Title:  Gutless (12/16)
Author:  Magdeleine
See Prologue for full headers; all posted chapters can be found at 
http://shannono.simplenet.com/gutless

GUTLESS

Chapter 12


The Mo-Z Inn
Room 122
7:45 PM

"You call it.  Heads or tails?"

"Heads."

"... Oooh, tough luck."

"Damn!"

"Hah.  Remember, Mulder, no sausage this time."

He reached for the phone and paused, one hand 
touching the receiver.  "Green peppers?" he 
asked hopefully, giving his partner a forlorn 
look.

"Fine."

"Olives?"

Scully was sitting cross-legged in the middle 
of the floor, surrounded by a melange of prim 
official files and the crumpled copies they'd 
pilfered from the sheriff's office.  She glared 
at him over the rims of her glasses, unwilling 
to crane her neck just to make proper eye 
contact.  "Don't push it, Mulder."

He shrugged philosophically and thumbed through 
the meager pages of the Tehtonka-Leotie-Parker 
City phone book, the phone receiver tucked into 
the crook of his neck.  "There's only one pizza 
place in town."

"At least there *is* one."

"... Anchovies?"

She gave him a sharp look, saw laughter behind 
his eyes, and allowed herself a small smile.  
"I know I keep telling you to get more seafood 
in your diet, Mulder, but I don't think that's 
the way to do it."

He seemed satisfied, and sat down on the bed to 
dial.  "Think the place is any good?"

She was barely listening, distracted for the 
moment by picking carpet fuzz off her slacks.  
"I'll be happy if it's still hot when it gets 
here."

"Oooh," he grinned.  "I love a woman who's easy 
to please."

"Don't get used to it."

"I wouldn't dream of --  Hello, yes, I need to 
make an order for delivery.  Mulder.  Room one-
twenty-two at the Mo-Z Inn.  Large pepperoni, 
with mushroom, green peppers ..."

"Extra cheese," Scully said without looking up.  
She smoothed out another crumpled copy and 
placed it on top of one of the manila folders 
from Taymor's, matching up the parallel sides.  
It seemed to hover, held aloft by the wrinkles 
ingrained in its surface. 

"... Extra cheese.  Hey, Scully, thin crust or 
thick?"

"Thin."

"THIN," a squawky voice echoed from Scully's 
room; Scully leaned back and glared at the 
parrot through the open connecting door.  Guido 
ducked his head slyly away from her gaze and 
fluffed his wings, muttering to himself in 
scratchy bird-talk.

"Thin crust.  Uh-huh.  One large iced tea, one 
large Diet Coke ...  Thirteen fifty-eight?"  
Mulder dug out his wallet one-handed and 
counted out a short stack of money onto the 
bedside table, eyed it critically and took back 
a few dollars.  "Uh-huh.  You too.  Bye."  He 
hung up and collapsed back onto the bed, 
bouncing slightly.  From Scully's viewpoint, he 
vanished from the knees up.  "Hey, Scully?" his 
disembodied voice asked.

"Yes, Mulder?"

"Wanna hear a funny story?"

"No, Mulder."  She examined another copy, cast 
an eye around for the correct file to match it 
to, and placed it appropriately, square in the 
middle.

"Hmph."  One orphaned foot scooted over to the 
other as though for company, slid up to scratch 
at the exposed sock, and came back down, toeing 
off first one shoe, then the other.

"Keep your shoes on," she warned.

The toes wiggled in their checkered socks, a 
This Little Piggy kickline.  "Too casual for 
you?" Mulder's distant voice inquired.

"No," she said patiently, "your feet smell."

"Your shoes are off and *I* didn't complain."

"My feet," she informed him, "do not smell."

Mulder made a noise of amused effort and 
hitched his feet up onto the bed, reappearing 
from the waist up as he sat cross-legged in the 
middle of the bed.  He snaked out a long arm 
and snagged his laptop computer from the 
bedside table, phone wires trailing after him 
like IV drips.  "Wanna hear what I found on the 
internet?"

"Download those pictures on your own time, 
Mulder."

The corners of his eyes crinkled slightly.  
"Sorry to disappoint you, Scully, but this time 
I just looked up some information on succubi."

"OH PLEASE," Guido put in from the next room, 
and whistled.

"My sentiments exactly," Scully said dryly.  
She turned an abused copy right-side up and set 
it in place on a stack of others like it, 
puffed up to cartoonish height like the TV 
commercial version of a fifty-nine cent 
hamburger.

Mulder pressed onward.  "The local Plains 
Indians have a variant on the myth that sounds 
like it might f --"

"Mulder," she interrupted, irritation spiking 
her like a tequila shot, "is this really 
necessary?"

Silence.  She looked up, belatedly concerned, 
and caught the tail end of his hopeful smile as 
it slowly faded into something wary and 
watchful.  The agents studied each other across 
the room for a moment, without words, the 
rickety balance between them tipping back and 
forth and trying to right itself.

For some reason he was being far too careful 
with her.  She groped for the motive behind it, 
felt it slide away from her like a minnow, 
leaving behind an uneasy sense of dread.  When 
Mulder was careful, it meant trouble; it meant 
his profiler's mind was at work, and although 
she had seen him make some spectacularly bad 
calls at profiling women, she couldn't be sure 
that this would be one of them.  If he'd 
sniffed out the fantasies she'd been 
entertaining about him, the dream she'd had 
last night --

She willed away both the thought and the stab 
of fear that came with it.

Without thinking about it, she stood up and 
padded across the room, her pantyhose rasping 
oddly between the carpet and the ball of her 
foot, the crooked toe-seam twisting between two 
toes.  She sat down on the edge of the bed, 
reached out and pulled the laptop toward her.  
"All right.  Let me see."

The image on the screen was some kind of 
artist's rendering, not the Native American 
pictorial that Scully had expected.  The female 
"demon" seemed as human-looking as the prone 
figure it pressed against, except that the 
victim was swathed in a blanket and the demon 
was nude, with obscenely large breasts.  
Without the blanket, it would have been a 
clipping from a pornographic comic book; as 
things were, it looked like a couple attempting 
a bizarre form of birth-control, with enough 
smoke billowing around to ensure that the 
casual observer would comprehend that this was 
a Supernatural Event.

She met Mulder's eyes and was relieved to find 
the wariness gone, submerged again in the 
electric current of his intense interest.  An 
arachnid thought crept around the wall in her 
mind, murmuring hot words about what that high-
voltage intensity would feel like focused on 
her.  A shiver rippled across her skin and she 
had to grit her teeth to keep from arching her 
neck.

"Scully?"

"Are you going to tell me," she said in a 
remarkable facsimile of her normal voice, "or 
do I have to figure out what this is myself?"

Mulder made an amused noise deep in his throat 
and pulled the laptop to a position midway 
between them, brushing at the touchpad to 
scroll down past the cartoonish figures.  "The 
local Okomhaka tribe has a myth about a spirit 
creature they call the Tochok.  It's said to be 
a spirit being that attacks people in their 
sleep, just like the succubus or any of the 
others; the difference is that the Tochok 
actually kills its victims."  

Scully gave him the eyebrow, right on cue.

He lifted his hands to proclaim his innocence.  
"I didn't just pull this out of my ass, I 
swear.  It's right here."

She chuffed quietly but let him continue.

"The Okomhakas say that the Tochok invades a 
physical body -- a host, not a victim -- and 
sleeps inside it during the day, only coming 
out to hunt at night.  The host, for the most 
part, is unaffected.  The victims, however, are 
attacked while they are sleeping, pressed on to 
the point of suffocation, and then the Tochok 
drains them of their spirits."

"Drains?"

"Yeah.  Here's the important part, Scully-- 
victims of the Tochok are said to have a big 
red mark seared into the skin of their 
abdomens.  If we assume that 'draining them of 
their spirits' is a semi-religious misnomer for 
somehow liquidating all internal organs and 
sucking them out through the victims' mouths, 
then this looks a lot like a certain M.O. we've 
been seeing lately."

Scully stared at him.  "First of all, Mulder, 
'liquidating' is *not* an M.O., it's something 
you do to assets."

"Really ...?"  His gaze dropped mischievously.  
"Your assets look pretty solid to me."

"Second," she continued, stone-faced, "the only 
way to liquefy human organs besides ordinary 
decomposition is to drop them into a blender 
and hit puree."

Mulder chuckled and reached over to manipulate 
the laptop touchpad.  "Right here, Scully.  The 
Okomhakas say that the Tochok would appear as 
the person that the victim desired the most.  
Perhaps that pressing on the abdomen is a close 
enough approximation of sexual contact to 
release some pent-up energy, sparking some kind 
of combustion that evaporates the organs and 
leaves the muscle tissue alone."

"Mulder," she growled, "that is the most 
ridicul --"

"-- ridiculous theory, yeah, I know," he 
agreed, overlapping her words in an all-knowing 
way that made her want to punch him in the 
nose.  "But look at it this way, Scully.  All 
four of these victims were bona fide members of 
the Lonely Hearts Club, and all of them were 
hopelessly infatuated with Jim Taymor --"

"Except for Joshua Schmidt," Scully informed 
him dryly.  "Unless you've decided his obvious 
stalking of the sheriff's daughter was just an 
act to cover his true preferences."

Mulder pointed his index finger at her like a 
gun.  "Bingo.  The others had it bad for 
Taymor, and Joshua had it bad for Amber.  Every 
single one of them sexually frustrated."

She stared at him for a moment, looking for a 
way she could blow holes in his theory without 
having to use the word 'sexual.'  There wasn't 
one.  She sighed.

Guido was muttering to himself in the other 
room, sounding remarkably like a flu patient 
doing some preliminary gagging, and shuffled 
his feet noisily.  He whistled suddenly; when 
the agents' attention turned to him, he 
preened, twisting his head from side to side.  
"PRETTY BIRDIE!"

Scully groaned.

Mulder chuckled, and took the chance to wind up 
his argument.  "That would explain why there 
has been no evidence at any of the scenes, no 
trace evidence on the bodies, and why nobody's 
ever seen the murderer.  A demon could coalesce 
inside the victim's bedroom and then disperse 
again the moment the deed was done, leaving no 
sign that it was ever there."  He grinned.  
"And no eyewitnesses."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that."

"What?  Who?"

She lifted her chin, a streetfighter daring an 
opponent to go for the knockout punch.  "Fred 
Schmidt."

"Scuhllee," Mulder drawled, his eyes drooping 
lazily, "I thought you had that dismissed as a 
clear-cut case of sleep paralysis."

"I'm not saying it's not.  It's entirely 
possible that Fred Schmidt caught a glimpse of 
the murderer and incorporated it into an 
episode of sleep paralysis."  Her lips twitched 
involuntarily.  "Granted, Fred Schmidt is not 
the most reliable witness in the history of 
crime, but that doesn't mean we should 
completely disregard his account of events."

"Fred's account of events is that he was 
attacked by a dark-haired, green-eyed 
demoness," he said pointedly, "which would back 
up my theory more than yours.  Especially if 
we're right about Fred's unrequited lust for 
Marty Schmidt."

"Marty Schmidt," Scully ground out, "is not the 
only woman involved in this case with dark hair 
and green eyes."

He furrowed his brow at her.  "Where are you 
going with this, Scu --"

"Amber Volney is dark-haired, green-eyed, and 
vehemently vocal in her dislike of the 
victims."

"She's a kid," Mulder glowered.  "She's the 
*sheriff's* kid."

She shrugged neatly, crossed her legs and 
wiggled her toes inside the pantyhose.  "The 
children of any authority figure are often 
prone to misbehaving, particularly during their 
teen years."

"Speaking from personal experience?"

"Not a lot of teacher's kids in my classes.  
Nuns are celibate."

He smiled automatically, but his attention was 
already laser-locked on another target.  "Do 
you really think that a small-town teenage girl 
could do this, Scully?"

"We've seen worse," she reminded him.

"Right."  He mulled it over, frowning.  His 
right hand, apparently lacking explicit orders, 
began picking at an unraveled quilting thread 
on the nylon bedspread.  Scully could barely 
hear the silky scritching sound, but it 
registered along her spinal cord, branching out 
in tiny silver tingles down her nerves.  
Szzzicc szzzicc szzzicc --

She grabbed his hand, holding it prisoner six 
inches above the bed.  He looked at her in 
honest surprise and the reality of his flesh 
hit her like a brick -- the weight and mass of 
his big hand in hers, the heat, the rasp of 
dissimilar fingerprints along her own.  His 
fingers squeezed hers reflexively and for a 
moment she forgot to breathe.

She let go with the exaggerated care of a woman 
on a tightrope, her hand swimming back into her 
personal space to land like a lunar module on 
her lap, her head buzzy with bloodrush.  Mulder 
looked at her oddly and scratched at his neck 
with his newly released hand.  "All right, 
convince me.  Means, motive, opportunity."

"Fine."  Scully removed her glasses, folded 
them neatly and set them on the bedside table.  
"Opportunity.  Amber does not have a valid 
alibi for last Friday.  She told her father she 
was going to a movie with her cousin.  Her 
cousin, the nurse from the hospital --"  She 
groped for the name and could not remember it.  
Her little notebook was propped up against her 
shoes, all the way across the room, 
unavailable.  "She said that Amber was working 
late with her boss, Jim Taymor, and couldn't go 
to the movies.  Jim Taymor said he was working 
late, alone."

"Teenagers lie to their fathers," Mulder 
shrugged.  "She could have been anywhere."

"Motive.  Amber is in love with Jim Taymor."

He looked at her blankly.

"She has a crush on him, Mulder.  When I hinted 
that Marjorie could have been having an affair 
with him, Amber went through the roof.  She's 
jealous, and taking out the competition -- or, 
in Joshua's case, removing an irritant."

He blinked.  "Hold on, Amber said that Taymor 
wasn't having an affair with Marjorie, or with 
any of the others.  If she's the murderer, 
wouldn't she go after his wife?"

"No," she sighed, "not necessarily.  I'm not 
sure about how teenage boys operate, but for 
teenage girls ..."  She paused, trying to patch 
together a clean explanation without invoking 
personal experience.  "When a teenage girl has 
a hopeless crush, she tends to see the 
girlfriend or wife of the crush as ... 
invulnerable.  The legitimate significant other 
serves as a focus of jealousy, but there is a 
certain ... fear of retribution involved."

Mulder was eating this up.  He looked like a 
preschooler at Story Time, listening wide-eyed 
to her story, his long legs folded in front of 
him in an awkward pretzel.  "Fear of 
retribution from the girlfriend?"

She shook her head.  "From the crush.  Fear 
that the crush will hate her, or in some cases 
..."  Her mouth grew dry for no good reason and 
she had to swallow before she could continue.  
"In some cases, a simple fear of exposing her 
feelings."

Mulder tilted his head, his curious gaze fixed 
on her.  "... So what you're saying is that the 
girl projects all her frustration on everyone 
else who is in the same boat?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Which is your whole reason for suspecting 
Amber Volney?"  His tone was carefully neutral, 
but Scully's hackles rose nonetheless.

"I wouldn't say it's my *whole* reason, 
Mulder," she snapped.  "Besides the fact that 
Amber Volney had daily contact with each of the 
victims and obviously bore all four of them ill 
will, I would venture to say that after years 
of investigative work I can spot a liar as well 
as you can."

He took a careful look at her, then shrugged 
and tilted over to one side, stretching his 
long legs out along the bed.  "All right," he 
agreed mildly, and propped his head up on one 
big hand.  "Answer me one question.  You 
yourself haven't been able to figure out 
exactly how these people were killed.  How good 
are the chances that an ordinary, small-town 
Midwestern high school student could come up 
with a mysterious binary poison that could 
baffle an FBI forensic pathologist?"

Scully went very still as she formulated her 
reply, her posture straight and her face 
expressionless.  "Despite what I may 
accidentally have led you to believe, Mulder, 
forensic pathology is hardly a science that is 
set in stone.  Human beings find new ways to 
kill each other almost every day, and there's a 
certain amount of catch-up time between the 
inception of those new methods and some 
pathologist discovering them and writing them 
up in the medical journals so that they become 
common knowledge.  The chances that a small-
town teenager could accidentally come up with a 
brand-new modus operandi are slim, I will grant 
you, but they are infinitely greater than the 
chances that a mysterious demon is stalking the 
local population of sexually frustrated 
citizens."

Mulder shrugged, a curious smile on his face.  
"Point taken."

"Thank you."  She could still feel the aura of 
heat coming off of him where his weight made 
the mattress dip.  Gravity tugged at her, 
urging her to tip over and tumble into him, and 
she closed her eyes briefly to consider 
defining this in Einsteinian physics, with 
Mulder as a white-hot star and herself a comet 
curving around his gravity well. 

"I'll withdraw my assumption that she 
*couldn't* commit murder," he said at last, 
causing her to open her eyes and stare at the 
laptop.  "I just don't think she could get away 
with it.  No fingerprints, no forced entry, no 
trace evidence -- either this kid is really 
lucky or she's hiding some serious brainpower."

"You said it yourself, Mulder," she informed 
him, letting her eyes focus on his reflection 
in the laptop screen.  "She's the sheriff's 
daughter.  It's possible that he may be 
protecting her."

He balked at that, his mouth pulling up on one 
side.  "Oh, come on."

"It makes sense.  He's the only one who has all 
the evidence in his possession.  He's the only 
one who has been at all the crime scenes --"  
Mulder made a stubborn face; she pointed at a 
very rumpled set of copies with flaring self-
righteousness.  "He's the only one signed in at 
every one; you saw that yourself, he was the 
first man on the scene every time.  He has kept 
information from his own deputies and attempted 
to keep it from us.  For all we know, he may 
still be withholding evidence -- he may have 
even destroyed evidence."

"He's the sheriff, Scully."

"He's a *father*, Mulder."  A memory flashed 
across her field of vision, embedded in reality 
like a subliminal message in an advertisement:  
her father, tall and terrible, threatening 
another man with his fists as little Dana 
stood, amazed, to one side.  She had been five 
or six, playing uninvited in the neighbor's 
yard, and had taken the petals off of flower 
after flower to see how they were put together.  
The neighbor had caught her and chased her off 
his property with a hoe, only to encounter Big 
Bill Scully, home on leave.

"He's a father," she repeated, "and fathers 
will do anything to protect their daughters.  
Even if they're in the wrong."

"We don't have any proof on this."

"We haven't looked for any," she retorted.  "We 
do, however, know that Volney is willing to act 
to protect his daughter; he already admitted 
that he threatened Joshua Schmidt."

"Waitaminit, you don't think Volney did this 
himself --"

"No, no, I don't believe he would have 
volunteered that information on Joshua if he 
had."

Mulder sighed deeply and rolled onto his back, 
hands tucked behind his head, staring at the 
ceiling.  "Scully, I don't like this."

"I know," she said quietly, still not looking 
at him.

There was a moment of silence before Mulder 
spoke again.  "Do you think there really is a 
leak?"

"I don't know, Mulder.  It's possible.  Perhaps 
*Volney* is the leak."  She shrugged.  "At any 
rate, it would give him the excuse he needed to 
keep all the information under lock and key."

"Mmm."  He mulled it over; even without looking 
at him Scully could tell he was chewing on his 
bottom lip.  "If he knows -- or suspects -- 
that Amber is the killer ..."

"He probably didn't think the FBI would pay 
attention," she filled in.  "It took three 
deaths, after all."

"Right," Mulder said in a voice drenched with 
irony.  "I think there's another possibility, 
Scully.  He could want to have her caught -- 
just not by him, or anyone under his command.  
That way he could justify it to himself."

She half-looked at him, cutting her eyes around 
to the side without turning.  "Agent Mulder, 
does this mean you believe my theory has 
merit?"

"Agent Scully," he rumbled, an arm tossed over 
his eyes, "I always do.  In this case, though, 
I hope you'll forgive me for hoping you're dead 
wrong."

She smiled wryly, stealing this quiet moment 
while he couldn't see her, watching the rise 
and fall of his chest and gleaning a strange 
comfort from his respiratory process.  A 
wordless, primal longing reared up in her like 
a sob; she wanted nothing more than to lie down 
next to him and wrap her arms around his chest 
and bury her face in that spot between his neck 
and his shoulder.  She stared at that spot 
dizzily, breathing hard through her mouth.

White light flashed outside, illuminating the 
room like a movie set for half a second.  
Thunder grumbled along after it, forever late 
for the party; Scully's head snapped up 
guiltily at the sound.

A loud whistle of surprise from the next room 
shrilly echoed the thunder.  "FUCK ME 'TIL I 
*FAINT*!"

Scully groaned.

Mulder started to chuckle, his arm still thrown 
over his face, his laughter shaking the bed.  
"Hey Scully, how 'bout we take Guido back to DC 
with us and keep him in the office?"

"I don't think it's a good idea," she told him, 
her eyes resolutely on the doorway despite the 
fact that she couldn't see the parrot from this 
angle.

"Why not?"  He lifted his arm slightly to peer 
at her, grinning.  "Against regulations?"

"Perhaps."  There was a knock at the door, and 
she stood up to answer it, grateful for the 
excuse.  "I think the more pertinent reason, 
however, is that by the end of the first week 
I'd shoot you both."

He was still chuckling at her as she scooped up 
the money from the table and answered the door.

The pizza boy was very young and very shy, and 
Scully felt for some reason that she was 
scaring him.  She tipped him an extra dollar as 
a result, trying to assuage her illogical 
guilt, and shut the door very gently with her 
foot.

She turned around and discovered that the room 
was empty.

"Mulder?"  Scully set the pizza down on the 
bed, snatching the unstable drinks off the box 
top and depositing them on the bedside table.  
She scanned the room, going very still and 
listening hard, her hand straying back to slide 
along the grip of her weapon.  "Mulder?  Where 
are you?"

"In here, Scully," a voice replied from the 
other room.

She peered through the connecting door into the 
dark room.  "What are you doing in there?"

"Dinner entertainment," he said, and suddenly 
he filled the doorway, brandishing something 
huge and bullet-shaped, unrecognizable in the 
dim yellow light of the motel-wattage lamps.  A 
bolt of lightning scorched through the sky 
outside, illuminating the scene so that Scully 
could see --

The parrot cage.

Guido hunched sulkily in the cage, the feathers 
along the back of his head puffed up, his beak 
open in a soundless complaint and his pointy 
little parrot-tongue showing.  As Scully 
stared, nonplussed, Guido spread his wings 
slightly and made a hissing noise.

Scully folded her arms across her chest, giving 
bird and man her most ironic eyebrow.  "This is 
the entertainment?"

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," Mulder 
announced, setting up the cage and stand in 
mid-room.  "Since we can't make him shut up..."

"... You're planning on teaching him to sing 
'Jailhouse Rock'?"

He grinned.  "Maybe tomorrow.  Hey, Scully, did 
you know that the kea parrot of New Zealand 
will occasionally attack sheep and eat the fat 
surrounding the sheep's kidneys?"

"Is this your new theory of the modus operandi 
for this case, or have you been looking up 
useless information on the internet again?"

"I don't think it's useless," he protested.  
"It's good incentive for keeping this cage 
locked, for one thing."

She snorted and crossed back to the bed, 
opening the pizza box without ceremony and 
scooping out a droopy wedge.  The cheese 
stretched, stringy dairy lifelines snapping one 
by one, the last few broken by a sweep of her 
finger.  She scooted into the middle of the 
bed, maneuvering her pizza hand carefully to 
keep the orange grease in the cheesy crevices, 
well away from her clothing.  The first bite 
was hot and gooey, cholesterol and fat and 
tomato sauce, everything tasty in the universe.  
She closed her eyes to chew, relaxing into the 
calorie respite the way some people relaxed 
into a bottle of Scotch.

The bed dipped under a mysterious weight and 
breath rasped nearby.  Mulder.  She kept her 
eyes closed, reading his actions from the 
movements of the bed and the sounds he made and 
a vague sixth sense that came from years of 
familiarity.  At first he'd only had one knee 
on the bed, leaning in to grab some pizza; now 
he was arranging himself up against the 
headboard and pillows; now he was taking a 
drink; now he was eating, and looking at her.

His feet brushed her suddenly, came to rest 
along the outside of her thigh where she'd 
tucked her feet up in a modified lotus 
position.  She sucked in hot oregano-scented 
air and opened her eyes to find him looking at 
her, just as she'd known he was.  He crossed 
one ankle over the other and poked at her with 
his big toe.  "Do you need to be alone with 
that?" he teased.

She gave him the eyebrow and took another bite.  
Mulder was eating like a kid, with great gusto 
and a happy smile.  He was already halfway 
through his first slice and eyeing a second, 
pizza sauce smeared along his upper lip in a 
red clown's moustache.  "Mulder," she said 
disapprovingly, shaking her head at the mess.

"MULDERRR," Guido echoed, mimicking her tone 
perfectly.  His little black eyes glinted.  
"MULDER FBI!" he added, in a clear Mulder-
voice.  He stretched his neck to proudly 
display his profile.  "PRETTY BIRDIE!  CLEVER 
BIRDIE!"

Mulder pounded on his chest, wheezing with 
laughter.  "We gotta keep this bird," he 
declared, gesturing at the cage with his pizza 
as though there were a vast number of birds in 
the room to choose from.

"After all the damage you've inflicted on your 
apartment, Mulder, I somehow doubt you'll be 
able to afford the additional pet deposit."  
Scully took another neat bite of pizza.

He prodded affectionately at her with his foot.  
It slid up farther this time, hitting her toes, 
sliding briefly along the length of her 
metatarsal bones and returning on the same 
path.  A flash of heat slithered up her thigh, 
lightning-quick, and her body thrummed with 
silent thunder.

She pulled her foot away, tucking it beneath 
her tailor-style as casually as she could.  The 
stodgy bite of chewed-up pizza sat on her 
tongue, unswallowed, unswallowable.

"Scully?"

She focused on him so abruptly she could feel 
her pupils constrict.  Mulder had a mouthful of 
pizza and was giving her a very curious look.  
"Scully?" he said again, garbling it so that it 
came out as 'Scuhyee,' "y'okay?"

She shot him a frosty glare.  "I'm fine," she 
told him in a tone that brooked no argument, 
despite being choked around a squishy ball of 
chewed-up pizza.

He watched her for a moment, shrugged, and 
turned his attention to the parrot cage.  "Hey, 
Guido, how're you doing over there?  You don't 
like pepperoni by any chance ...?  No?"  His 
tone changed, turned crafty.  "Hey ... 
Marrrjorie."

Scully choked down the bite of pizza.  "What 
are you doing?"

"Conducting an interview," Mulder said, as 
though this were obvious.  "Hey, Guido.  
Maaaarrrjorieeee."

"MARJORIE LOVES GUIDO.  MARJORIE LOOOOOOVES 
GUIDO."  Guido bounced smugly on his perch, 
head-banging to some silent music.  

"Mulder, you can't be serious."

"Watch me."  Mulder took another sip of his 
iced tea and, as though suddenly thinking of 
it, handed her the other drink.  "Here."

She accepted it gingerly, like a HazMat vial.  
"Thanks."

His eyes brushed over her thoughtfully as he 
chewed on the crescent moon of crust.  There 
was a question forming, brewing over his head 
like a storm cloud, and she glared at him over 
her Diet Coke until the cloud dissipated.  He 
shrugged faintly and turned his attention back 
to the parrot.  "Hey, Guido, here's another 
word for you.  *Taymor*."

Guido perked up, stretching until he was 
several inches taller.  "TAYMOR'S STAFFING 
SERVICE," he piped in a high, drawly voice.  A 
chill ran down Scully's spine as she realized 
that she was hearing the workday greeting of a 
dead woman.  "WE DO OUR BEST TO SERVE YOU 
BETTER.  HOW MAY I HELP YOU?"

Mulder made his thinking noise, a low rumble in 
his chest like a cat's purr.  She could 
practically see the wheels and gears in his 
head whirling like mad.  "Hey, Guido," he said 
slowly, "... *Jim*."

"JIIIIIIIIIIIM," Guido echoed, still in that 
same high drawl.  "OHHHH, JIIIIIIIIIMMMM."

Scully blinked.

"OHHHHH.  OOOOOOOOH.  JIM, OHHHHH, JIM."

Mulder shifted awkwardly, scooting further up 
against the headboard.  Scully sat very still, 
one hand stiffly holding the half-eaten piece 
of pizza out over the cardboard box.

They carefully avoided looking at each other.

"JIM.  *JIM*,  OH GOD, JIM ..."

Mulder shifted around again, digging in with 
his heels to get better purchase on the 
slippery polyester bedspread.  The gravity 
center of the bed shifted abruptly and Scully 
started to tip over; her pizza hand shot out 
for balance and for a bizarre roller-coaster 
moment she tried to catch herself and not drop 
the pizza and not spill the drink in her other 
hand and whatever happened make sure she didn't 
fall on Mulder --

She didn't spill the drink, but she dropped the 
pizza.

Her hand came down directly on Mulder's leg, 
clamping on involuntarily.

"OH GOD, JIM -- OH YES, OH YES, YES, YES!"

Mulder jumped, startled; Scully stared at her 
hand, equally startled.  She seemed to be 
frozen in position, resistant to her mind's 
frantic messages to leggorightnow, and when she 
tried to pull away by leaning back, her hand 
slid down Mulder's strong calf slowly, 
lingeringly.

"JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMM!!!!"

Scully managed to pull away.  "Excuse me."  She 
got her feet on the floor and made for her room 
step by torturous step, still clutching her 
unspilled Diet Coke in her left hand.

"Where're you going, Scully?"

"I'm going to bed," she snapped.  "I'm tired 
and we're obviously not getting anything else 
done tonight."

"Don't you want any pizza?"

She caught sight of Mulder's puzzled face as 
she whirled to grab the doorknob.  "I'm not 
hungry."

"But --"

"Goodnight."  

She shut the door hard.  There was a moment of 
silence.

In the other room, Guido began to chuckle 
knowingly.

<X><X><X><X>

End of Chapter 12  (12/16)

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