This Room 
and Everything In It

RATING: NC-17 for the beast with two backs and bad language

CATEGORY: S, 3rd POV, M/S, brief Krycek/O

SPOILERS: None that I can think of. In my mind, this story takes place at some point post-Dreamland. The blue suede Hush Puppies might be a little anachronistic, but, really, God isn't always in the details.

FEEDBACK: is completely habit-forming.

SUMMARY: Sex and surveillance

DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully, and Krycek are not mine. Bingo is, but I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Mulder was fucking Scully when Bingo walked in reeking of sex but bearing the gift of top-grade sushi from Tokyo Express.

I looked up long enough from my wall of monitors to realize anew how much I hated trust-fund babies who owned linen button-downs in colors like eggplant and chocolate and wanted to play at cloak-and-daggers. Christ. The bastard was wearing blue suede Hush Puppies.

"You're late Bin-go," I told him as he slouched into the chair next to mine, wafting the singular bouquet of wasabi and eau du cunnilingus my way.

"Did you miss me Kry-cek?" he drawled in the flat, lazy voice of the rich and well serviced.

Onscreen, Mulder slammed into Scully with enough force to split her in two. Wearing femme fatale heels, a sleek skirt bunched up around her waist, and an expression of fierce hunger, she braced herself against the wall of his foyer. His expensive dress pants and cartoon-emblazoned boxers fell around his ankles in accordion folds. The two of them looked and sounded like bad extras from a poorly conceived French perfume ad.

Bingo stared at his monitor for a few minutes, faintly amused. "I've got some Harvard LSD," he crooned. "Why won't anybody fuck me?"

"Stow the Name that Tune crap for tonight okay?" I snapped at him. "This is important. This is tangible proof."

"Of what Krycek? The total absurdity of sex? The all- consuming passion that exists between our fearless heroes? The fact that Big Brother really is watching? "

Because his father is a high-ranking official at the Department of Defense, I quashed the urge to do the world a favor and put a bullet in Bingo's pretty, supercilious face.

"You're writing this one up," I tossed the thick "Mulder, F: Night" notebook at him. A blunted corner grazed his chin. I gave him a grin brimming with artificial bonhomie. "Make sure you get everything down. Positions. Endurance. Length and intensity of orgasm for both parties. Kinks and perversions, if any. The works."

"In my bed at the break of dawn, she shivered like a vein slashed bright and new," Bingo intoned. Something cold and reptilian briefly flickered in his eyes.

I bit into a hamachi roll so fresh I could almost taste traces of brine and surf. The real reason I hadn't hurt Bingo yet was his impeccable taste in food.

Bathed in the merciless black-and-white glare of the best surveillance technology funny money could buy, Mulder and Scully came, one after the other, smoothed their clothes back into place, and filled out expense reports for the rest of the night.

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So this was what it looked like when Scully went down on Mulder.

The two of them sat side-by-side in the black and white gloom of Mulder's apartment watching John Cusack ravish a very naked Annette Bening in "The Grifters."

"Who's sexier Krycek? Annette Bening or Anjelica Houston?" Bingo leaned towards me conspiratorially. Even in the opium-den murk of this apartment, I could see that his pupils were the huge black pools of the thoroughly stoned.

I bent in so that my mouth was next to his ear. He flinched. "Let's go over this again, Bingo," I kept my voice completely uninflected. "You're here to watch and record. If you're not focused at all times, you'll miss something that may be important later on. Don't talk unless you have to."

Candid Camera Mulder made a lame crack about usually not watching this scene in mixed company. Scully selected Poker Face from her repertoire of two facial expressions: Poker Face and Slightly-Less Poker Face. When Mulder turned his attention back to the movie, her face shifted the way land does in the throes of an aftershock. She slid to the floor and stared up at him, eyes intent. Then, ever so slowly, like a white-hot meteor caught in the inexorable pull of a red giant, she took him into her mouth, licking and sucking with a desperate intensity. She kept her eyes locked on his as she swallowed what seemed to be the world's longest climax. After she licked him clean, she stayed with her head in his lap for the duration of the movie, hidden behind a curtain of hair.

As for Mulder, his hand trembled as he fisted it into that bright hair.

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"Do you 'perform' or 'engage' in fellatio?" Bingo asked over the strangled jungle cries that signaled Scully's impending orgasm.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say, "I don't do either asshole" when I realized that he was asking about general usage rather than personal biography. "You're the one who went to Andover and then Harvard, Bingo," I said in my best preppy lockjaw.

He looked up from his report, eyes a startling, pure blue. "Yeah, but I wasn't in class the day they taught us how to use the word `fellatio' idiomatically, Krycek." He made my name sound like a languid, lewd caress. His wide mouth curved into a predatory smile. "I was more of a hands-on learner."

"Nobody's handing out an award for best word choice. Just get the facts down."

" 'Engaged in fellatio' sounds too clinical," Bingo's pen beat out a tattoo against his perfect, white front teeth. "Really, English is so limited when it comes to a vocabulary for sex. We've only got either pseudo- scientific terminology or vulgar slang at our disposal. I mean both 'Baby I want to give you a blowjob' and 'Baby I want to perform fellatio on you' just don't do it for me. What about you Krycek?"

Scully moaned onscreen, a hoarse, ragged sound.

"Do you think their sex is as good as she makes it sound?" Bingo stared at the closest monitor with a strange look on his face.

Scully moaned again in a deeper, even more guttural register and for a moment

--I was twenty-four again and trying to explain to Mia that her body was my home her mouth on mine a homecoming my body in hers a perfection but what I said came between us a prophylactic of bad cliches and how could I explain to anyone even to her the things I felt deep in my body like the shifting of tectonic plates so I could only show her by pressing my mouth into the hollow where her stomach dipped into her pubic bone and whispering, "This is a special kiss" while she scraped her nails against my scalp and laughed and laughed--

"I don't think anyone can ever know that about anyone else," I said and my voice sounded strangled. Bingo looked away, but not before I caught a glimpse of something satisfied in his eyes.

I wondered what I'd just revealed and to whom.

"And now everybody's happy," Bingo said as Mulder let out a hoarse cry. "Do you think they're in loooove?" Bingo asked, dragging the word out so that it was the unexpected punchline to a private joke. Rising and falling slightly to a Sealy Posturepedic tide, Mulder and Scully lay side by side on Mulder's waterbed. Whatever subterranean desires had made themselves briefly visible had gone underground again. In their wake, Mulder and Scully played possum. A muscle twitched under the skin of Scully's forearm. Little hitches kept snarling the skein of Mulder's breathing. An inch of space lay between the two of them.

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Week of 4/14

M. and S. have intercourse 5 times. S. performs fellatio 4 times. M. performs cunnilingus 5 times. Intercourse: 3 times from behind. 1 time S. on top. 1 time M. on top. S. does not spend the night. M. never asks.

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A woman looked up from her book and stared at me through the backlit glare of a coffee shop window last night.

It had been a very quiet evening chez Mulder. So, as a sign of my growing confidence in his abilities, I'd left Bingo alone for the rest of the shift. I had no doubt that if I'd walked back into the apartment, I would've caught him in the act of something. Inflagrante delicto ran in Bingo's veins.

I stepped out of Surveillance Central into humid, rain- heavy air. Two kids, college-aged I guess, leaned against a parking meter and groped each other urgently. Distant traffic thrummed. Across the street, A Clean Well- Lighted Place, the fey little coffee place Bingo swears by, beckoned in all its hipster glory.

As I was counting the thousands of ways a Double Nada Latte is a stupid name for coffee, this woman sitting by herself at a table near the window put her book down and caught me in her sad gaze. Unlike the flat black and white images of Mulder and Scully, this woman was all Technicolor glory. Deep black hair that trapped light. A rich brown shirt unbuttoned so that when she shifted I could see a hint of black bra and white skin. Plum-berry lips. Dark, dreaming eyes. She sat the way gangly boys do before they grow into their limbs: all too-long legs and awkward angles. Set against a fleshiness that even artfully slouchy clothes didn't quite hide, though, the effect was very different. A knowing coltishness that cut bone-sharp through lush breasts and hips. An angular tension that radiated out in the sharp tilt of her head and crisp jut of her jaw. She was the shot a camera would linger over forever.

She looked at me, and, just for a second, I thought about what it would be like to walk into that coffee shop, sit down at the next table and order a Double Nada Latte. She'd smile at the way I had to put quotation marks around "Double Nada Latte" when I said it. I'd know that she came to A Clean Well-Lighted Place because of its convenience, not its atmosphere. My drink would arrive and she'd look at me out of the corner of her eyes. I'd smile, look down for a moment, and look back up. She'd tell me her name and I'd move over to her table and find out that the tiny dip at the base of her neck did indeed taste like a salty-sweet plum.

It's been years since I've looked at anyone just for the sake of looking. Four years since anybody has touched me. Far too many years since anybody has touched me and meant it. The night breeze brought the first drops of chill spring rain. The woman turned back to her book. She looked at her watch with a sharp, impatient gesture. I looked away. After all, she came from a world where dressing in black signaled a desire for earnest debates about Rilke rather than covert operations.

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After a two-day absence, the prodigal son came back to the fold rumpled, red-eyed, and unshaven. He sat down next to me in a heavy silence and took off his jacket. Red-rust splotches stained the lining.

"I can still smell it," he said as he lit up a cigarette. His hands shook so hard he could barely get the lighter to the butt-end. "It's been two days and I can still smell it."

I saluted him with an empty shot glass. "Welcome to the club Bingo."

He didn't respond at all. He just sat, burning cigarette in hand, and stared at the monitor in front of him with unseeing eyes.

There wasn't anything I could do even if I'd wanted to do anything. From time to time, I still had dreams so vivid I was surprised when I woke up. I could see the body crumple to the ground like a marionette suddenly freed from its strings. I could smell the sudden tang of gunpowder and a coppery smell I swore was blood. Jack Holden, my freshman year roommate's father's best friend, the man who'd watched me with assessing eyes that long ago Thanksgiving when dinner at a townhouse in Washington D.C. made me dumb and awkward and miserable, clapped me on the shoulder as I climbed back into his car. He offered me a cigar with the same just-between-us smile he'd used to get me talking when he found me in my roommate Ryan's father's study, hiding from the power-suited men and sharp-eyed women who had at most smiled at me politely and distantly. "I knew I wasn't wrong about you Alex," he told me and I felt a primal free-fall thrill. Tucked under my shirt, the gun lay heavy and warm, a metal against skin kiss. "You're going to go far," Jack said and I grabbed that treacherous, apple full of concealed razor blades promise, and bit as hard as I could. Years passed before I stopped to check for injuries.

"When does it stop?" Bingo stared at an image of Mulder putting out a small range-fire in his kitchen. Manhunter had put a pot of soup on the stove three hours ago and had then gotten absorbed in a case-file.

It was those trembling hands that made me say something. That and the dumb plea lying just beneath the flatness of those eyes. I poured the last of the bourbon into a clean glass and handed it to Bingo. He spilled half the glass trying to get it to his mouth. "I'm not sure it does," I told him and the words came slowly. "After awhile you won't think about it as frequently. When you do it'll still be as fresh as when it happened, but you do stop thinking about it so much. You'll start eating again and sleeping and doing everything you usually do and if you're lucky this becomes just another incident. Another moment in your past."

"Bullshit," Bingo spat and suddenly he was agitated. One knee jackhammered up and down. "That's bullshit and you know it."

"Maybe," I said. "I'm telling you how it happened for me."

"I can't fucking do this again. Ever." Bingo tensed in his chair. "You may not have to," I watched his shoulder. If he was going to make a move, his shoulder would give him away.

"I'm not you," he said as he started to cry without making a sound. Tears kept falling.

"No, you're not," I said.

We sat in silence, watching Scully help Mulder clean the kitchen. She smiled at him as he wrapped his arms around her and the two of them scrubbed the stovetop together.

"What do I do?" Bingo asked in a whisper.

Mulder and Scully were in Mulder's bedroom now looking at each other shyly. Mulder cupped a hand against the base of Scully's neck and pulled her close. She tilted her head up and he trailed kisses down the bridge of her nose.

I didn't look at Bingo. I stared at the screen. "Somehow you have to keep something for yourself."

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Here's what never made it into the final report:

Scully closed her eyes as Mulder's kisses reached her mouth

--Mia's head fell back as my mouth found the place where her neck met her chin-

Pulling apart, they started to undress each other slowly. Scully unbuttoned Mulder's shirt. Mulder pulled Scully's sweater over her head. They stopped frequently to plant a kiss on a bared shoulder blade, sternum, and stomach

--Mia slid too-tight jeans down my hips as I sat on the bed trembling she rubbed that soft black cap of hair against my thigh and pressed a kiss on my knee-

Mulder eased Scully's skirt down until it pooled around her feet. She stepped into his arms and they fell onto the bed together laughing. They lay on their sides facing each other, content simply to let the other trace the contours of their body. Mulder kept his hand in the curve of Scully's waist. Scully smoothed her hand down Mulder's chest

--I lay awake watching Mia while she slept mapping the rise and fall of her body with my eyes remembering the small soft swell of breasts the sharp jutting curve of a shoulder the languid curve of hips into thigh when I couldn't take it anymore I had to reach out to touch her she woke up eyes bright and learned the topography of my body with lips and tongue-

Scully arched above Mulder in a sine wave of pleasure

--Mia and I lay side by side legs intertwined at the moment right before gasps turn into moans in the mirror we looked like two halves of a locket in some fairy tale pieces that fit together so well and could only be sundered by a royal fiat demanding a sacrifice more painful than flesh and blood-

Mulder's hands spanned Scully's waist as she lay on top of him sated

--Mia always sounded like she was laughing when she came a shuddering hiccupy laugh and even now when I hear a woman laugh I remember warmth and wet and softsmooth skin the tender dip of the small of her back-

Mulder and Scully curled around each other as they fell asleep

--Mia sprawled out in sleep as I got dressed in the faint dawn light that ended our final night together I touched the fingertip of one outstretched hand with my lips she sighed a soughing sound as I closed the door-

Author's notes: Bingo quotes lyrics from Pavement songs exclusively. "I've got some Harvard LSD/ Why won't anybody fuck me?" comes from "Gangsters and Pranksters." "In my bed at the break of dawn she shivered like a vein slashed bright and new" comes from "Perfume-V."

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