. "Mr. Mulder! This is Raymond Reed from apartment 33! WOULD YOU TURN THAT SHIT DOWN?!" "I'm trying!" Mulder said desperately. "Well try harder or I'm calling the cops!" Mulder hung up and considered his options. If the police had to make one more trip to his apartment complex, the Super had said, Mulder was out, no questions asked. Lord knows they had been there enough times in the past to warrant the Super's irritation. His mind raced. What the hell was going on? And then it occurred to him. There were very few people that could manipulate technical equipment like what was going on in his living room. Byers and Langly were two of them. "Frohicke." He spat. He quickly dialed the number and waited until there was an answer. "Frohicke." "Frohicke, you little toad," he growled, "you gather the other two stooges and get your asses over here right now. I don't know what kind of prank you thought you were pulling, but it's NOT funny. Get over here and fix it pronto before I mess you all up so bad even your online friends won't recognize you!" "We'll be right over Mulder, but, well, it wasn't exactly our idea…" "What the hell do you—" He cut himself off. It hit him then with the speed and blazing ferocity of a Teflon-coated, cop-killing bullet. He let the phone slowly drop from his ear, and he absently hit the "off" button. "Sssssscully." He hissed, his voice laced with venom. He then grabbed his coat again and slammed the door behind him. XxXxXxXxXxX Scully heard the loud stamping footsteps approaching long before the pounding on the door. Shit, she thought to herself, that would be Mulder. She'd been stewing for the past half-hour. Not at the childish, petulant actions of Mulder, but rather at herself. She couldn't believe how far down she'd stooped. She walked to the door, poised to immediately apologize for everything she'd done, and set things right again. But then Mulder, using his key, entered her apartment without waiting for her to answer. Scully stood there, her eyebrows raised, her mouth wide open, visibly appalled at the gall Mulder had just walking into her apartment like that. Mulder slammed the door behind him and stared at her, angrily chewing the inside of his lip. Scully found her voice, "Just what the HELL do you think you're doing, Mulder?!" "Me?! What am *I* doing?! Oh that's rich Scully, that's precious." "Mulder, you do not just walk into my apartment, any time your little heart desires, you're lucky I didn't shoot you!" "Oh!" Mulder shouted dramatically slapping himself in the head, "I understand. You're aloud to waltz into my apartment to perpetuate some petty form of revenge, which YOU started incidentally, but *I'm* not aloud to come into your apartment to talk to you. Yes, you could have shot me, but *I* could have called the cops and had you arrested for breaking and entering! In fact, I still MIGHT!!!!" Scully's Irish temper flared at that remark, and she stood akimbo and flipped her head back. "Eh? Go ahead!" She challenged him. "Okay," Mulder answered flippantly, "I will." He brushed past her, knocking her shoulder out of the way, and picked up her phone. He punched a few keys and looked up at her triumphantly. "9-1-1? I'd like to report a break in." Suddenly aghast that Mulder had actually called the authorities, Scully strode up to the phone and clicked down the button, breaking the connection. And then, she did something she'd always wanted to do, but never felt right about, until that moment. She smacked him upside the head. Mulder stood there a second, with the phone held half-way between his ear and its cradle and looked at her. His brain registered what had just happened, and he shook his head as if to clear it, then slammed the phone back in its cradle. "What the hell was that for?!" Scully cocked her head back and gave him a look that screamed 'do you even have to ask?' and started to impatiently tap her foot. "I- I-" Mulder stuttered. "I can't believe you just hit me," he looked to the side as if talking to someone else, "I can't believe she just hit me," then, he took a step toward her and looked at her for the first time, "I can't believe you just hit me!" "Yeah, I hit you Mulder, and what are you going to do about it?!" She paused and calmed her voice down again, "are you going hit me back? Do something equally childish and stupid? Let's just stop, and act like rational adults for two minutes." "What am I going to do about it?" Mulder repeated her, not getting past her first question. "What am I going to do about it? I'll tell you what I'm going to do about it! I'll SHOW you what I'm going to do about it!!!" And then, he did it. It. The BIG it. He took three large steps across the room, grabbed Scully's face in one smooth motion, and kissed her. Hard. For a split second, she did nothing. She stood there with her eyes wide open in aghast horror that her partner and friend of nearly six years was kissing her. And then the passion and anger of the moment caught up with her and she grabbed his hair, pushed her entire body along the length of his and attacked his mouth faster than a horny sophomore. They grabbed and pawed at each other like a couple of hormonal-crazed teenagers, until one of them, neither sure which, pulled back for air. Mulder licked his lips and caught his breath, looking down at her hands which were both clamped onto his leather jacket like two vices, and asked, "was that an apology?" Scully shook the hair out of her eyes and looked up at him dazedly. "You tell me." He watched as she bit her lower lip and his entire body twitched, his nostrils flaring in lust. "If it is, do I get to do that again?" "Oh yeah," she said on a breath. He bit back a moan, "then I am so, SO sorry." "Apology," she reached up on her toes and gave him a loud, wet kiss on the lips, "accepted." She paused and lowered her voice to a deep, suggestive whisper, "but you ditch me again, Fox Mulder, and I'll hire Chuck Magione to play at your funeral." The END. XxXxXxXxXxX Kind of had some fun with this one, let me know if you did! red_phile@yahoo.com Feel free to raid Slippin' Mickeys Fanfiction Webpage! http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Crater/3303/slippin.html XFFFA (X-Files FanFiction Anonymous) http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/2355/ The INOD (International Navy of Davey) http://www.geocities.com/~the_inod