And a Silver Sixpence 1And a Silver Sixpence (Part 1 of 2) by Teigen E-MAIL: TeigenDouglas@aol.com SPOILERS: Big-time for "Arcadia"; tiny for "One Son." DISTRIBUTION: OK for Gossamer; others, please ask first. CLASSIFICATION: Story/Romance/Smut KEYWORDS: MSR, Arcadia DISCLAIMER: "The X-Files" and all related characters belong to Fox, 1013, and Chris Carter. No profit is being made by me, and no infringement is intended. SUMMARY: What happened behind closed doors at The Falls at Arcadia? And a Silver Sixpence Part 1 I don't like playing house with Mulder. It grates on my nerves. He grates on my nerves. Seeing him in a shirt that shouldn't see the light of day in the '90s is only half of it; it's his enthusiastic portrayal of Rob Petrie that really irks me. Even if it is part of the job on this case. Surprisingly enough, this is the first time we've been undercover in over five years of working together. It's probably a good thing, because I'm terrible at pretending to be someone I'm not. My face hurts from smiling, and it takes all my willpower not to flinch when Mulder puts his arm around me. The neighbors all seem sweet. Too sweet, if you ask me; it's all very Stepford around here. We were welcomed by a sweet woman with a gift basket. A sweet guy corralled the rest of the very sweet residents to move us in. Another sweet guy dropped some of my lab equipment while trying to be helpful. I doubt I'll be dealing with such sweetness and light when I inform the FBI that something borrowed from their lab is now in a million pieces. And one of the sweet neighbors is quite likely a murderer. Mulder dribbles the basketball over to me. In the living room. "Sweet setup we've got here, huh, Scully?" He continues bouncing the ball as he sits next to me on the sofa. "If only I could shoot hoops outdoors, it'd be perfect." I shoot him my 'annoyed wife' look, and he stills the ball and uses it as a footrest. "Mulder, didn't your parents ever tell you not to play ball in the house?" "Nah." He looks thoughtful for a moment, then goes on: "They were a lot like these people probably are, actually." He nods his head in the general direction of the cul-de-sac outside. "So busy keeping up appearances, when behind closed doors the Mulder household wasn't exactly 'Ozzie and Harriet.'" He looks at me sideways. "Was your house like a sitcom, Scully? 'Father Knows Best,' maybe?" Oh, I see. We're having a real conversation. "It was ... um..." I struggle to find the words for what it was. "My father was at sea most of the time, Mulder. He could very well have known best, but he wasn't around to share that knowledge with us." My father certainly thought he knew what was best for me. It had nothing to do with what I wanted or needed, though. And I don't feel like getting into it at the moment, not in strange surroundings with a killer living within a few hundred yards. I rise from the couch. "I'm going to bed," I announce. Mulder nods. "Sleep tight, Scully." In spite of any imminent danger, I'm ready for a good night's sleep. "You'll be okay down here?" He pats the sofa. "I've got a couch and I've got cable. Just like home." He winks. "Oh, and don't forget, tomorrow the Petries are going to check out Mr. Big's house, under the guise of asking about my basketball hoop." I yawn out my question: "Mr. Big?" "Gogolak, the homeowner association president. Win Schroeder said he's in charge of that type of stuff. He probably knows everything that goes on around here, considering you have to ask his permission to take a crap. So he's either in on the disappearances, or knows about them, or something." Blue squiggles and white dots are flashing behind my eyelids, I'm so tired. "I'll be there," I promise. "Don't stay up too late," I add, pointing at the television before heading upstairs to bed. *** The meeting with Mr. Gogolak goes about as expected, though poor Mulder's miffed that his basketball hoop's a no-go. It feels odd to sit next to Mulder without my personal space. He attaches himself to my side like a limpet. He's really warm. And smiling so much still hurts my face. *** Dinner with the Schroeders is an exercise in patience. Mulder and I are square pegs in this place. Like me, Mulder's a terrible actor; lucky for him, these people don't know what he's really like, and they seem oblivious. The wives all seem suicidal, and I would be too if I was treated the way these women are. I get the strange feeling the men are all in on something sinister, and the wives are conveniently kept in the dark. They seem scared of their husbands, and that's no way to live. It falls in with Mulder's 'behind closed doors' theory from last night. I don't know if the husbands are beating the wives, or ignoring them, or intimidating them in some way, but I know I couldn't live like they do. Hell, Mulder, with his basketball in the house, his twisted sense of humor and his bad examples for parents, would still be a better husband than any of these men. I join Win's wife Cami as she takes their under-sixteen-pound dog for a walk. Bless Scruffy's disobedient soul; the yappy little guy leads me right to a clue about the mysteriously missing Big Mike. *** Mulder's in an odd mood; he's lying on my bed and joking about us being married. At the moment, we might as well be an old married couple. I'm wearing a hideous face mask, and he's left the toilet seat up for me no less than three times. I think he does it just to annoy me. If the thrill is gone, as he says, I wish I hadn't missed it when it was around. *** I spend the day in San Diego, dealing with the supposed evidence we found in the house. What looked like blood and hair turned out to be garbage. Literally. A trip to the city's records department nets me the information that after a few zoning snafus, The Falls at Arcadia was granted permission to build on top of a landfill. My day feels almost wasted, but at least I can tell Mulder he's barking up the wrong tree here, and we can focus the investigation a little more. *** Thinking someone is in the house with me, I nearly take a swing at Mulder with a fireplace poker. He doesn't mind much. And now he tells me he thinks someone is protecting us. Someone put away his beloved basketball hoop, possibly trying to keep him out of trouble. Meanwhile, he's been digging in the front yard, and is now convinced there's some sort of monster living in the soil. Intimating that the Klines may be buried in the yard is probably just his way of getting me to order a forensic excavation. Good little wife that I am, I agree. When I go to make the call, I'm surprised in the bedroom by none other than Big Mike, covered in dirt and what looks like his own blood. He's been living in the sewers, he says, and he warns me that something called "the ubermenscher" is out to get Laura and Rob. My high school German tells me this word means something like "superman" or "more than a man." Somehow I doubt a superhero is behind the killings in this neighborhood. Big Mike's got my gun, and he's scared, and I don't trust him with my weapon. While I'm thinking about this, Big Mike stuffs me in the closet and gets in a tussle with our ubermenscher. He shoots at it, but whoever or whatever it is, it kills Big Mike while I'm unarmed and locked in the closet. The noises are horrific, not to mention the nasty bits of monster -- or Mike -- that fly through the slats in the door. How do I explain that my service weapon was fired by a victim?? After all the autopsies I've done, all the odd things I've seen and heard about, it would seem that nothing would shock me; but I never quite get used to this sort of thing. While I have become inured to a certain amount of violence and gore, I try not to become complacent. I can't be; it would get me killed, or get my partner killed. *** Mulder comes to let me out of the closet, and at the sound of screaming outside, the asshole leaves me to free myself while he goes to check out the ruckus. As always, he's the one who sees the big finale, and later he tells me that the ubermenscher-garbagemonster-soilman was brought to life by Gogolak, and that when Gogolak died at the monster's hand, the monster died with him, turning into a pile of dust. And Mulder was the one who thought this wasn't an X-file. *** Never mind the carnage that went on in this room earlier; I can't sleep in this bed another night simply because the mattress is too hard. The Bureau sent a cleanup crew out with amazing speed; they cleaned the place up almost as fast as the neighbors moved us in. The San Diego office, from what I've seen, isn't nearly as busy as the DC office. This is the most excitement they've had in ages. We fly home tomorrow after we turn in the paperwork. At two a.m. I'm still reading a mystery, and shouldn't even bother, since I'm fairly sure I solved the case somewhere in the first sixty pages, and if I'm wrong, I don't deserve my job. And then I find I'm no longer alone. Mulder leans in the doorway of the bedroom like a J. Crew model. Jeans, no shoes, no shirt, and bed-head, all in soft light. He looks at me like he's studying me for a test, but doesn't speak. I put down my book. "Mulder?" "Scully?" he asks, as if I'm the one who's not acting like myself. "Why are you staring?" "Oh." He straightens up. "Oh. I, um...." He talks to the doorway. "Do you ever feel like we're keeping up appearances, Scully?" Oh. Another conversation. This is something new that Mulder's been doing lately. He knows it throws me off, and I think he likes that. Well, the case is over, we're out of danger, and now I feel like talking back. See how you like it, Mulder. "With whom?" I ask, sitting up fully. He takes a moment before answering. At least he's looking at me when he does. "With each other." "Mulder," I start, wondering where exactly he thinks this conversation is going, "everyone is different behind closed doors. We all have our public and private personas; people act differently with their parents, their coworkers, their spouses, their friends. We fall into certain patterns depending on whom we're with." "Yeah, but--" Mulder takes a step into the room. It seems like a very important step. He's making me uncomfortable, and I go on the offense. "But what?" "The way you laughed, at dinner the other night. I know you were faking it, but do you ever laugh like that, for real, Scully?" He looks at the floor. "With your friends?" Friends? I have friends? I almost say it out loud, but it sounds pathetic enough in my head that I think better of it. Instead I warily head toward the heart of the matter -- or what I think is the heart of the matter to Mulder. "You and I don't often have a lot to laugh about," I tell him. "May I?" Mulder points toward a spot next to me on the bed. I nod. "Sure." I scoot a little toward the other side to give him room, and he sits on top of the covers. He looks down the front of the camisole I wore to bed. "Do something for me, Scully?" I don't usually do things for Mulder in bed. "Sure." I nod again. "Turn around," he orders. I turn my back on him, and feel the bed shift as he moves behind me. A moment later, his hands are on my bare skin, his thumbs pressing between my shoulder blades. I can smell his sweat, and feel the slight heat emanating off him. Is this supposed to relax me, I wonder? I'm too aware of him to relax. "Shhh," he says. "Stop thinking." "Fuck off," I say, and he laughs a little. His hands are soft, the hands of a man who works behind a desk and gets the occasional manicure. I can't imagine Mulder actually taking the time to get a manicure, but still, his touch says otherwise. His fingers inch lower on my back, and he kneads down my spine through the silk, his hands firm and sure. --And suddenly he's tickling me, hard, hands at my waist, and I can't struggle away from him because he's too strong, and how can he not know that I hate being tickled? I'm laughing like an idiot, and I hope he doesn't take that as a sign I'm enjoying this. I flail around and scream at him to stop, to please please please stop, that I fucking hate him and I'll get him for this ... and he stops long enough for me to flip around so I can glare at him through my tousled hair. He's laughing like an idiot too. So pleased with himself. "What the hell was that?" I demand through wheezing breaths. "That was you laughing," he says with a smile. "Tickling doesn't count," I growl. "Ticklish laughter is a reflexive response, Mulder, not an indicator that I was having fun." I'm struggling not to smile as I say this, since the happy look on Mulder's face is contagious. I do hate being tickled, but if that's all it takes to make Mulder smile like this, I'll let it go, just this once. There's a certain release in laughter -- even forced laughter -- and now that my adrenaline is leveling off, a happy lassitude spreads through my veins. "Next time, Mulder, try telling me a joke." "That's not the same," he protests. "It doesn't have the element of surprise. It's cerebral. I wanted the physical." "The physical?" I ask. "Yeah. You couldn't help but laugh while being tickled, not like you can when someone tells a joke, or when you have time to think yourself out of it." "You think I do that?" Does he? He ponders a moment. "Sometimes, yeah," he says. "Is it because you think it makes you look weak? Do you think people won't take you seriously if you show you have a sense of humor?" Now he's starting to really piss me off. "Mulder, just because I don't laugh at your jokes, that doesn't mean I don't think they're funny. I'm just not a laugh out loud person." "I know that," he says. "But wouldn't it be nice? To let go with someone once in a while?" "With you, you mean?" I can't help but cross my arms in front of me, and Mulder looks at me like I'm betraying him. "Stop it, Mulder. Do you want someone to do as you say, like those women in the neighborhood?" I gesture toward the cul-de-sac. "Someone who'll laugh at your jokes even when they don't mean it? Do you want me to act like Laura Petrie? Because it's not going to happen." "Dammit!" He rises from the bed. "Of course not!" he says as he paces the room. "I just wanted to see ... to see what you're like behind closed doors, I guess." "I'm sorry, but it's still just me, Mulder." I wish there was more of me, some fun person hiding behind my boring facade, but there just isn't. I have my moments, of course, but I'm not silly or flighty or dumb or giggly. I'm just not. "Fuck," Mulder says. "That's not what I meant and you know it." He sits back down and tugs at my arms until I let them fall at my sides. He bites his bottom lip as he looks at me, and finally takes one of my hands in both of his, and studies it for a minute. I have to fight not to squirm. His thumbs on my palm send scary signals through my body, and I shiver. "Admit it, Mulder," I say, and I throw his words back at him: "You just wanted to play house." End Part 1/2 And a Silver Sixpence Part 2 "Maybe I did," he whispers, and he twists the rings on the third finger of my left hand. "But I wouldn't want any of those women who obey their husbands without question." He scrunches his nose in distaste, and that small gesture makes me hot, literally. I feel myself blushing and flushing and burning up. My face, my chest, my ears. Jesus. I feel like I should say something, but I have no idea what, and when I see the way Mulder's looking at me, as if I'm a goddess, I suddenly feel like I'd ruin everything if I spoke. Even though I feel like I have to say or do something, old habits die hard, and I'm flummoxed by my inability to act. Mulder seems to know this, and his patience is amazing. He just sits in front of me, holding my hand. And he waits. It finally dawns on me what I should do. I pull my hand from his, and remove the rings and place them on the bedside table. "I don't want to play house, Mulder," I explain, and from the expression on his face you'd think he lost his best friend. He gets off the bed and I realize he's misconstrued my intent. "Wait," I order, and I rise, walk past him, and shut the bedroom door. "I don't want it to be Laura and Rob," I say, and I grab his left hand and remove his wedding ring, and throw it somewhere. I nod at the bedroom door. "Look," I tell him. "We're behind closed doors now." "Yeah," he says, and he scans my body from head to toe. "Do you always dress like this for bed, Scully? Behind closed doors?" I look down at myself. I'm wearing a light blue camisole and matching tap pants. "Sometimes," I tell him. "When it's not too cold." It's plenty warm here in California, but as hard as my nipples have gotten, it might as well be the Arctic. My body knows what's going to happen tonight, and it seems to have processed the information more quickly than my mind. "Why'd you wear that flannel nightgown the rest of the time?" I place my hand on Mulder's warm chest. "Why'd you wear a shirt the rest of the time?" For a guy who sits behind a desk a lot, he's rock solid. All that basketball and swimming must pay off. Mulder slips his hands under my little cami top, and spans my waist. "Mulder," I say, "do you promise not to tickle me?" "I do," he vows. I stop thinking, and wrap my lips around his left nipple. I think, Yeah, who's shivering now, Mulder? until his hands travel up my ribs and find my breasts. My own trembling starts anew, and the game's afoot. I'd keep kissing his chest, but it seems to be restricting his access to my own, and that won't do. So I lean back and go to work unbuttoning his 501s. It's slow going, due to my shock at the sounds coming out of my mouth, which are due to Mulder's hands swirling around my nipples and driving me crazy. And he's watching me. He's looking at my face as he touches my body. It's unnerving, but I can't look away. I keep my hands working on his jeans, and after a few moments the button fly is undone and I blindly reach my hand inside and bingo, eureka, ba-da-bing, I hit the jackpot. I thought my face was hot, but it's got nothing on the heat of Mulder's cock. I also thought his chest was rock solid, but again, it's got nothing on his cock. In ten seconds, Mulder's cock has become my entire world. I want to know every inch of it, intimately, and I push his jeans down past his hips so I can get a good look. "God," Mulder says as I free myself from his hands and crouch down to study him. Yes, I've seen it before, but not when there was a chance it would be inside me; the previous times I've been treated to the sight of Mulder's penis, it was a hypothetical penis, not a real one. Now it's got ridges and veins and feels better in my hand than my SIG Sauer. And I love that gun. Mulder backs up against the door for support, which is fine for now but I plan to make his knees so weak nothing will keep him upright. Mulder doesn't yet know that behind closed doors, I love giving head when I'm in love. I get into a kneeling position between his legs, and I'd get a pillow for my knees but it'd break the mood, and I don't think this will take long, anyway. I slide my tongue up the underside of his cock, root to tip, testing his reactions. He gives my shoulder a squeeze and he's already nonverbal, so we're in business. I peek up at his face, but his head's thrown back against the door and all I see is his jaw, working itself open and shut again and again. I let go of him until he looks down at me. I just like the eye contact. "You okay up there?" I ask. "I'm great," he says. "You okay down there?" "Great," I confirm, and I keep my eyes on his as I slide half his dick into my mouth. As out of practice as I am, and as long as he is, I don't think I'll be doing any deep throating tonight. But that's why God gave me hands; I can keep Mulder satisfied without any discomfort on my part. With my hand wrapped around the base of his cock, I can quite happily swallow the rest of it, and I do. Mulder still has one hand on my shoulder; the other has twined itself in my hair. Wisely, though, he's managing not to pull my hair or force my movements. I think he's smart enough to know that'd call a halt to any fellatio, and besides, his legs are already shaking so he's probably having a good enough time without calling the shots. I keep up my up-and-down movement on his cock, and with my free hand I massage his testicles. He's thrusting lightly; it feels as if he's trying to hold back. He's good and lubricated now, and besides his hand's death grip on my shoulder, I'm getting a taste of precum, so I lightly drag my teeth down his cock and slide it out of my mouth. I keep a firm hold on the base for about thirty seconds as Mulder comes back to this plane of existence. "Scully," he says as he slides his hands under my arms and pulls me to a standing position. "Fuck, I thought I was gonna fall down." He smiles a crooked smile and kisses me on the forehead, then pushes my hair back and kisses me on the lips. It's a lazy kiss on his part, but that's to be expected after what I've just put him through. After a sloppy start, he seems to get into the spirit of things, and kisses me with greater purpose. Mulder's tongue gets to know mine, and they seem to like each other a lot. I chase his back into his mouth and he puts it back in mine, sliding it between my upper teeth and my top lip ... then along the roof of my mouth ... then across my bottom lip. He's taking inventory. I haven't been kissed with such thoroughness in a long time, and between this and my earlier kneeling, now it's my legs that are about to give out. I dimly wonder if any of the neighbors are up late having amazing sex like Mulder and me, and the thought flits away when Mulder's mouth moves across my cheek. He tugs on my earlobe and traces the shell of my ear with his tongue, and I realize he's as oral as I am, and that this is going to be a very good thing. He whispers my name, hot and damp. "Scully," he says, "I need you to know something." "What is it?" I ask, pushing my body against his. What he says next is about the most appropriate thing I can imagine: "I don't ever want us to live in a neighborhood like this." I laugh, but it's seriously romantic to me. It implies not only that there's an 'us,' but that he thinks of that 'us' as having a future together, and that he doesn't want our lives to be normal or routine, that this is us, here, hot and sweaty and sexy; not anything like our alter egos Rob and Laura, or any of the drones who live in fear at The Falls at Arcadia. "Bed," I say, and walk backwards -- for about two steps, Mulder in tow -- until he gets tangled in his jeans and falls on top of me on the floor with an "ooomph" from both of us. "Sorry." Mulder pushes himself off me and stands to shuck off his shoes and jeans, then sits on the bed to take off his socks. "C'mere, Scully." He offers me his hand, and pulls me up to stand between his legs. He leans forward and pushes up my camisole as he delivers wet kisses to my stomach, and I lift my arms as he rids me of the top completely and zeroes in on my breasts. He licks my right nipple and then blows on it, watching as it grows. The same treatment is given to the left, and then he just dives in for a midnight snack. His ever-present erection hits me in a fabulous place, just high enough that if I rub myself on him, it stimulates my clit through the damp crotch of my lingerie. He thrusts forward as he grabs my ass and pulls me into him, and even with my legs together it feels like heaven. I let my head fall back, and feel the ends of my hair on my neck while Mulder's hair slips between my fingers like sand. His mouth remains clamped to a breast, but his hands have other ideas. He's pushing down my little silk shorts, inch by inch, until he has to spread his legs to get a little room. He gets them down past my hips and I wriggle out of them and kick them away, and I think it hits us at the same time that we're both naked. "Wow," I say, and Mulder echoes the sentiment. Then he grabs me and throws me on the bed, holding my hands above my head like I'm his prisoner. "Spread 'em," he orders, like he's in one of those bad cop shows from the '70s. It makes me laugh, but I comply anyway, and he must be hanging half off the bed down there by the time his mouth is between my legs. He lifts up my legs to wrap his arms around my thighs until his hands are on my stomach and my ass is supported by his upper arms. He just breathes on me for a little while, and it makes me itch with want. I don't say anything, though, since I seem to remember staring at his cock for a moment longer than was necessary. Finally, his visual inspection over, he gives me a good strong lick, opening me up for further investigation. I'm so sensitive I feel helpless from the first touch of his tongue, and my whole body shakes in anticipation of the impending orgasm. I try to speak, but all I can manage is short little panting moans, oh-oh-oh-oh, and I swear I can feel him laughing against my pussy. He thrusts his tongue as far inside me as it will go, and uses it like a cock, in a straight in-out motion; I think his whole head is moving back and forth with the effort. Then he adds a finger to my clit, and after a minute or so I'm gone -- soaring, squirming, and screaming for more. I open my eyes and look down as Mulder lifts his head. Covered in my juices from nose to chin, he's grinning like a fool. He kisses his way up my body, crawling over me until we're again face to face. "Delicious," he declares, "and dolphin safe." Still catching my breath, I don't even get a chance to groan at his joke before he kisses me and settles his weight on me. "This okay?" he asks. It takes a second before I realize he's asking about my preference for position. Missionary style isn't my favorite, but it's fine, and I just had a whopper of an orgasm anyway, and I tell him this. "Fine's not good enough," he says. "What's best?" I can scarcely think, with his cock twitching at my entrance. "What's best is what you just did to me," I admit, and he smiles big. "But in general, I like to be on top during intercourse, if that's what you're asking." "On top it is," he says, and rolls us over. I'm barely in position before his cock finds its way inside me, and even with all the foreplay my inner muscles still complain at the invasion. Mulder's a saint, and lets me control the penetration, holding still beneath me as I slide up and down, up and down onto him until he's all the way in. "Okay," I say, and that's the end of my control, because Mulder's hips seduce mine into thinking hard and fast is a great idea. His hands rove over my back, my ass, and as I rise up into a sitting position, he rediscovers my breasts, and between his hands and his cock, I feel overstimulated in the best way. My body doesn't know what's hitting it, the pleasure's coming so fast and furious. I find myself braced on my arms, my legs straightened out behind me as far as they'll go, and my clit rubbing against Mulder's pubic bone with each thrust. My orgasm's coming too fast and I want to keep fucking for a while, but it's out of my hands as the pleasure slams into me from below, traveling my spine like fire until it settles somewhere in the vicinity of my clit and after a few more seconds, the stimulation's too much and I have to stop. I lift up and realize Mulder's still hard. God, I think, he's literally a sex machine, and I wonder how he's been managing all this sexual energy if he's been celibate as long as I think he has. His eyes are closed in pleasure though he hasn't come yet. Bless him for being such a gentleman. "Hey," I say. "What's the best way for you?" He opens his eyes and smiles. "How are your knees holding up?" "Knees are okay," I tell him. I scramble off him, getting on my knees and grabbing the headboard before looking back at him. "This what you had in mind, Mulder?" His grin is his answer. He says, "Hold on tight," and before I know it he's back inside me, and it's all for him now as I shove back into him on each thrust. He's really fucking me now, going faster and faster, and grunting with the effort. He manages to reach around to stimulate my clit and there's no way I can handle that kind of touch. "No, Mulder, just go," I order, and he pulls me into a semi-sitting position so he can fondle my breasts, and oh, it's so much better now; his cock's hitting my G-spot and I've never come three times in one session before, and I have the thought that I'm so glad I didn't let him come in my mouth or I'd have missed two incredible orgasms, not to mention the one barreling toward me at breakneck speed. "God, Mulder, please, more, more," I beg, and he keeps up exactly what he's doing, and it's perfect and beautiful and I come again, and this time I must pass out, because when I come to, Mulder's got me pinned to the bed, every pound of his weight on me. "Mmmm, get off," I say, and he only hums above me, either passed out or asleep himself. With a bit of effort, I roll him off me onto his back. God, he's beautiful like this, completely peaceful except for his hands, flexing and extending and grabbing onto the rumpled bedspread. I lean over him and lick his sternum; his sweat tastes good. I'm a wreck, though, and my legs are so wobbly I have to rest a minute, then steady myself on the way to the bathroom. I pee, and take a quick shower, and when I go back in the bedroom wearing a towel, Mulder's awake -- sort of -- and he says, "Come back to bed ... missed you." "We have to get up in a few hours," I inform him. He doesn't open his eyes. "So set the alarm," he slurs. I do, and when I climb back into bed Mulder immediately snuggles up to me and wraps himself around my body. Freshly bathed, I wince a little at his cooling perspiration, but it's a small price to pay, considering. "You're wet," he says, running a hand through my hair. "Do we have time for more sex before we leave?" "I'm sore enough as it is," I say. "Besides, we both need to sleep." "Sleep's good, sleep with me," he says, and latches onto my breast like a sleeping baby. He lets go long enough to offer the most pathetic marriage proposal ever. "Our plane stops in Vegas, Scully. You could make an honest man out of me on the way home." "Mulder, you're already an honest man," I say. "We'll talk about it when we get home." He never opens his eyes. "Okay ... you asleep yet, Scully?" "Not quite." "Go to sleep," he says. "But think about it ... I promise not to play ball in the house." I shove my breast back in his mouth and go to sleep. --THE END-- THANKS: To CarriK for her transcript of "Arcadia," and to Cofax for after-the-fact beta. NOTE: This was a little self-imposed challenge. Virtual cookies to the first reader to figure out the gimmick. The title is an (apparently obscure) hint; and if you look for something in the fic... well, there's your clue.