Category: V, H, M/S something Summary: Goofball fluff. Consider yourself warned. Timeline: Season six, between Dreamland and Two Fathers. Slight spoiler (?) for Dreamland. Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Author's notes at the end. ************************** Dr. Popularity by haphazard method ************************** Lust mamboed up his spine and shimmered to the tips of his hair. "Scully..." Mulder tried a deeper, seductive whisper. Please, please, pleasepleaseplease. "Don't start, Mulder." Damn it. Her phone rang, interrupting their ocular pas de deux. "Scully. Yes, I'll be right up." She hung up. Mulder tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. "Skinner. I'm supposed to go up to his office right away." "Just you?" "Yes. I wonder what he wants. I haven't talked to him since the consult at Quantico, and I thought that case was wrapped up. Maybe they found something new." "Could be." He smirked. "Then again, he's not really your boss any more. Maybe he just wants to know what you're up to Friday night." A frisky grin pirouetted across her face, twirling giddily from her mouth to her eyes, spinning Mulder into a momentary daze. "Stranger things have happened, Mulder." She stood and walked away, still smiling. Fuck. What was that? Is she serious? Skinner? Mulder swiveled in his chair and chewed on the stem of his eyeglasses, thinking hard. Surely there was some way to get through to her, to convince her he was the one. He ran through his options. Charm didn't work. Force was out. Besides, she'd kill him and eat his liver for breakfast. His feet tapped out a fidgety jitterbug under his desk. What could he offer that she can't refuse? Proof. Okay, besides that. Exasperated, he saw Scully near the elevators talking to someone. Good looking guy, nice suit. Mulder remembered him from the gym. Boyer. Not a bad basketball player and in good shape. Mulder watched her smile and touch his arm. Shit. Mulder considered his latest in-service weapons training results, wondering if he could hit the guy at this distance. Thank God, there was the elevator. He let out the breath he didn't know he was holding when the doors closed behind her. After seriously contemplating pissing around her desk to mark his territory, he instead propped his feet on his desk, trying to remember everything he knew about what women want. Soulful sincerity wouldn't work on Scully, at least from him. He knew without a doubt she would just laugh at him. Not that laughter was a bad start. He wouldn't have minded seeing that grin again, even if he'd rather hear her laughing with him and not at him. He had his work cut out for him with Scully, however. Frohike's drunken pronouncement, "It's harder to make a girl laugh than to make her come," lurched through his head, unsteady insight from a thoroughly intoxicated gnome. But quite possibly true, though Mulder admitted he would need more evidence. His vision suddenly swam with possibilities. No, no, no, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Back to work. He sighed, and adjusted the file on his lap. Fertilizer purchases. Right. The familiar castanet clacking of high heels on linoleum brought him back to earth. He looked up smiling, craning his neck to catch Scully's eye as she walked by. "How is the A.D.? I hope you gave him my fondest regards." "He's fine." Scully stopped near his chair, one hand on her hip, head held high, her chin up: a red-haired flamenco dancer in a black tailored suit. "You were right, Mulder. Skinner did want to know what I was up to on Friday." Mulder's feet slipped off the edge of his desk and hit the floor. Suave. He tried his best to act casual. "Oh? And what did you tell him?" "Oh, the usual." Laughter sparkled in her eyes, in spite of her defiant stance. Definitely laughing at him. She dropped her hand and moved around him to sit at her desk. "The usual? Do I dare ask what that would that be, Dr. Scully? Would it include an evening with your favorite government employee?" He flashed his most winsome grin, teeth and all. A-ha, definitely a flicker of interest there. Was it his best Boy Scout smile or the thought of Skinner on a Friday night? Fuck. "Since when did you become so interested in my private life, Mulder?" Soulful sincerity it was. He was a desperate man. "Scully, you're my best friend. I'm always interested in everything about you. And you know you can always tell me anything..." "Please, Mulder. Gooey sincerity is not your best look." He shifted gears immediately. "And what would my best look be, Scully?" His leer only elicited a roll of her eyes. He wheezed with frustration. Why does that work on every woman but this one? "Nice try, Mulder." "Scully, I'll do anything you want. Just name it." He watched her consider that statement, turning it around in her hands to study it from every angle, like a choreographer assessing how far her dancer could bend. Then her mouth quirked, and her twinkling eyes sent his blood tangoing through his fingers and toes. Hell, he would hop on his desk with maracas and a rose in his teeth, if only she would relent and make him happier than the Knicks upon hearing that Jordan had finally retired for good. "You know, Mulder--" Her phone rang again. What the hell? Mulder wondered when his partner was spirited away and replaced by Dr. Popularity. "Scully." "Oh, hi Mom. ... Me? I'm having a very interesting day, now that you mention it....What? ... Oh, no, nothing like that. No, we're still looking into fertilizer purchases. The usual exciting stuff." Scully flicked him a pointed look as she untangled the phone cord from around her stapler. Mulder jerked his head back to his records, her recent lecture about eavesdropping ringing in his reddening ears. He tried to look busy studying the file in his lap, but his inherent nosiness got the best of him. It always did. "This weekend? No firm plans yet, but it's funny you should ask. You wouldn't believe the offers I've had today. They're coming out of the woodwork. Even A. D. Skinner." What? She was serious? This was worse than he thought. Boyer was bad enough but where would he hide two bodies? "No, of course not." Mulder's panic subsided slightly. "Yes, him too." She laughed and swiveled around so all he could see was her back. Oh, this can't be good. Mulder tried to remember if he had ever brought any good news to Scully's mother and whether she might intercede on his behalf. No and unlikely. "Okay. I'll tell him you said hi." Scully swung around to hang up the phone. "My mother says hello." Mulder nodded and smiled warily. His long fingers drummed on the arms of his chair in syncopation with his heels on the linoleum. "Mulder, I have the distinct impression you're hovering." (And I have the distinct impression you are tormenting me and enjoying this far too much, Scully. Your turn will come, my pretty....) He discarded this response as unlikely to help him achieve his goal. He was a man with a mission after all. "No, I am not hovering. I suppose it is conceivable that a disinterested observer would argue that I'm being territorial, but personally, I don't see it that way." "Territorial, Mulder? I hope this is a brief atavistic spasm, and not a permanent appearance of Caveman Mulder. I wouldn't want to have to hurt you. I may, anyway, just for making me picture you dressed in animal skins, dragging your knuckles along the ground." "I don't know, Scully, I've been told that leopard skin brings out little gold flecks in my eyes. I'll even show you my club, if you ask nicely." Scully's eyebrows arched upwards. "The idea of reducing you to Neanderthal grunts has its charms, Mulder, but no thanks. And don't even get me started on that bedroom of yours." Before Mulder could figure out how to work the phrase "saucy wench" into a sentence that wouldn't get him killed, Scully folded her hands on her desk and leaned forward to look straight into his eyes. "Mulder, you're the psychologist. Why do you suppose that after all those years in the basement, years upon years when no one wanted anything to do with me, that all of a sudden I can't walk two feet without banging into a proposition?" "You mean besides the obvious reason?" Mulder laughed. "Well, maybe they forgot about you, moldering down in the basement with Old Spooky." She tried to disguise her smile with a twist of her lips. "There's a lovely thought. Does that make me a mushroom or penicillin? Don't even think about answering that, Mulder." He closed his mouth. Her hand made a scrubbing motion in the air, waving off his intended sarcastic retort as if erasing his answer from some invisible blackboard. "I have no doubt that there is a strong correlation between my winning the office raffle and my sudden popularity." Ah, there was that grin again. "Had I known all it would take was a pair of courtside seats to a Wizards-Knicks game, Mulder, I might have bought season's tickets years ago. Okay, it's a deal. I'll take you to the game, Mulder. Now, about that 'anything I want' offer...." ******* The end ******* Author's notes: Okay, so it's really a Mulder/Other story, and no one in his right mind would be this desperate to go to a Wizards-Knicks game, but work with me here.... I stole the line attributed here to Frohike off of alt.tv.x-files.analysis, where it tickled me to no end, but I can't find the original post to ask permission and offer proper acknowledgement. If anyone has it, would you forward it to me? There are a couple of other lines in here I am not sure if I read somewhere (a clear sign I read too much fanfic); if you recognize them, please send those references too! Thanks Amy, Meredith, and Chey for your encouragement and beta reading. I am glad you stuck with it, even if midway through reading it for the first time, two of you decided I had completely lost my mind. And Dasha, you were right about the tense; I hope I fixed them all. This was an experiment to see if I could write something funny, and to see how many dance terms I could use. (Can you tell I was listening to Tom Lehrer's song "The Masochism Tango" as I wrote? ) Let me know if you think it was a fox trot too far: haphmeth@yahoo.com.