TITLE: FOX MULDER'S BIG BLUES AUTHOR: Anubis the Annoying E-MAIL: AnubisKV5@cs.com DATE: 10-01-2005 FEEDBACK: Constructive feedback always appreciated! RATING: NC-17! No minors allowed! Shoo! Go away! This isn't for you! (NC-17 is the copy- righted rating of the MPAA; no infringement intended.) SPOILERS: Seasons 1-3 up to and including Quagmire. For my purposes, the events in "3" never happened. BETA-READER: The wonderful, The Amazing Maleeni ... er ... I mean, Aerostar. Glad you and yours survived Katrina, dear-heart (even if you did it for days and days, situated in your own personal hot, humid Gulf Coast swamp, with skeeters the size of dinner plates, sweatin' out the wazoo and doing it all with- out the benefit of electricity)! Life would *not* be remotely the same without you in it! Awl other arrows; in thus storey is! my. owen,, CATEGORY: MSR, H, RST, PWP. ARCHIVE: I will post to Ephemeral and Gossamer. All others please ask first. I'll likely say yes; I just wanna know whar it's goin'. DISCLAIMER: Not mine; I only wish. The X-Files characters belong to 1013 Productions, Chris Carter and Fox. No rights implied. I'm only borrowing them. No infringement intended. SUMMARY: Sometimes, it was a real bitch to be an F.B.I. agent. Or Fox Mulder, for that matter. Actually, when he thought about it, Fox Mulder decided it was a bitch to be Fox Mulder pretty much all of the time. In fact, most of the time it just downright sucked. Big time. AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for the Virtual Season of Smut Challenge - Season 3 at Fandomonium.net (please note the address has changed from ".com"). As said before, I am *not* the authors "Anubis" or "Anubis-Lite" at Gossamer. I'm a totally separate indivi- dual, ergo, AnubisKV5. DEDICATION: For Aerostar, ahite? For Marlene, for old times sake, deep friend- ship and fellow-lust for a certain tall, dark-haired, lanky, hazel-eyed actor, writer and director-guy, and Beckyc and SilverD -- for pretty much the same reasons! For NancyBratt and Dusty, for new-times sake. For R-Pod and her Mom Pod. For AJ, SSD and Becca, always. ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ Sometimes, it was a real bitch to be an F.B.I. agent. Or Fox Mulder, for that matter. Actually, when he thought about it, Fox Mulder decided it was a bitch to be Fox Mulder pretty much all of the time. In fact, most of the time it just downright sucked. Big time. This was one of those times. Next to a small campfire, on the bank of Heuvelmans Lake in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, Mulder had been lying on a blan- ket and bedroll, a pillow under his head, with another couple of blankets draped over him for warmth. Unable to sleep, he had been staring up into the stars for several hours now. His hunt for the alleged prehistoric lake monster, Big Blue, was over. Other than a very, very dead alligator, a whole lot of bruises, a slightly sprained ankle and some swollen and sore toes, he had nothing to show for his troubles. Okay, that was wrong. He *had* killed an extraordinarily large 16 foot male alligator, estimated to be roughly 800 to 850 pounds and possibly as much as 70 years old, which, as he had come to under- stand, was pretty damned big, pretty damned old and pretty damned unusual for an American alligator in the wild. He also had something else big to show for his troubles: the people who lived around Heuvelmans Lake hated his guts. Every. Last. One. Of. Them. Mulder sighed. Yep. That friggin' damned al- ligator had predated quite a number of cattle, deer, cats, dogs, frogs, other assorted wild- life, residents and tourists over the years, and though he had saved the rest of the popu- lation from a similar fate, everyone hated him. "Well, you slew the big white whale, Ahab," as his partner, Dana Scully, had phrased it. Yet he was widely hated. Why? Oh, sure, at first they *loved* him because he had rid the Lake of its mysterious killer, effectively stopping the deaths. But as the next day wore on, after the long night before, when Mulder himself had barely escaped the wrath and feeding frenzy of that big-ass alligator with some bruises and a slightly sprained ankle from tripping over a log, when he and Scully went into town to Sheriff Hindt's office to file the necessary papers and reports, he noticed that people were staring at him. With what seemed like an awful lot of hostility toward someone who had undoubtedly just saved even more lives. He had leaned over and whispered his concerns to Scully, but she had only raised her eye- brow at him and, with a sign and dramatic roll of her eyes, whispered back to him, "Mulder, you're just being paranoid ... again." However, when, as they were leaving the Sheriff's office late that afternoon, a cute little girl of maybe five or six years rode up to them on her cute pink bicycle (complete with cute training wheels, a cute basket with cute flowers and cute pastel streamers flying from the cute handles), even Scully was forced to change her mind and believe her ever-paranoid partner. The cute little girl, in her pretty blue gingham-checked blouse, blue pants and match- ing sweater and bright blue boots, with her perfect blonde ringlets, stopped right in front of Mulder, got off her bicycle, put her hands on her hips, stared up, roughly 3 feet, into his eyes. Then, completely without warning, she kicked him in the shins. Hard. Repeatedly. While Mulder hopped around, cursing under his breath, trying to hold his shins -- which was really difficult to do since he had been kicked in *both* of them -- Scully put her- self between the cute little girl and Mulder and asked the girl why she had kicked "the nice man." "A'cause, he amn't nice!" she stated loudly in her high, little girl voice, pointing one finger dramatically at Mulder accusingly, her seemingly innocent blue eyes flitting from Scully to Mulder, "*he* done kilded Big Blue!" Then, without further adieu, after another long glare at Mulder, she zoomed around Scully, stomped on Mulder's toes (on the foot with the already-slightly sprained ankle), then kicked Mulder in his right shin again, jumped on her cute pink bicycle and sped off, blonde ringlets and streamers blowing in the breeze. Residents, including a couple of the Sheriff's deputies, had stopped to watch the display and had actually clapped at the girl's actions and cheered on the cute little brat!! After that, it was all uphill. It seemed *everyone* hated Mulder now. He had not only effectively ended the "Legend of Big Blue," but had also pretty much single- handedly destroyed the biggest paying tourist attraction for hundreds of miles around Heuvelmans Lake as well. The residents were going to be hurting with the slack in the Big Blue economy because of one overly-obsessed F.B.I. agent's passions. In less than twenty-four hours, everyone seemed to have forgotten the half-eaten Boy Scout troop leader, the souvenir shop owner of the unforgettable "Show Me Your Bobbers" hat, the disappeared and presumed dead biolo- gist, the dead stoner snorkeler, the equally- obsessed missing and presumed dead photo- grapher, and the others who had been killed and attacked. Hell, even Sheriff Hindt was pissed off at him! And the damned gator had nearly gotten the Sheriff, too! All Mulder had wanted to do was go home to Arlington and his dingy, dusty little apart- ent, nurse his wounded ego, his bruised shins, his sore ankle and his swollen toes. Normally, Scully was quick in booking return flights to D.C., but this time she had taken it upon her- self to call A.D. Skinner and ask for an extra few days to recuperate, auspiciously, to spend them in the beautiful, glorious great outdoors at Heuvelmans Lake. Suddenly, she was Special Agent Dr. Dana "Girl Scout" Scully was all for taking hikes around the wilderness and shoreline and otherwise communing with nature. In other words, she was happy as a proverbial clam. Mulder, on the other hand, was horrified and did not even want to leave his cabin. The management of the Lake View Cabins hated him, too. For obvious reasons, their business would suffer quite profoundly due to the loss of Big Blue. They would have been tickled pink to throw him out on his ear, but, after all, the F.B.I. was paying for his lodging and they would need the money. Grudgingly, they let him keep his cabin. That did not mean, however, that they had to make his life easy. The cabins, when they had checked in, had cable TV. Mulder's cabin no longer did, and he suspected cable access to his cabin had been cut off, out of sheer spite. The TV's antenna reception was abso- lutely lousy in the mountains, so Mulder was literally bored to tears. He also could not get anyone to deliver food to him, nor would anyone at even the worst greasy spoon serve him, so he was forced to eat out of vending machines from the Lake View Cabins' office. Right about now, he would just about kill for a salad and some of Scully's yogurt with bee pollen. That showed how perversely desperate he was! Also, the Heuvelmans Lake residents kept knocking on his door and running, not to men- tion phoning him at all hours to yell obscen- ities in his ear, chew him a new one and slam the phone down as hard as they could, giving him more than one headache. It was happening with such alarming regularity that he could not get any rest. Close to midnight, Mulder finally gave up. He got dressed, stuffed some vending machine junk food, a canteen of water and a pack of matches into his backpack, and grabbed his flashlight, a Coleman lantern, the bedroll and a pillow and blankets provided by the management. Mindless of his sore ankle and swollen toes, and without a word to Scully, he headed off to the lake. After about a forty-five minute hike, Mulder found what appeared to be an obscure and little-used inlet and promptly set up "camp" and a fire. He would have really preferred to have had a tent, but he did not dare ask for it, fearing someone would take the tent stakes and drive them through his eyes or his heart. Or worse, spray it with doe estrus, in hopes of attracting a carnivorous bear to rid them of their F.B.I. menace. Left to his own devices and the dreariness of his own thoughts, Mulder realized he was get- ting depressed. Of course, naturally, the fog from the marshes and lake was obscuring his view of the heavens more and more. Great. Even Mother Nature hated him now. All he needed was rain to round it all out. He'd probably get pneumonia. And die. And the residents would find his dead body, happily chop it up and feed it to the fishes. Mulder was feeling pretty sorry for his mis- erable self and, dammit, he was going to enjoy it! No one, not even Scully, would know what had happened to F.B.I. Special Annoyance Fox Mulder. Oh sure, Scully would look for him for maybe four or five hours, half a day tops, then give up and go back to D.C. without him. She would cry for him -- for maybe a an hour or two, if that. Wasn't that enough? Then she, A.D. Skinner and the Federal Bureau of Invest- igation would be well-rid of their resident loose cannon, Special Idiot Fox Mulder. "Spooky" Mulder -- the bane of the F.B.I., Heuvelmans Lake, pretty red-headed patholo- gists and assistant directors everywhere. No more flukemen. No more lights in the sky. No visits to off-limits military bases. No more bizarre 302s to submit and try to get past Skinner. No more Dr. Bambis. No more "deaths by cockroach." No more weird alien abductions and men in black who looked re- markably like that wrestler Jesse Ventura *and* Jeopardy's host, Alex Trebek. No more ditching of Scully. No more watching of Scully. *Sigh.* Mulder took a deep breath and re- leased it, watching his breath condensate in the already foggy air. Scully. He would really miss his Scully. *Sigh.* He had been mad for her since nearly the beginning of their partnership, but he had never told her and never would. All he could do was feign indifference about his own feelings. *Sigh.* There was no way someone like Scully could love someone like him. Scully. *Sigh.* (Damn, he was sick of sigh- ing!) --Scully of the gorgeous auburn hair and blue eyes. --Scully of the petite but voluptuous figure that she tried so hard to hide under those serious, conservative, power business suits (but failed, at least in his mind). Mulder shifted where he was lying, his jeans suddenly becoming rather tight. He tried not to notice; he did not want to derail this particular train of thought. Especially since it was going to be one of his last, he was certain... --Scully of the beautifully-sculpted calves -- and thighs of which he occasionally got a glimpse, thank you very much! --Scully whose dark bra sometimes showed through her lighter-colored blouses, giving him a tiny, albeit still-clothed, idea of what heaven must be like. Mulder's left hand slipped from behind his head on the pillow and under the blanket, inching toward his crotch, taking the blanket with it. He stopped himself; he could not do this here. Could he? Mulder rolled his head and looked around. Nope. Not a soul around. Not a killer gator. Not even one of those damned depopu- lating frogs, rhino... what the hell was the name of that damned frog that Dr. Faraday had been waxing so poetically about? Rhiny ... Rhinu... Rhino... Aw, who the hell cared? Everyone hated him anyway; he would be fish bait by morning. Why the hell not?? His hand continued its slow, tortuous journey south as his mind drifted further into the gutter. --Scully of the raised eyebrow (which turned him on *so* much, especially when it was aimed at him). --Scully of the plump red lips, formed into a pouting little "o" when he presented what she obviously considered to be one of his more ridiculous and outrageous theories. --Scully of the delectable fuck-me heels. --Scully all the time, for that matter, look- ing completely fuckable... "What the *hell* do you think you're doing, Mulder?" From a totally prone position, Mulder would have jumped straight to his feet at the sound of Scully's voice, but he had just barely enough presence of mind to simply sit up, grab the blanket and bunch it up in his lap. He was not a religious man by nature, but right about now, he prayed that she had not noticed the considerable bulge in his jeans. He twisted around on the bedroll facing her, away from the water, holding the blanket in his left hand and blinked up at her owlishly. It took him a minute to recover, to realize she was asking what he was doing *out here,* not what he was doing with his hand on his equipment. Still ... "Wh-what are you doing out here, Scully?" he asked stupidly. There she stood in the moonlight, with the light of the lantern and the campfire shining in her eyes and hair, giving her complexion a soft, rosy-golden glow. Ah, he could die happy now. His goddess was here! She was wear- ing a worn-out sweatshirt with a jacket, a pair of sweatpants with holes in the knees, unmatched baggy socks and old, muddied sneak- ers, carrying a backpack, a flashlight, a canteen and a lantern of her own. Her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, curling tendrils of her pretty hair escaping its con- finement, wearing nothing more than a frown and no make-up on her face. Scully had *never* looked more gorgeous to him. Ooooh! And there were those pursed plump little "o" lips!!! He felt another stirring in his groin, in spite of himself and clenched his teeth. Scully clicked off her flashlight and set it down with her lantern and canteen, then dropped her backpack. She stood up straight, folded her arms, raised that eyebrow sexily and said, "I couldn't sleep. I know you rare- ly can, and I was hungry, so I ordered a pizza. When it was delivered, I took it to your cabin to share with you. I found the door unlocked ... and *you* were gone." She glared at him for a moment. Mulder could only blink for a few seconds, and found that all he could do was basically stutter. "Y-you br-brought me p-pizza?" "I *did,* Mulder, but you weren't there," she stopped and continued staring at him. "Um ... I, uh, I just needed to get away for a little while, Scully," he hedged. The eye- brow climbed higher and his bulge grew more prominent. "How'd you find me anyway?" "I *am* a trained investigator, Mulder," she told him, as if that revealed the secrets of the universe, as if he had forgotten that fact (which he had when he saw her). When she realized she was not getting through to him, Scully elaborated. "Your blankets, bed- roll, pillow, canteen, flashlight and lantern were missing. But the keys and the car were still there. And your stash of junk food was missing. Outside the door, I saw a path trampled in the grass and weeds, and, after I got my gear, I followed it." Scully's glare had not abated. "That's why they put the 'I' in the 'F.B.I.,'" she quoted at him, "And here you are." "I appreciate that you were worried about me, Scully," Mulder said, looking away from her, "but you really didn't have to come find me; I'm all right." The frown disappeared from her face and Scully knelt on the blanket in front of him. "Mulder, it's okay to be disappointed. I know how badly you wanted Big Blue to be real." Mulder glanced up at her and then back down, picking at a thread on the blanket. "Well, yeah. I know. It's just that..." "...it was too good to be true?" Scully sug- gested without a trace of rancor in her voice. "Yeah," he admitted sheepishly and shrugged helplessly. "Isn't it always?" "I'm sorry, Mulder," Scully said softly, for- cing him to look up into her eyes. "Scully, it's *me* who should be sorry," he told her. "I acted like a jackass about your dog. I'm really sorry about Queequeg." Scully shrugged this time, as if it did not bother her, but he saw a glint of tears in her eyes. "C'mere, Scully." He reached out and pulled her into his arms and they sat quietly for a moment staring at the campfire, her head on his shoulder. "I really *am* sorry about Queequeg, Scully," Mulder repeated quietly. "And I'm sorry about the way everyone around here hates you now, Mulder," Scully told him in all sincerity. "Because of ... well, you know ... Big Blue." "You know there wasn't a Big Blue. Just a big, nasty ol' alligator and a lot of local folk- lore. And a hopeful figment of my imagination. You were right, Scully." Overcome with his apology and admission that *she* was right for a change, Scully lifted her head and turned to kiss him on the cheek at the exact moment he turned to speak to her. Both of them squeaked when their lips met, and yet they held the kiss for a good minute more than was strictly necessary for an accident. Scully broke away first and moved back. Eyes wide and blushing furiously, she tried to cover her face with her hands. "Please," Mulder tugged her hands down and pulled her against him, looking down into her eyes with what could only be love. At least he hoped that's what his expression conveyed. "Don't *ever* pull away from me, Scully. That kiss, however unintentional, was a better reward than finding Big Blue could have ever been!" Scully stared into his eyes for what seemed like hours. He wasn't sure what she was look- ing for, but apparently she found it because the next thing he knew, she'd tackled him and he was on his back. She was on top of him holding his stubbled cheeks in her hands and kissing the life right out of him. Mulder was stunned into absolute, literal sub- mission, paralyzed and unable to move his hands from his sides to join in on the sen- sual onslaught. Instead, he just remembered some old advice: "lie back and think of..." well, not England, that was for certain! He nearly shivered at the thought of Phoebe Green, but Scully knocked any thoughts of New Scotland Yard's resident tart right out of his head when she slipped her tongue between his lips and teeth and started her own brand of fire. Hoo boy! This kind of fire he loved. Okay, well, it *was* unexpected and it *did* scare him just a little bit, but if he died right now, it would be of Scully-inhalation instead of smoke. He could die happy with that, he decided. Groaning with the kiss, the electric touch of her tongue on his apparently freed him from his state of paralysis. Mulder brought his hands up and, as gently as possible, removed the band from her hair, then threaded his fingers through her luxuriant locks, causing them to spill around both their faces. They had to break the kiss in order to catch their breaths, and Scully was lying fully on top of him, both of them panting hard. "Scully!" Mulder smiled in delight, realizing well after the fact that her right hand had moved away from his face and had worked it- self up under his sweatshirt, her fingers tangling in his chest hair. It felt ... oh god! It felt a damned sight better than his fantasies! "What's gotten into you?" he asked. "Actually, nothing ... yet." His heart nearly stopped at her next words. "But, you, hope- fully. And soon." After a brief but intense look into his eyes, she dove in for another heated kiss. He was sure she was trying to dig out his tonsils with her obviously very dexterous tongue. Mulder didn't have the heart to tell her they had been removed when he was nine. Hell, she could excavate for them all she wanted! In fact, he would get a tonsil transplant if that made her happy, as long as she promised to *never* stop looking for them like this! This was definitely better than all the ice cream he had been given after the tonsillec- tomy. Oh! And her nails under his shirt were gently scratching his left nipple. His whole body seemed to be kind of spastically responding all at once, each individual part apparently to fly away in opposite directions. At the same time, his hands were having a helluva time trying to find the best spot to settle on her lithe, squirming little body. It had been far too long, since his body seemed to be having trouble remembering what to do, dammit! Scully was straddling him, sitting on his upper thighs, her knees tickling his ribs. His shirt was pushed up to his armpits and, while she was cutting off his oxygen supply, he realized suddenly that her efficient lit- tle hands had already unbuttoned his jeans and were in the process of unzipping his fly. There was no way she could have missed his, um, problem. "Scully!" he broke away from her long enough to grab her hands. "Are you sure this is what you want? I mean, *I* want it ... more than anything. More than you can know. You're ... you're everything to me, Scully. Everything ... but it's important ... I have to know ... is this what *you* want?" Scully smiled sweetly at him and her voice was a growl when she replied, "Oh yeah, Mulder. I know *exactly* what I want ... and if you don't let go of my hands, I'm guessing that the lake monster won't be the only thing blue around here!" Mulder stared back at her for a few seconds, then howled in laughter. "Scully! I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!" "Oh, I'll just *bet* you're shocked, Mulder," Scully grinned at him. Then she reached into his jeans and smiled in overwhelming delight when she discovered he wasn't wearing any underwear ... and promptly grabbed his package. Mulder yelped in surprise and grabbed at her hands again. "What is it with doctors and their cold stethoscopes and cold hands, Scully? Why is *everything* about them *cold*?" "Not *everything* about a doctor is cold, Mulder. That's a myth ... just like Big Blue," she grinned, an evil little smirk on her face. "Now, if you'll just let go of my hands, I'm quite certain that *this* doctor can warm you up. I'd say you need warming up because your Big Blues are pretty cold right now and will get even colder and bluer if I don't do something about it. And soon." Mulder chuckled again, but released her hands, allowing her to take him more fully into her own. As promised, her ministrations were warming him nicely, and, in fact, were bring- ing him to full attention, in more ways than one. His eyes rolled back in his head and he groaned once more, but managed enough presence of mind to slide his own hands up under her tattered sweatshirt and send them north. He was just as surprised and delighted to discover that she wasn't wearing a bra. "Oh god, Scully!" Mulder groaned. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear you planned this." "What makes you think I didn't, Mulder? After all, *I* am the one who called A.D. Skinner for the extra days off," Scully replied, en- joying the feel of his warm hands cupping her breasts and his fingers fondling her nipples pleasurably into taut peaks. She did not give him the chance to respond because at the same time she kissed him again, she wrapped her hand around his cock and squeezed gently, causing him to moan into her mouth. It was just the invitation she needed and she began what Mulder was already secretly refer- ring to as "Dr. Scully's Tonsil Mining." Not that he was complaining... "Mulder," Scully murmured against his lips. "I want you. Now." She squeezed him again. "Sc-Scully ... if you keep doing that, it's going to be over before it begins," he reached down and stilled her hand. He loved Scully; he wanted Scully. "But you have to be sure this is what you want," he told her. "Are you certain?" "Mulder," Scully warned, "if you ask me that again, I'm going to get up, go back to my cabin and eat cold pizza ... and leave you here with your blues bigger, bluer and colder than ever." She reached a little further down and squeezed the big blues in question. Mulder made another strangled sound and said, "Okay, Scully. Okay; you win. You win." He pulled her down to him and instigated a little tonsil-hockey of his own, not caring or even noticing that her tonsils were mis- sing, too. One of his hands hand pushed up her shirt and was caressing her soft skin over her delicate spine while the other hand crept down under her waistband, gently squeez- ing her ass. If anyone had told him yesterday that he would be in this position tonight with Scully, he would have been calling *them* "spooky." It wasn't long before they had divested each other of their clothing, and neither noticed the cold what with being so hot for each other. Words of love and praise were exchanged, but again, neither really noticed as their ulti- mate goal was each other, naked, up close and personal. "Top or bottom?" Mulder asked, ever the gentleman. Scully grinned. "Top. This time." With that, she swooped back down and grabbed that plump bottom lip of his between her teeth and tugged, rubbing it with her tongue to soothe it. Then she sat back up, reached between them and grabbed him, hot and hard as he was, and lowered herself onto him. "Oh god!" Mulder groaned and reached up to try to give her as much pleasure as she was giving him. In the back of his fogged mind, he noted, somewhere, that she became even more responsive as he played with her nip- ples. He would have to investigate that more at a later date... Scully had begun moving and Mulder was thrusting up with her. Before long, they were totally in sync with each other's movements. When, as she rose, Scully tightened her muscles, Mulder's head fell back on the pil- low and he let out a loud moan. Where the hell had she learned *that*? His eyes slipped back open so he could watch her and he nearly lost it when he saw her own hands move up to work her nipples. Mulder could not help it -- his eidetic mem- ory kicked in. This information would come in handy for future reference. Scully's mouth formed into that cute little "o" he loved so much as he continued thrust- ing. Mulder insinuated his left hand between them as he anchored her to him with his right hand on her hip and thrust harder. His index and middle finger found her clit and he caressed it enthusiastically, wanting her to feel even half of what she was doing to him. "Oh dear sweet freakin' deity!" he thought, watching Scully come. Somewhere in his brain he heard a large fish breech the water. Scully's eyes were focused at some far point on the lake, and, even in the firelight, he could see her cheeks pink up beautifully. "Mulder!!!" she screamed, but did not fall forward onto him. Mulder smiled and contin- ued thrusting upward, searching for his own completion. There was that fish breeching the water again. In the back of his mind, he vaguely noted that it must have been a damned big fish to displace *that* much water. "MULDER!!" Scully screamed again, trying to rise off of him, but he grabbed both hips and slammed up into her, nearly blacking out from the pleasure. He came back to reality, Scully lightly slap- ping his cheeks. "Mulder! MULDER!" "Wha? Whazzit?" he asked rationally (or so it seemed to him). "It was ... it was Big Blue!" Scully finally dragged her wide-eyed gaze away from the lake to stare down at him. "Scully," Mulder replied, reaching up to stroke a breast, "You just killed *my* big blues." Scully stared at him for a minute, frowned and slapped him on the shoulder. "Not *that*! Mulder, I just saw Big Blue! In the lake!" Mulder looked at her for a moment and laughed. "Scully, if you're trying to find a way to deny what just happened between us, it won't work. *I* know what happened, and *you* know what happened." "But Mulder ... it was a plesiosaur, just like you suggested!" Scully wiggled on top of him and he groaned, unbelievably finding himself tighten inside her again. "The *only* 'lake monster' here tonight is down *there,* Scully," Mulder pointed to where they were still physically connected. "And he's feeling just fine, right where he is." Scully just stared at him, looked back at the lake, where huge ripples were still resolving themselves in the lake, then looked back at a very sated Fox Mulder ... and wondered if having sex after so many years of celibacy could actually induce hallucinations. Scully, ever the skeptic, would have SWORN, on a Bible and in a court of law, that right at the moment of climax, when she heard some- thing in the lake and looked up, that she saw the long, long neck and the big, dark eyes of Heuvelmans Lake monster, Big Blue. ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ Five Days Later Dana Scully's Apartment Georgetown Scully had relaxed in a nice, long, aromatic bubble bath, listening to strains of her beloved classic music -- Vivaldi this time -- as it floated in the air to her. She had thought long and hard about the events at Heuvelmans Lake, and, particularly of that night spent on the shoreline with Mulder. She had been absolutely, positively certain that, right at the height of her passion, something she had not shared with another soul in years, that Big Blue, the alleged plesiosaur, had surfaced and watched her and Mulder mate, then slip below the sur- face of the lake again with little more than a hefty splash. And, ironically, Mulder, the eternal believer, had not seen it. It had scared her so badly she had clenched up and not only come herself, but had brought about Mulder's orgasm, too. And it had hap- pened much sooner than she would have liked. But, Mulder, of all people, had gone *way* out of his way to discount what she had seen, and she wondered if this was how he always felt when she debunked what he believed to be true. Be that as it may, in the end, she had had to finally agree that it was, most likely, some sort of during-sex hallucination. What else could it have been? Frankly, she had not had the time to think about it much after that and in the subse- quent days and nights after spent exploring each other first in his cabin and then hers. Scully smiled and let her fingers do the walking under the bubbles, remembering some particularly ... exciting ... moments during those days. She had always suspected Mulder would be a generous and passionate lover, and boy, had she found out exactly how true that was! She hadn't intended for it to happen, but at sometime in the past several years, she had fallen in love with the F.B.I.'s Most Un- wanted. Well, okay. That was not entirely true: *this* F.B.I. agent definitely wanted him. Had for sometime. Now that she'd had him, and there was no way in hell she was letting him get away. Not that he seemed to have any inclination to want to get away. She nearly had to beat him off with a stick to get him to go home to his own apartment after their return to D.C. They had spent a leisurely Saturday together, and a good part of Sunday as well. Oh, she *had* been satisfied. Enormously so. More than once: in her bed, on her couch, on her floor in front of the fireplace, on her kitchen counter, on her kitchen table... oh, the possibilities were endless. And they still had his apartment to christen. (If Mulder had his way, their office furniture and even Skinner's desk would not be spared! Given the stupefied expression of absolute bliss, not to mention Mulder's spiky hair, sweaty, golden skin and exaggerated cross- eyed appearance after each enormous satis- faction, she was quite certain she would have a hard time getting rid of him. Scully suspected that Mulder had no intentions of getting rid of her, either. Thinking back on how their slick skins had rubbed together caused a pleasantly throb- bing ache between her legs. Since she'd sent him packing so he could allegedly get some sleep before they checked back into work the next morning, she had no choice but to take the situation into her own hands ... so to speak. Afterward, Scully lay limp and lazy in the swiftly cooling water in her clawfooted bathtub, vaguely wondering what it would be like to have Mulder in this tub with her. She smiled again as she considered the options available to her to make this happen. She figured it would not take too much coaxing when it came right down to it. Finally, starting to shiver, she pulled the plug, then rose, stepped out of the tub, found a huge fluffy towel and dried herself off. Once through with that, she wrapped herself in her favorite faded blue, worn, ratty but infinitely comfortable terry bathrobe and headed for her bed. Just as she sat down, her phone rang. Glan- cing at the clock, noting it was 11:37 p.m., she grinned knowing exactly whose voice would be on the other end of the line. "Hello?" "I missed you," his voice replied in a low, seductive whisper. "Mulder," she whispered back. "It's been less than half a day, you know." "I know," he replied. "But I still miss you." "Flattery will get you everywhere, Agent Mulder." "Is that so, Agent Scully?" Mulder responded. She could hear the smile in his voice. "Well then ... what about ... a present? What will a nice little present get me?" "You got me a present?" Scully asked, gen- uinely surprised. "Mulder, you didn't have to." "I know I didn't have to, Scully," he re- plied. "But I wanted to. After all, if a G-Man can't get his best G-Girl a little something, then what's the point of even collecting those humongous Federal pay- checks?" "Mulder..." "If you want your present, Scully," Mulder interrupted, "you need to go open your front door." "Mulder, it's nearly midnight! Can't this wait?" "No," Mulder replied quickly. "I left it at your door. And if someone else finds it, well, it'll be a lot of money spent on some- one else. If your neighbor, Bubba Bob, finds it ... well, I'd shiver to imagine what he might do with it..." "I don't have a neighbor named Bubba Bob," Scully replied, already heading for her front door. "Okay, then ... your neighbor, Ruprecht." "Mulder..." "Just open your door, Scully. I do *not* want this present to fall into anyone else's hands. Especially that weirdo neighbor of yours, Norbert." "Okay," Scully said, holding the phone between her ear and shoulder as she opened the door. There, in all his sexed-up glory, stood Fox Mulder, in a black t-shirt, black jeans, black shoes and that sexy black bomber jacket, holding his cell phone to his ear. Scully reached up, grabbed her phone, clicked "disconnect," and stood staring at him, hands on her hips. "I *should* let my neighbor, Hyman, at you, Mulder," she started. "We agreed. You'd go home tonight and we'd see each other at work tomorrow ... tomorrow, which, by the way, is only a few minutes away." Mulder only smiled at her and stashed his phone in one of his pockets. "What? You don't like your present, Scully?" Now Scully folded her arms, trying desper- ately to look annoyed. "Present? What present? All I see is *you,* Mulder." "You wound me, Scully!" Mulder replied. "I *did* bring a present for you ... aside from me, of course. But after your comments, well, now I'm not certain you deserve it." At that moment, Scully realized he was hold- ing one hand behind his back. Her eyes nar- rowed as she glared at him and held out a hand. "Whatever it is, give, Mulder. Then you can go home and we can see each other at work tomorrow." Down deep she was secretly thrilled that he had gotten her something. "Close your eyes, Scully," Mulder said with a grin, a light sparkling in his eyes. "Mulder..." "Close your eyes, or no present," he warned. Scully's eyes narrowed again at him. "If this is a whoopee cushion or a set of wind-up walking, chattering plastic teeth, consider- ing the time of night, you'd better get ready to get your ass kicked, Agent Mulder." Mulder only shook his head in denial and leaned closer to her. "Close. Your. Eyes. Scully." Each word was punctuated with a sweet kiss to her cheeks and eyelids. Scully sighed dramatically. "Okay. They're closed." "Your hands, Scully. Hold out your hands. Both of 'em." Scully followed his directions, mightily tempted to peek, especially when she heard his leather jacket creaking. "Mulder, if this is a plane ticket to Bumfuck, Iowa to look for Bigfoot, I'm slamming that door right in your face and applying for a transfer first thing." "Trust me, Scully," Mulder's breath whis- pered against her ear. Then her hands were filled with something. The feeling almost caused her to jump and drop it, but Mulder's hands cupped her own and her eyes popped open to find... Scully looked from the present up to Mulder's beautiful hazel eyes and back down again to the present he had given her. "Oh, Mulder..." Scully couldn't help it and she hated herself for it; the tears started. There, sitting in the palms of her hand, supported by his, was a tiny little reddish- gold Pomeranian puppy. It could not have weighed more than a pound or a pound and a half at the very most. Around its neck was a collar with a tag inscribed, "Q2." Scully's lip quivered and a tear fell, but she did not say a word; she could only stare at the pup that was busy looking at her with sparkling wide eyes that somehow reminded her of Mulder's. "Scully?" he asked worriedly. She looked back up at him and, indeed, saw that puppy-dog look of his. "...I know it's not practical, what with our jobs and traveling and such, but I felt so bad about Queequeg ... and, well..." He left the puppy in her hands then leaned down outside her front door, out of her line of sight and picked up a box. "I got him a bed, a leash, food and treats ... and I've already paid for a year of pet sitting services..." Scully was busy petting the soft coat of the tiny little pup who was happily licking her hands, and gorging on the tears that were flowing so freely down her face. Mulder leaned down a bit to look into her eyes. "Scully? Is this okay with you? I can take him back if you don't want... OOOMPH!!!" Mulder would have never guessed that his petite partner had that kind of strength in one hand. She had grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, still holding the new puppy in one arm, and dragged her partner into the apartment with the other and kicked the door shut and locked it. He found himself shoved back against the door, the wind knocked out of his lungs. He had dropped the box of puppy things and he did not know how she did it while still holding the puppy, but she had managed to shove off his jacket and unzip his jeans and was working on his t-shirt. Outside the apartment, had anyone passed by at that time of night, the only thing they might have heard was some hot and heavy breathing, a lot of what sounded like clothes tearing, buttons pinging hither and yon as they snapped off of clothing, sloppy kissing and a puppy yapping. Finally, sometime later, had they cared to hang around and listen, they'd have heard a raspy, sated, happy, sleepy, puzzled male voice snort and then ask: "You have a neigh- bor named 'Hyman'?" ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ The End ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ AUTHOR'S END NOTES: If you noticed what may appear to be a discrepancy with the Sheriff's name -- In the end credits of "Quagmire," the char- cter's name is listed as "Sheriff Hindt." On his uniform, on screen, his name tag is "Hindt." In the closed captioning, which I watched to get a better handle on some of the location names and lines, Scully intro- duced him to Mulder as "Sheriff Heads." But given that in the credits and on his name tag it's "Hindt," I went with that partic- ular spelling. Also, in the transcripts, the Lake View Cabins are constantly referenced as being on Flipper Road. I was sure I heard "Flicker Road." The closed-captioning bears out "Flicker Road," so I went with that because, sorry, Flipper Road just sounded too cheesy, even for an XF ep with an "aquatic menace" plot. Yes, I *did* do my homework on NORTH AMERI- CAN ALLIGATORS, and, yes, they *can* actually get that big and live to be that old, al- though one of the size and age in this story is more unusual and more likely an aberra- tion. But this *is* an X-Files story, ya know, so anything is possible. Crocodiles grow much larger and live much longer and tend to be much crankier than the lovable American alligators. I learned *that* from Steve Irwin. "Crikey, mate! Here's a perfect example of the American F.B.I. Special Agent in its native habitat! This one here is a male! A Fox Mulder! What a little ripper! Isn't he a little BEAUTY!" (Well, okay, maybe it's TERRI Irwin who would say *that*!) AS TO THE PHRASE: "without further adieu," well, that's how I was taught to spell it in high school English. However, when I googled it, I also got "without further ado," so I suppose both are technically correct. Mrs. Bitchell, I mean, Mrs. Mitchell, my dear 10th, 11th and 12th grade Honors English teacher (and personal torturer), I hope you're happy that I used *your* spelling and usage of "without further adieu." Of course, I imagine if you *are* actually reading this, you're already on the way to the ER with a massive coronary over the content and plot (PWP?) of one of your honor student's stories. It's your own fault, you know. WHY, you might ask? Because you once gave me a "D" on a thesis, and when I asked why (because you hadn't the decency to write an explanation on the paper) you told me it was because, and I'm quoting you here, "you made-up a word." When I asked which word it was that I allegedly made up, you looked down your nose at me over those awful little "half glasses" with the rhinestones on them and replied, quite haughtily I might add, "'EXEMPLIFY.' There is no such word as 'exemplify'!" And YOU were the teacher??? I've *never* forgiven you for that, even though when I showed you the word "exemplify" in the dictionary on your desk, you were forced to change my grade to an "A." Witch!!!