Title:         Backseat Ethics
          Author:   Flynn
               Date:          February 28, 2002
               Rating:        R/NC-17. Yep, it's one of those. 
               Class:         MSR
               Keywords:      Mulder/Scully
               E-mail:        flyn121@yahoo.com
               Website:       www.geocities.com/cratkinsonflynn/
               Category:      PWP. VERY PWP. 
               Archiving:     Feel free, just tell me about it first.
               Spoilers:      NOT ONE! 
               Feedback:      Nourishes the soul and is good karma.
               Disclaimer:    Not mine. Too bad, so sad. What money I have, I earned.

               Summary:       Cotton candy for the mind. No violence, no guns drawn
                              <and quickly lost> - just all the things I'd want to 
                              do if it were ME in that car. 

****Scribbler's note: This is an angst-free zone.****

Thanks to Christine, my sister-in-smut. 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Backseat Ethics
Pt. 1
By Flynn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



He was whistling.

Scully restrained an impatient sigh as she stared out at the dusty 
road. Don't look at him. It'll only encourage him. He's probably 
just doing it to get to you. Don't look at him. Just don't look at 
him.

Normally she didn't mind it when he did things like whistle. He 
wasn't completely tone-deaf. Sometimes he sounded half-way 
decent. Hell, sometimes she even joined in. 

But now? Right now her nerves were stretched thin. It just 
didn't matter how he sounded. The case had been difficult 
from the very beginning. Not difficult in the conventional 
sense, with monsters or mutants, or shadow figures 
hamstringing them at every turn. Nothing so exotic - it was 
simply that nothing had gone right from the moment they'd 
landed at that pitiful airstrip two days ago. And she was tired, 
dammit.

Landed. That was something of an overstatement. Controlled 
crash was probably more accurate. And the "airstrip" hadn't 
been much more than a rutted dirt road cut through the rolling 
hills of the Alabama countryside. The pilot had done the best 
he could. After all, *his* life was on the line, too. She couldn't
blame him for the potholes. 

And then there was the car. The only thing available from the 
rental agency was a Celica. An '86. And a hatchback. "Cozy," 
Mulder muttered as he pried himself into it. The driver's seat, 
they immediately discovered, would not go back enough to 
comfortably accommodate his legs. The rear-view mirror was 
cracked in two places. The radio was missing altogether. The 
heater, on the other hand, worked just fine. A warm stream of 
air bathed their feet and faces not two minutes after he turned 
the engine over.

If only it wasn't the middle of May, and 85 degrees in the shade.

And the case.... 

At least no one had gotten hurt, that was the important part. Well, 
except for Mulder's pants.

The initial brief had crossed his desk a week ago. A ten-year-old 
girl reported hearing voices coming out of the family television. 
Nothing unusual there, except that she could only hear it when 
the volume was turned all the way down. Spectral impressions, 
Mulder had immediately hypothesized. Disembodied voices 
which for some reason were frequently only witnessed by 
pre-pubescent girls, in this case one Bessie Edgar, daughter of 
Roger and Myrna of Muleshead, Alabama. The gentleman farmer 
and his family raised sweet potatoes and the usual sundry farm 
animals in the northern end of a very picturesque valley, many 
miles from the nearest city. 

It had taken the agents more than two hours to reach the homestead.
Two hours of more rutted roads and choking dust. And the heater, 
of course, the on-off switch having broken off under Mulder's 
incautious proddings twenty minutes into the drive. 

They'd arrived to find the Edgars were not at home. More than a 
little frustrated, they parked in a meager puddle of shade provided 
by a handful of gaunt-looking trees, and waited. And waited. An 
hour of sweating and fuming, and Scully reminding Mulder how 
illegal it would be to break into the farmhouse even if it was just 
for a quick look around. At last, fed up with the heat and her 
sulking partner, she left one of her business cards, along with a 
brief note, lodged in a hole in the screen door, and they drove 
back the way they'd come. 

The motel was something out of a dream. A really bad dream.
Honeymooners' Lodge, the weary-looking roadside placard 
announced in sun-faded letters. Lodge indeed, Scully thought 
with an inward snort - a ramshackle row of cabins set so close 
together that she would have had trouble sidling down the 
lanes between them. Not that she had the slightest intention 
of attempting such a maneuver. God only knew what sort of 
vermin had taken up residence within those narrow alleyways. 
There were two vacancies, the manager happily informed them. 
They were almost side by side, too, with just the one unit 
between them. 

What the man didn't tell them was that the occupants of that one 
unit really did seem to be on their honeymoon.

Scully first heard the noises an hour after settling in for the 
night. Moaning. Muffled thumpings. Half-shouted supplications. 
The sounds continued, rising and falling like an unpleasant wind 
until well after midnight, when things finally hit the inevitable 
high note. After that, all was silent for three blissful hours. 
Then they started up again. 

Listening to people having sex could in no way compete with 
actually participating in the act herself, that was for damn sure. 

Not that she could really find fault with them, especially since 
she'd been doing much the same thing a mere six days ago. Her 
encounter, however, had taken place in her bedroom, not in some 
miserable dive in the middle of nowhere, and the voice doing 
most of the shouting had been that of her energetic and very 
capable partner. It did not include the labored falsetto of someone 
named Bud, or some breathy bimbo pleading do it again, baby, 
do it again. 

Three hours of sleep. In the morning, the circles under her eyes 
were perfect counterpoints to those beneath Mulder's.

The good news was that, eventually, they did meet up with the 
Edgars. The family television was kept not in the house, as 
they'd assumed, but in a corner of the barn. A sort of media 
center had been set up there in an unused stall - the TV, an 
antiquated VCR, a boombox, and a couple of beanbag chairs 
that looked for all the world like giant, multi-colored versions 
of the cowpies Scully had skirted on the way across the 
barnyard.

It didn't take her long to solve the mystery. 

The rabbit-eared antenna was beyond old. It had been jerry-rigged
- or rather, "engineered" by Grampa Edgaar some years before, 
when Gramma said she wanted to see the presidential debates 
between the nice boy from Georgia and that idiot actor from out 
west. The ancient assembly was evidently drawing off more than 
the local power supply - just how and from where, Scully could 
only speculate, although the theory Mulder threw out about 
random electrical surges periodically killing cattle in neighboring 
valleys couldn't be completely discounted. Somehow the whole 
assembly not only afforded the Edgars decent reception of some 
dozen channels, it also managed to pick up the transmissions from 
various radio stations and even a few garbled phrases from the 
army base five hundred miles away. 

And why was Bessie the only one who could hear the weird, 
other-worldly transmissions? Well, again Scully couldn't say for 
sure, though the fact that the ten-year-old was the only person 
on the farm who didn't regularly dip into the family still probably 
had something to do with it.

Case solved. The only casualty was her partner's pride. And his 
pants, falling victim to a stray nail protruding from a board just
inside the barn doorway. The gash was sizeable, seven or eight
inches long, just at knee level. Scully examined the damage and 
proclaimed the garment a total loss. Not even Mulder, with his 
flair for the unconventional, could get away with wearing tattered
wool gabardine cut-offs.

So they were on their way back to the motel to pack and get the 
hell out of Dodge. Finally. The heater still rumbled endlessly on. 
The windows, which they'd had to roll down in the interest of 
self-preservation, let in swirls of dust and the occasional 
unwelcome insect along with air cool enough to breathe. 
Disgruntled about the case, to say nothing of his pants, Mulder
had asked Scully to drive. More accurately, he'd handed her the 
smiley-face keyring that came with the car and mumbled something 
about wanting to start his report. After half an hour of 
teeth-rattling potholes, he gave up on writing anything and,
with an irritable sigh, tossed his notepad on the seat behind him.

Then the whistling started. Soft, almost tuneless sounds, breathy 
whispers and snatches of phrases she couldn't quite catch. At 
first she simply tuned him out and let her mind wander. That 
became impossible, however, when something outside her 
window captured his attention. He caught an arm around the 
back of her seat and leaned over practically in front of her. She 
glimpsed the flash of his smile from the corner of her eye. "Hey, 
look. Two horses doin' the nasty."

Her gaze didn't waver from the dirt track stretching out ahead 
of them. "That's nice, Mulder."

He shifted a little beside her. His arm remained where it was, 
affording her a good whiff of deodorant and warm, wet underarm. 
And cologne .... she didn't know which one. Jesus, he smelled 
good. He looked good, too, despite his torn pants and rumpled, 
sweaty shirt. Too good for a second-hand Celica. Too good for 
the Honeymooners' Lodge and the rutting newlyweds they had 
for neighbors.

Too bad there wasn't anything she could do just at the moment 
to express her appreciation.

He grunted as he splayed his legs awkwardly, trying without 
success to stretch them. The large rend in the material over his 
left knee fairly begged for her attention, and she found her gaze 
falling repeatedly on the expanse of skin and dark, masculine hair. 
His kneecap peeked out at her coyly. 

He leaned closer, and this time she couldn't help but look at him. 
He was gazing past her out the window again. And whistling. 
Well, his lips were pursed, at any rate. She assumed he was 
whistling, but the truth was she couldn't actually hear very 
much over the sound of her throbbing heartbeat. Dammit, 
why did he have to mention those horses? He was so close, 
she could practically taste him. Mmm, that was a nice thought. 
Just what *would* he taste like? Salty and sweet all at once, 
like toffee popcorn only *so* much better. It had been almost 
a full week without .... without .... well, anything, and now all 
she had to look forward to was another night of Bud and Doris 
rattling the windows. It just wasn't fair.


A motion caught her eyes. Dammit, he was licking his lips. She 
bit back a sigh. Oh, those lips. Even when she didn't look at him 
they were right there in her mind, tempting her. Lush. So soft and 
full when she kissed him. When *he* kissed *her*. Her face. Her 
throat. That soft patch over her breastbone, or the curve of her 
hip ....

Damn. She shifted uncomfortably in her bucket seat as the pulse 
heretofore in her head took up residence in a different place 
altogether, one significantly lower. It might not be fair, she told 
herself firmly, but that's just the way things are. Concentrate, 
Dana. Driving is serious business. Where the hell had such 
sexual thoughts come from, anyway?

Oh, and how they looked when he smiled. Curved. Taut. That 
little dip in his bottom lip. He was beautiful when he smiled. 
Truly beautiful. When he treated her to an honest-to-God smile, 
the kind that parenthesized his mouth with laugh lines and took 
ten years off his age, she swore she could see his soul shining in 
those quirky, winsome eyes. And how they would light up at .... 
.... at just *that* moment, when he was in full cry, his heart 
crashing in tandem with hers, his body taut and quivering .... 
.... his eyes would flash and spark like gunpowder, igniting .... 
.... then he'd go so still, with just a jerk of his hips now and 
again .... and he'd smile. 

"Hey, Scully ...."

She gave a little start. His face was mere inches from hers, his 
nose so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. She 
shot him a fast look. Was she blushing? Could he possibly 
guess what she was thinking about? Pink cheeks didn't 
necessarily mean a blush, right? After all, she was hot. With 
the damn heater going, the car was nothing short of miserable. 
She struggled to wrestle her thoughts under control. "What? 
What is it, Mulder?"

She could practically feel his eyes caressing her face. When 
he finally spoke, his tone was low and silky. "You know that 
ground rule you have about fooling around?"

Her breath caught. Shit, how did he do it? Was it just a lucky 
guess, or was he really telepathic and had just never gotten 
around to letting her know about it? Damn those horses 
anyway for planting the thought in their heads. She felt her 
face flame even hotter. The ground rule. No sex while on a 
case. Their love life should not intrude on their work and vice 
versa. Should the need ever arise, they could both honestly 
swear that they did not co-mingle while working. Co-mingle.
Fraternize. Do the wild thing. She swallowed hard, then nodded. 
"Yeah, what about it?"

Dammit, was that his hand? It *was*, and those were definitely 
his fingers sifting through her hair, combing and then lifting it 
off her neck. Mmm, that felt good. "Well .... we aren't technically
on the clock now. I mean, the investigation's pretty much over. 
We just have our notes to compile and the report to write up. And 
a flight to book, though I seriously doubt we'll be able to get 
anything until tomorrow morning at the earliest."

She didn't spare him another look, but kept her eyes glued to the 
strip of dusty road just beyond the Celica's dented hood. "So? 
What are you getting at?" 

Another gentle stroke of that hand, this time down the side of her 
neck. If he felt her react, he gave no sign. "Well, I was 
thinking .... We're a long way from .... well, *anywhere* out 
here. This is our fourth trip down this hideous goat path, and 
we've yet to see another car ...." The fingers played wickedly 
around her ear, and she shivered despite the hot air blowing 
around them. "C'mon, Scully. It's a closed case. So we're not 
back in DC yet. Don't penalize me on account of our geography."

She affected an amused smirk. "So, what - you're saying we 
should do like Bud and Martha when we get to the motel and 
give in to our baser impulses? Make the beast with two backs? 
Maybe give them a run for their money in the moan-and-groan 
department?" 

Shit, now it was his mouth touching her, sliding slowly up and 
down the side of her face. Damn the horses, and damn the 
small car, too. She gripped the wheel so hard, her knuckles were 
turning white. "Mmm, lemme think about that a minute," he 
murmured between nuzzles. "No, that would be too much 
like fooling around on the government dime. Besides, driving 
all the way back would take too long. I think we should pull 
over somewhere out here."

Laugh, her brain ordered. Laugh, dammit. Show him how amused
you are. Show him you aren't thinking about the same thing 
yourself, that you haven't been thinking about screwing him 
senseless for the past ten minutes. She managed a patient sigh. 
"Yeah, right - I can see us now, hiding in the bushes and making 
out like teenagers. In the smallest car I've personally ever been 
in, no less."

"Mmm, now you're talking," he whispered, tugging gently at 
her collar and exposing the tender skin where neck met shoulder. 
The spot he called his, the one that was somehow wired straight 
to her nipples, which were already drawing up hard and tight like 
two much larger than average goosebumps. She ducked her head 
to the side, shielding that spot before he could really go to work 
on it. Thwarted, he groaned a protest and pressed his damp forehead
to her temple. "Sculleee, don't make me go back and listen to the 
Chuck and Martha sex show again. Have a heart."

She bit back a smile. "It's the Bud and Doris sex show. Get it 
right."

His voice was a soft, warm purr. "So you *were* listening."
 
She shrugged him away. He caught her hand and raised it to his 
mouth for a tender kiss, then guided it to his lap. Serious wood. 
Not surprising, really. After all, he was enjoying their burgeoning
sex life at *least* as much as she was. The antics of their raunchy 
neighbors must have taken a heavy toll on him. Still, there was a 
time and a place, and this was neither. She pulled away again and 
gave him a testy look. "For God's sake, Mulder, get a grip."

His groan was heartfelt. "I'm trying," he breathed, leaning close 
again. His lips, warm and soft and perfect, glided around her face,
nuzzling eyebrow, temple, ear. "Just can't stop thinking about 
our friends Chuck and -"

"*Bud and Doris.*" 

He snorted softly. "George and Gracie .... Fred and Ethel .... I 
don't care about anyone but *you* and *me*. Right here, right 
now." His tongue danced briefly with her earlobe, and she felt 
gooseflesh coalesce on every square centimeter of her body. He 
smiled in delight. "C'mon, Scully. It'll be fun, I promise." 

She tried to push him away, but it was like fighting the wind. 
"Get real, Mulder. It's broad daylight. What if someone comes 
along? You know, it's no skin off your nose - all you have to 
do is unzip, but it's *my* ass that'll be hanging out. I just 
don't -" 

"Put my shirt on," he whispered, kissing the round ball of her 
shoulder. "It's long enough, it'll cover anything worth hiding."

She tried not to smile. He had an answer for everything, didn't 
he? She felt her resolve begin to buckle. "And just where would 
you have us perform our little contortion act? I don't think the 
car was designed with those legs in mind."

"Back seat." His words came in a rush as his breathing picked 
up speed. Clearly he was construing her comments as 
capitulation; as interest - perhaps even imminent compliance. 
He nuzzled her again, working on his tie with one hand as he 
gestured vaguely out the front with the other. "Up about a 
hundred yards. I think it's a utility road. We can pull out of 
sight there."

She squinted through the scratched and dirty windshield. "How 
the hell can you tell that?"

He snorted softly. "This *is* the fourth time we've driven this
road, right? Twice there, twice back? Photographic memory 
and all that jazz?" The tie went sailing into the back seat. "It'll 
be cooler, too, without the damned heater blowing on us." His 
sunglasses joined his tie.

A delicious warmth fluttered low in her belly as he started in 
on his buttons. He was really serious about this. She knew she 
should be the logical one. She knew she should point out all 
the reasons they shouldn't do this .... but just at the moment 
she didn't want to be practical. Not now. Not when he was so 
close and smelled so damned good. What he wanted to do ....
it was spontaneous. It was risky. It might even be a little 
dangerous, in a strictly non-lethal sense. At the very least it 
could be embarrassing. 

It was also a chance they weren't likely to have again anytime 
in the near future. Or distant future, for that matter. She thought
of the cases piling up in the basement. Where would they be in 
a week? Boston? Albuquerque? St. Paul? When would they 
have a chance like this again?

They were almost to the utility road. Quickly, before she could 
find a way to talk herself out of it, she yanked the wheel hard 
to the right, spinning gravel and blowing dust as she negotiated 
the turn. At least the terrain was working in their favor; unless 
someone deliberately turned off where they had, the Celica 
would be hidden from casual view. Besides, given the condition 
Mulder was in, time probably wasn't going to be much of an issue.

He was on the move, shouldering his door open and swinging 
a leg out even as they lurched to a stop. He shrugged his shirt 
off as he rounded the car and yanked her door open. "This side," 
he said, his voice hoarse. "Your legs are shorter - we won't 
have to move the seat." 

She swatted his hands away when he reached for her collar 
button. "I don't believe we're doing this," she muttered as 
she wriggled out of her shirt.

"I don't believe we're still talking about it." He had to bend 
almost in half in order to fit into the back seat. His own slacks 
landed in a wad around his ankles. He looked at her, his eyes 
alive with energy and more than a little lust. His erection 
reared up proudly against his bare belly, seeking and 
impatient. His smile was brazen. "See? Your ass is bare - 
so's mine." 

Hands shaking, she slipped her arms into the sleeves of his 
dress shirt and let her slacks fall. No time for folding; she 
tossed them onto the passenger seat. "Ready?" she whispered.

He was already reaching for her. "Jesus, I've been ready since 
the seventh inning stretch last night. C'mere." 

She settled carefully in his lap, and he let out a soft moan of 
appreciation. It took a moment to figure out logistics. His legs,
held wide to support her. Hers, folded under her until she was 
sitting on her heels. Her knees gripped his hips snugly. The car's 
interior was still hot, but with the damndable heater turned off, 
the afternoon breeze was already finding its way in through the 
open windows. Besides, with his bare, sweat-slicked chest 
pressed against hers, heat was a good thing. A very good thing.

Okay, so speed evidently wasn't as high on his list of priorities 
as she thought it would be. Using one hand - the other was 
clamped possessively on the back of her neck as he thoroughly 
reacquainted his mouth with hers - he deftly teased her bra aside 
and caressed her nipple with his thumb. She could feel him 
straining against her belly, his hot, hard penis trapped in the well 
between their bodies, and the ache in her pelvis abruptly increased 
ten-fold. "Hurry," she breathed, pushing herself up on unsteady 
legs and reaching between them. Pulse crashing insanely, she 
slid the smooth, probing head up and back, up and back through 
her slick wetness. Jesus, she was so, so ready ....

He gasped as she slowly impaled herself. "Oh .... oh ...." His eyes 
narrowed a little as he locked gazes with her, a smile playing 
around his mouth as his breath left him in a long, low groan. 

She found his mouth with hers again. Deep, wet kisses. Tongues 
swirled and danced. Jesus, he *did* taste good. She molded 
herself to him with an arm around his neck. Tight and close, their 
chests and bellies and hips. Slow-motion rocking and grinding 
would have to do - the close quarters allowed no room for his 
customary long-limbed plunges. She slid forward and back, her 
movements controlled and deliberate as she changed angles, 
reading his needs in his expression, in the soft sounds that he 
made. 

"Good .... good ...." he breathed. He grimaced as his hands 
bracketed her hips, gripping and caressing by turn. "Jeez, Scully,
 I can feel your heartbeat .... when you do that .... I can feel it 
down in my .... in my ...."

She dusted his face with soft, light kisses. "I can feel yours, 
too." 

He groaned low in his chest, and she redoubled her efforts. 
Harder. Faster. The hair teasing her nipples was at once 
delicious and maddening. Without conscious direction her 
hand slipped downward, tunneling through his coarse hair
and finding the nub hidden in hers. Pleasure immediately 
drew her body taut, and within seconds she was beyond 
controlling anything. Not her breathing, not her spiraling 
thoughts .... not the tempo of her hand or her hips, swaying 
and rolling harder and harder against his ....

Her head fell back, and she gasped as her mind exploded in
a blaze of colors. Ecstasy. Rapture. Hot, liquid insanity. 

Arms tightened around her waist, squeezing her, pressing her 
down. His hips undulated and then began to hammer in short, 
savage strokes. She heard herself moan softly. He grunted 
once, twice, three times, and each time she felt him shudder 
and pulse deep inside her. A groan escaped him with the last 
spasm.

Reality slowly coalesced around her. She leaned her forehead 
against his shoulder as her body went limp. "Mmm," he 
murmured, and his head slowly fell back against the cracked, 
faded backrest. 

She was hot and wet, and infinitely content. Blissfully drowsy. 
It was tempting, so damn tempting, to give in to the sweet pangs 
of sleep that were already stealing through her. The breeze played 
over their sweaty bodies, cooling them. Just a few minutes, she 
promised herself. We'll get up and move on like this whole thing 
never happened .... just need a few minutes to regroup, to 
rest ....

*Now*, the practical, irritating voice in her head demanded. She 
sighed her disappointment and lifted her head from its resting place 
on his shoulder. "Come on," she murmured. He didn't move, just 
sat there with his own head thrown back. Beads of sweat were 
slowly trickling down his temples and into his hair. His eyes were 
closed. He might have been asleep were it not for the grip he still 
had on her. She kissed him lightly on the mouth. "Come on, Mulder. 
Wake up. We have to get moving before someone happens by and 
sees us like this."

His eyes abruptly snapped open, wide and staring. As she watched, 
a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "Get dressed," he 
whispered. "I have an idea."


~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Check-out's at noon. There's a compliment'ry breakfast in the 
dining room 'til eleven. Your room has a coffee maker, and I put 
y'all right around the corner from the soda machines." The clerk's 
nametag identified her as Mitsi. Her drawl was so pronounced that 
Scully actually had trouble making out some of her words. She was 
young, blond, and clearly proud of her carefully made-up beauty. 

And if the tramp didn't quit eyeballing her partner, Scully was 
going to go to work on that beauty with her nails. 

Mulder signed the registration card with a scrawl and stabbed the 
pen back in its cradle. "You hear that, honey? Coffee, soda, and 
free breakfast, all yours for the asking."

Smiling, Mitsi turned away to process his credit card. Standing 
close beside him, Scully sighed and eased her weight from one 
foot to the other. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," 
she whispered.

He grinned impishly as he squeezed her hand. "I can't believe 
you're still complaining about it." 

She started to pull away, but he laced his fingers with hers and 
pulled her close. She didn't fight him. "I'm not complaining, 
Mulder, I'm just concerned. How are we going to explain this 
to Skinner? There's going to be a discrepancy in the expense 
report. What if he ...."

"We won't submit this receipt. He probably won't even notice."

She snorted her disbelief. "What are the chances of *that* 
happening? When has Skinner ever *not* noticed something 
we've done?"

He shrugged, unfazed. "I'm not too worried. Something tells 
me he knows when to look the other way. Besides, how many 
times have we been stuck with some damn out-of-pocket 
expense because the bureaucracy couldn't get its head out of 
its ass? How many times have we had to spend our own money 
to replace wrecked clothes because *damage from substance of 
unknown origin* didn't compute with the idiots in Accounting? 
Anyway, I'm the one funding this little holiday. It isn't as if 
anyone's gonna get stiffed here. Well, except maybe for you." 
Smiling, he gently kissed her forehead. Despite her qualms, she 
sighed and leaned into his touch. Mmm, nice. When he drew 
back, she almost protested the loss. "And if he does ask, we'll 
tell him .... we were doing research. Or the airplane was delayed 
by bad weather. You think he's gonna check out the Weather 
channel?" He tipped her head back and brushed his lips across 
hers. "Forget about rules, Scully. We'll be back in DC tomorrow." 
His voice dropped, became softer and deeper. "Until then I promise 
you, you'll have my undivided attention. I expect nothing less in 
return."

She sighed almost peacefully. Well, why the hell not? The mystery 
of the talking TV was solved. No one had been injured. No one had
been abducted, either by aliens or frightening shadow factions. And 
while she still harbored some misgivings about ditching work, the 
thought of several hours of non-stop sex with her partner 
definitely merited serious consideration. 

Still, she couldn't resist one final comment. A last reminder of 
the changing status-quo. She tipped her chin up and looked at him, 
straight-faced. "All right, but you *do* realize this is a serious 
breach of protocol, right? I just want to hear you acknowledge 
that fact."

He chuckled as he slipped an arm around her. "And making out 
in the back of an old rental car - what was that, doing it by the 
book? C'mon, we're off the clock. Protocol shmotocol. No one 
gives a shit what we do here." 

He had a point. What Skinner didn't know wouldn't kill him, at 
least in this instance. And it wasn't like the man didn't know 
how to keep a secret. Oh, he probably had his suspicions about 
them already, and this little jaunt would all but spell it out for 
him - still and all, as long as they didn't waltz into his office 
flashing identical hickeys, he'd have no real grounds to question 
them. Mulder was right, he probably wouldn't even ask where 
they'd spent the second night in a three-day case. And if he 
did .... well, they *did* investigate X-files. Missing time was 
something of the norm with them, right? 

He smiled when she melted into his embrace, one of her hands 
finding its way around his waist while the other caressed his flat 
belly. Mmm, was that a purr she heard? 

They looked up to find the clerk had returned and was watching 
them intently. Mulder flashed her a smile as he dropped the 
registration form over the counter and onto the desk before her. 
"Listen, we haven't eaten since breakfast. You don't happen to 
have room service here, do you?"

Mitsi flashed him a predatory smile. "Sorry, sugar. Closest thing 
we have to room service 'round these parts is me." She winked
playfully. "But if it's food y'all want, the restaurant across the 
parking lot is open twenty-four, seven." 

He started to reply, but when Scully unceremoniously cupped 
his testicles through the thin material of his trousers, he shut 
hismouth with an audible snap. A gentle squeeze elicited a 
strangled sound from him, and he struggled for a moment to form 
words. "Guess that'll have to do," he managed, his voice catching 
as she slowly fondled him. She wasn't terribly surprised when he 
caught her wrist and pressed himself into her hand. A wicked 
gleam appeared in his eyes. "Right now I'm more interested in 
a shower. How about you, honey?"

Scully shrugged and nodded, her expression carefully bland, her 
tone detached. "Whatever you say, sweetheart."

Mitsi smirked at her as she handed him his credit card and a red 
plastic keyring. "Lemme know if y'all need anything, Mr. Hale. 
Hope you enjoy your stay with us."

Scully shot her a withering look. "Thank you .... *we* will."

He picked up their satchels, then ushered her out into the warm 
afternoon sun. "She was nice, wasn't she? Not often you meet 
someone with that name." Scully merely looked at him, one 
eyebrow on the rise. He grinned and shrugged. "All right, so 
she's a flirt. So what? You did all right. One thing I really like 
about you, Scully - you've never been one to equivocate."

She huffed softly as she took her case from him. "Flattery will 
get you nowhere, Mr. *Hale*. Admit it - you've been holding 
out on me."

He chuckled at that, but she saw that he also had the good 
grace to appear chagrined. "Okay, so maybe I should have 
told you sooner. A couple months ago Melvin hacked into 
the Craddock Marine mainframe and set up accounts for 
me under .... well, you know who. Don't worry, everything's 
legit. Credit, debit, ATM ...."

She struggled not to smile. "Legit and legal aren't 
interchangeable terms. I'm sure you appreciate that fact."

He pulled her to a stop and dipped his head to kiss her. 
"Potato, potahto. No one cares just so long as they get their 
money."

"Yes, but - " 

Mmm, another kiss, this time with a hand in her hair. He 
was getting serious and they hadn't even made it to their
room yet. Thoughts of their backseat interlude flashed in 
her mind, and a stab of weakness almost buckled her knees. 
Oh, the hell with all of them. The hell with Skinner and 
Frohike and the idiots in Accounting. The hell with George 
Hale, too. She sighed at Mulder's gentle assault. Warm fingers 
caressed the back of her neck. Those lips, the ones she found
herself dreaming about more and more these days, were soft 
and inviting. His tongue swept over hers, a warm, welcome 
visitor. Oh, yes. Hello, Mr. Hale or Mr. Mulder or whatever
 you want to be called. Please, do make yourself at home. 
Stay a while. A long while.

He drew back and looked at her with smoldering eyes. 
"Preview of coming. C'mon, I wasn't kidding about that 
shower. Then we should get something to eat. And then ...."

She fell back a step and watched him unlock the door to 
their room. He grinned over his shoulder at her. Hot and 
rumpled, smelling of sweat and old cologne and car exhaust ....

He was hers.

Hers.

With a soft grunt, he gave the door a shove and propped it 
open with his foot. If her scrutiny surprised him, he didn't
show it. "Are you coming, Mrs. Hale?"

She smiled as she took the proffered hand. "Guess that's up 
to you, isn't it, Mr. Hale?"





~~~~
end
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