Title: "Handcuffs: Beyond Any X-File" Author: Rebecca Perlow (jingerluvv@aol.com) Spoilers: None really--sorry:) Rating: PG-13 for language and severe (if not hilarious:)) innuendo. Summary: When Skinner orders Mulder and Scully's help on one of Spender and Fowley's cases, the former pair catch the latter pair in a rather *awkward* situation. Shows you who's *really* sleeping together at the FBI! Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully don't belong to me. Nor does Skinner. Nor does Kimberly. And if Spender and Fowley belonged to me, I'd sell them at a garage sale. Or pawn them for an Yvonne Elliman record. All of them belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Prod. and the Fox Network. Chris, instead of suing me for this tawdry little tidbit, how about you get yourself a haircut? Art Garfunkel did, why can't you?:) No really Chris, I love you, please don't sue my sorry ass!:) "I Want To Play I Want To Play I Want To Play I Want To.." "AWWWWW, but Mr. SKINNNNNNNNNNNER! I DON'T LIKE *THEM*!!" "Spender, you and Agent Fowley have been assigned to me, you will do precisely as I direct, like it or *not*." Kimberly rolled her eyes and released an exasperated sigh as she slid open her top left hand drawer. She silently thanked God as she removed the pale pink tin from the drawer and popped the top off. She was always happy to have her ear plugs handy whenever Agents Spender and Fowley came into serve their report to A.D. Skinner. Jesus, that Spender *always* had something to whine about when he went into Skinner's office and he usually saw nothing wrong with letting the entire fifth floor know about it either. 'The other two never threw temper tantrums.' How he managed to remain in that once shunned basement office was certainly beyond her. 'Maybe it's just so we won't have to hear his ranting and raving.' she popped the plugs into her ears and went back to typing. The door to Mr. Skinner's office opened with a slam she heard clearly but pretended not to. 'Damn, usually these things work.' she adjusted the plug in her ear and turned her eyes to the computer screen as Spender stalked into the waiting area, closely followed by Fowley. "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" Spender raged pitifully as Fowley made slight gestures to try to calm and pacify him," I just can't believe he expects me to try and work with that asshole!" "Jeffrey, just relax." she placed a hand on his shoulder, "it's only going to be for a week and if I know that bitchy partner of his, she'll have him on a leash, okay? He won't give us any trouble." Fowley quieted her voice as so Kimberly couldn't hear her. Mission failure. Even with the plugs in, Kimberly could hear every word they said. Kind of like a mosquito buzzing in her ear--so small yet incredibly loud and irritating. 'Bitchy? If that ain't the pot calling the kettle bitch.' Kimberly didn't know either pair of agents real well, but she liked the previous X-Files agents better anyway. They were always nice and polite--a refreshing contrast to the FBI Bureaucracy the current X-Files agents repeatedly chose to pull on her. Rank pulling. God, she hated it. Sometimes it made her so upset she wanted to crawl into the heel of her desk and just *cry*. But in Spender and Fowley's case, it just made her want to slam his....well, she wouldn't go into *what* exactly, but it made her feel like slamming *something* of his in the office door. But it was something she couldn't do to Fowley very well on account of a difference of anatomy. 'Or maybe I could. She looks manly enough to be a hermaphrodite. Maybe she's a transexual.' 'I'm just a sweet transvestite, from Transexual Transylvania.' she unconsciously began to hum as she typed and looked up into the puzzled expressions on the agents' faces. She felt a flush of sheepishness bleach her face and turned back to the computer. "I'm telling you, whatever those two clowns have, it's catching. Everyone around here's going nuts!!" she heard Spender harshly whisper to Fowley as they shut the door behind them. 'Dickhead.' Kimberly plucked the plugs from her ears and looked up as she heard the door swing open once more. This time, she smiled. "Good morning, Kimberly," Agent--oh damn! why couldn't she remember her name! 'Cause nobody ever calls them by their names--greeted her. "Oh, good morning Agent," she glanced at the badge on her lapel, "Scully. Mr. Skinner will be glad to see the both of you. He's had a bit of a rough morning." "Yeah, we figured as much," Agent ....MULDER! That's right! replied, "we just passed them in the hallway." "Yeah Mulder, and while we're on that subject, that ex-girlfriend of yours stepped on foot." Scully told him as they entered Skinner's office and out of earshot. 'Damn. How come whenever I don't want to hear what's going on in there, I can. And when I do want to know, I can't hear?!' 'Jeez, the FBI sucks. Maybe I'll get a job at the Dairy Queen.' ******************************************************* "Scully? Tell me again why Skinner asked our help on this assignment." Mulder lay prone, shirt-sleeved, on the full bed in Scully's room and tossed the file over his shoulder onto the floor. "Because he knew we were bored with the grunt work we get nowadays," Scully shifted in the garish overstuffed chair next to the bed, "and.., if there's anything at all to be said for this case, Mulder, it's not boring." "It's insulting is what it is," he rolled over on his stomach to prop himself up on his arms and look up at her, "a thirty-four year old woman with a blood alcohol level of 1.3 claims she was sexually harassed by an alien...I don't know whether to laugh or kick Skinner in the face." "I feel like giving him a big kiss for this assignment," she leaned down to pick up the discarded file folder and reorganize the scattered papers. Mulder's eyes went wide for a second as he tried to process what she'd just said. She stood up from the chair and headed for the door. "May I ask *why* the *hell* you would want to do that?" he turned on his side and lifted his head up on one arm. She casually looked back at him and for the first time he saw a mischievous glint in her eye he hadn't seen in a long time. "He just bought us a week in Los Angeles away from the Bullpen," she casually opened the door and raised an eyebrow at him, "I don't plan on wasting it, do you?" A surprised and delighted smile lit his face and he hopped off the bed and followed her into the hall as he shut the door behind them. "The meeting with this woman is not until tomorrow at ten. Judging by WeaselBoy's animosity towards you and me, we probably won't be doing much this week work-related unless it's reviewing paperwork. "WeaselBoy?" Mulder asked with some amusement in his voice, "where'd you come up with *WeaselBoy* Scully?" "It's something I read on the internet once. Anyway, it's 9:30 right now. I'll just return this folder to Spender, subtract the average amount of time it takes for the both of us to get some sleep and we should have about 3 hours free," she pressed the button for the elevator when they reached the end of the hall. "All those years of counting orgasms finally payed off, huh Scully?" "Keep it up Mulder and I'll sue you for sexual harassment," she smiled and stepped into the elevator as the doors opened. He stepped in beside her and looked over at her as the doors closed. "Another thing that doesn't make sense to me, how can this woman say the alien sexually harassed her. She stated in her report all it did was talk to her about her profession." "Mulder, first of all, she also stated that at the time the alien harrased her, she was on a date with John Travolta. Second of all, inquiring about someone's profession can become a bit suggestive and inappropriate in tone if that person happens to be a *stripper*. Thirdly, words don't mean anything really, it all depends on the *tone* and presentation of the conversation." "Oh come on Scully..." he chuckled lightly. "Mulder, all I'm saying is that sometimes there is an ulterior meaning to what someone says and it bleeds through the words they are saying." "Say one thing, but mean another?" "Yeah, you know I've noticed something, guys tend to do that a *lot*, don't they?" "What are you asking me for?" "I haven't been associated with an average guy in a long time, you're all I've got. Come on Mulder, admit it Don't men usually have an undercurrent, a double meaning to everything they say?" "Well, no more than as usual." he pressed the button for the the fourth floor. "Well, give me some examples of the 'usual.'" "You're kidding right?" "No, no, this is intriguing. Tell me, what is a guy actually 'saying' when he says...mmmm 'I'm tired.'" "He means 'I'm tired.' There that's simple enough." "What about when he says 'I'm hungry.'?" "Well, depending on his tone of voice, it usually means 'I'm hungry.' That harassment material for you?" But Scully, was, as usual, undaunted by his commentaries. She quickly threw out another line. "'Can I call you sometime?'" "I'd eventually like to have sex with you." "Mulder!" "What? I'm not coming on to you, Scully. If I was, you'd know it. This is usually what the average male means." Scully's expression of shock sombered to the same inquisitive expression she'd had before. "'Would you like to go to a movie?'" "I'd eventually like to have sex with you." "'Can I take you to dinner?'" "I'd eventually like to have sex with you." Scully's voice took on a trace of exasperation. "'May I have this dance.'" "I'd eventually like to have sex with you." The elevator *dinged* and the doors opened. They walked out into a hallway that remarkably and almost irritatingly resembled the one they had just left behind. This was not a hotel where you wanted to get drunk. "Is sex all you ever think about?" they stopped in front of a door numbered 1013 and knocked. "This isn't me talking, Scully, this is what the average male thinks. And as you so astutely implied before, I'm far from average." "Yeah well, Mulder, I should probably tell you," she knocked again and turned to face him, "I often count that as a blessing from God." The faintest smile spread across her face and he inexplicably felt his trademark grin that all those crazy girls on the Internet just raved about blooming on his own. "Thanks, you're one for the books yourself too, Scully." Her smile widened. "One more?" "Go ahead." "'I don't think that blouse really goes with that skirt.'" "I am a closet homosexual." The smile stayed afloat on her face before being replaced with a wash of confusion as she turned around to knock on the door once more. "Why isn't that little rat answering the door?" she turned back around, a little furrow beginning to form between her eyebrows. "Well," Mulder looked at his watch, "it's 9:30 Scully, it's probably past his bedtime." "Yeah well, if he is," Mulder's eyes widened and lit up with mirth as Scully dangled a motel key between two fingers, "feel like dipping Spender's hand in a glass of warm water?" "Ohhhhhh," he smiled as she slid the key into the lock and turned it slowly, "a woman after my own heart." Scully put a finger up to her lips as she slid the door open and motioned for them to tiptoe into the room. Mulder half-smiled and gave her an "after-you" gesture with his hands. With a look of mischievousness on her face he didn't think he'd ever seen, she slipped into the room... "OH MY GOD!!!!!" Mulder's excited expression disintegrated as he heard Scully's scream and he rushed into the room, where he encountered a scene that put him in a state of shock so... Spender was in bed all right. *Oh* yeah. But he was *very* awake. Lying prone on his back against the mattress in only as T-shirt and boxer shorts next to a flushed and slightly embarrased Agent Fowley clad only in a red lace merrywidow from Frederick's of Hollywood. They were joined in between the bars of the headboard by a pair of FBI issue handcuffs. "Well, well.." Mulder felt a symphony of laughter bubbling at the back of his throat, threatening to break loose before he could slip in one of his witty comments that would appropriately mark this moment, "nice to see your up to your old tricks again Diana, I thought you'd gone soft." "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" Diana shreiked more out of fear than anger, like a child who'd gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Oooohh. Bad imagery, he cringed. "We came to return a file folder. What are *you* doing? Taking dictation?" Diana shot him a dirty look that brought a smile to his face, until he saw Scully--half-kneeling down on the floor, her head bowed down to her chest. Her expression indeterminable. "Oh my God, Scully, I think she's choking. Scully can you breathe?" he slipped his arms around her middle, pulling her into a more upright standing position and thumped her twice on the back, "can you breathe?" It wasn't until after he thumped her on the back the second time, he realized she wasn't choking in shock, she was in the throes of hysterical laughter. He pulled her back into a standing position, her face was redder than Fowley's merrywidow and tears sparkled in her eyes. "Gee Scully, I never figured you to be the kind of person to laugh until the point of tears." He removed his arms from around her waist as she regained her footing and could stand up on her own. "I'm not, the scent of Crisco's burning my eyes." "It's Wesson," Spender spoke for the first time, eliciting another giggle out of Scully and a raised eyebrow from Mulder. "Jeffrey, you're not helping!" she looked up almost helplessly to the pair who appeared to be thoroughly amused at their predicament, "look, this is really, really, *REALLY* embarrassing--" "Oh thanks Diana," Spender sniffed, "do wonders for my self-esteem." "SHUT UP, all you ever do is whine-whine-whine-whine-whine. 'Oh, I miss my mother.' 'Oh Mulder's an asshole.' 'Oh, my dad's a chain-smoking jerk-off who abandoned his family.' Life's a bitch Jeffrey. GET OVER IT," she snapped at him then turned back to Mulder and Scully, "the thing is....we--we're kind of..*stuck..W-we can't get uncuffed from the bed." "You don't have the keys to your own handcuffs?!" the hilarious entertainment in Scully's face and the support of the amused expression on Mulder's caused Fowley's expression to falter a little before pressing on. "Welllllllllllll, we *do* have the key....it's just not in a really....convenient ...area." Mulder's eyebrows sky-rocketed into his hair, as did Scully's, but her vocal reaction was less subdued. "Oh! That's just disgusting! No way! No freakin' way I'm gonna help out with *that*!" "Scully, Scully, relax," he turned her to face him, briefly glanced over at Spender and Fowley, then back to her, "Now I have an item upstairs, that, I'm almost embarrassed to say I used to use in these situations. I used it on our first case together actually." The look on her face that rode on the coattails of that comment scared him for a second before it disappeared as quickly as it had come and he was able to continue. "It's right upstairs in my room, I'll go get it, I'll bring it down here, then we can get back to our moonlighting in L.A. Okay?" Her expression faded from disgust to mild contentment and for a second, she looked like she might go along with it. "Okay, go get it, I don't want to know what it is, just go get it." "Okay, I'll be right back," he gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before he dashed out the door. As always, that briefest of contacts, Mulder's fingers on her shoulder, left a trail of warmth rippling throughout her body and she was tempted to indulge the feeling... That is until she remembered *who* she was in the room with and just *what* kind of a position they were in. If ever there was a bigger turn-off in the world, it had to be this.. Taking a seat in the garish chair, identical to her one upstairs, she surveyed the scene and snorted lightly. "Well, I'd just like to thank the both of you. I'd thought I'd ran out of repulsion a long time ago. After eight years of Med. school, 2 years of teaching classes specializing in slicing and dicing corpses up at Quantico, and rather graphic 5 year stint with the X-Files, I thought I'd seen it all. I figured after being exposed to viruses, parasites, liver eating mutants, Flukemen, vampires with buck teeth, moth-men, a man who gave women ice-pick lobotomies because he thought he was saving them from some kind of destructive existence, babies with at least fifty kinds of birth defects and Eddie Van Blundht, I'd seen the worst of the world in all its glory, and that nothing else I could see could equally repulse me as much as any of those things did. But *this*," she gestured towards the two figures on the bed, "has debunked my theory. This has single-handedly repulsed and revolted me more than anything else I have *ever* encountered, and yet at the same time completely amused me. Congratulations Agents Spender and Fowley, you two are beyond any X-File." By the end her speech, Spender was whimpering and Fowley looked like her head was about ready to jump off her shoulders and bite off Scully's face. "You both know of course, sexual activity between agents, especially partners, goes against the Bureau's protocol." "Oh please," Fowley venimously spat, "as if this wasn't something you and Fox haven't been doing for years!" "Y-y-yeah," Spender limped into the conversation still with a trace of simpering in his voice, "we've all heard the rumors, there has to be some truth to them. Remember Scully? Truth?" "Oh you are so full of shit," Scully smirked, "if Mulder and I were involved in a grope-and-tumble kind of relationship, Skinner would've found out and had us separated a long, *long* time ago...Does that tell you a little something about your future?" Spender's blushing and Fowley's fuming were interrupted by Mulder as he entered the room hiding something behind his back. "Mulder, did you find what you were looking for?" Scully asked, a bit curious at the smile painted across his face. 'What's he up to?' "I sure did. Spender? Diana?" he slowly revealed the item he'd held behind his back, "say cheese." With that he whipped out a camera and started rapidly snapping pictures of the would-be-couple entwined on the bed. #FLASH# #FLASH# #FLASH# #FLASH# The couple writhed on the bed and pulled and yanked at the handcuffs as if to yank the chain right through the varnished wood. Diana turned her face into Spender's side as if it were okay if his face was still visible in the pictures, but *this* could ruin *her* career! -*gasp!*- "Oh my God!" Scully laughed, "where the Hell did that thing come from?! I haven't seen that thing since Bellfleur!!" "I've been keeping it around for just such an event," he finally lowered the camera as he heard the roll of film inside begin to rewind, "come on Scully, let's go over to the one hour photo place." Mulder grabbed Scully's hand and they ran from the room, leaving the door open for maid service to find them later that night. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!" they heard Diana's scream from the room all the way down the hall, "YOU INCONCEIVABLE JACK-OFF!!!" "I'd rather shake hands with the unemployed than do what she was doing," he elicited a giggle from Scully when they reached the elevator. "Oh, this brings a whole new meaning to the term "going down." she answered him as she pressed the button that would take them to the lobby, then to the parking lot. Ohhhh, this was way more interesting than alien sexual harassment. ******************************************************* An hour later, Mulder emerged from the Fox Photo place with a large manilla envelope. Scully set her McDoanald's bag down on the floor and clicked on the domelight as he settled into the driver's seat, but he made no movement to start the car. He wanted her to peruse the uh *evidence* first. And peruse she did, all 22 photos. Focused, enough lighting, clear as a bell, you could even see traces of Wesson on the inside of Spender's thighs. "Well, Mulder, I must say, if you ever wanted to quit the FBI, you could be a photographer for Playboy. "Nah," he laughed as he started the car and pulled out of the parking space, "I'm too perverted." She laughed. "Oh! This is something we simply *must* share with the world." "I agree, and I've got the perfect means for it." She looked over at him in the car. "Where are we going?" "Kinko's. They've got a scanner up there." She looked at him curiously, then as the realization of what he had in mind sank in, a slow smile began to journey across he face. "We have a web page on the Bureau ring, don't we Scully?" ******************************************************* *LOL* I actually do believe something like this could happen:)--after all, this *is* "The X-Files." Of course, Spender and Fowley are both sleeping with Kersh, so I don't actually know that...*LOL* Hope you enjoyed this tawdry little farce I composed. It was originally only supposed to be about 9K long, but I guess I got a little keyboard happy:) I hope you're happy with the results:) Let me know:) --Rebecca