Subj: NEW: Midnight Mark-up (2/2) by Louise Marin
Date: 1/17/00 1:09:12 AM Central Standard Time
From: mibosh@earthlink.net (Louise Marin)
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Midnight Mark-up (2/2) by Louise Marin -- mibosh@earthlink.net


After a few minutes of Scully's scrubbing, Mulder cracked open his
watery eyes and peered up at her. "It's not coming off, is it?"
he garbled.

"It is," Scully lied through clenched teeth.

Mulder frowned. He pushed her hands away, rinsed the soap from
his forehead, then looked up into the mirror. The letters had
faded only slightly.

"Scuuuuuully? What exactly did you use on my head last night?"
Mulder asked slowly, as though he were afraid of the answer.

Scully bit her lip and considered lying, since Mulder didn't seem
to remember all the details of her crime. But then she looked at
the useless soap still dripping from her hand. Who was she
kidding? "Ah, I guess we'd better call Sharpie."

Mulder's eyes widened. "Sharpie! Shit, Scully, that stuff takes
weeks to come off! What the hell were you thinking?"

"I told you, Mulder, I was drunk. I wasn't thinking. At all."

Mulder folded his arms across his chest and looked down his nose
at her. His eyes were dark, but his lips twitched as if he was
trying to hold back another infuriating grin. "I guess that means
you weren't thinking about this morning's staff meeting either,
huh, Scully?"

Scully gasped. Somewhere between her drunken stupor and her
desperate attempt to undo what she had done to Mulder's forehead
and to their friendship, she had forgotten the early morning
meeting their boss had demanded they attend. "Oh my God.
Everyone will..."

"See." Mulder rubbed his forehead. His face turned serious, and
soft. "I didn't know... But last night we... You marked me,
Scully," he said quietly.

"I did no such thing," Scully snapped. God, why did he have to
bring that up again? And why did he have to find so much
amusement in her humiliation? Even now she tingled with the
memory of him hard and strong between her legs, of his warm hands
on her hips and then later her ass, his fingertips sliding up and
down the sensitive crevice...

Scully shook her head. She had an unwanted vision of herself and
Mulder walking into FBI headquarters with her heart on his
forehead. Their colleagues, friends and enemies alike, would see
just how much she needed her partner, how much she wanted him.
How vulnerable she was in front of him. She looked down at
herself, and despite her skirt and her albeit wet blouse, she felt
naked, peeled, like a fruit, all tender flesh and fragile sinew.

"I have to go," she blurted, afraid he would embarrass her further
by insisting they discuss her 'feelings.' Without looking at him,
she fled into the living room to gather her purse and her jacket.

"What?" Mulder stormed after her. She could almost feel his
breath on the back of her neck. "Scully, wait. I thought we were
going to call Sharpie. Where are you going?"

"Away...home," Scully said absently as she opened the front door.

"But Scully, you are home."

Scully stopped. "You're right, Mulder. You leave."

"What?"

"You. Out." Dropping her purse, Scully placed her palms on
Mulder's stomach and pushed him toward the open door. She got him
backed up to the threshold before he firmly planted his feet and
grabbed onto the doorjamb.

"Mulder, go," Scully insisted.

"No."

"Yes." She gave him an ineffective shove.

Mulder rolled his eyes. "No way, Scully. You put this on me," he
smirked, dipping his head, "and I'm not going anywhere until you
get it off. Unless, of course, you want me to go in like this."

Scully sighed, her body sagging with resignation and sudden
exhaustion. Behind his air of amusement, Mulder's eyes were
pleading with her -- as usual -- to clean up the mess they'd made.

"Fine, let's call Sharpie," she said as she turned and walked away
from him.

A moment later Scully frowned out her living room window as she
waited to be connected to the Sharpie company. The sun was only
just beginning to rise, and she was not surprised to hear a
recorded voice tell her that the Sharpie customer service lines
wouldn't be open for another hour and a half.

"Not open," Mulder said for her as she hung up the phone.

"Not until about the time we're due at that meeting." Scully
slumped into her big easy chair, feeling defeated. She watched
Mulder as he pursed his lips, the gears beginning to spin in his
head.

"The Internet, then," he said after a moment. Then he launched
himself at Scully's computer.

Scully read over Mulder's shoulder as he sat at her desk and
searched the Sharpie official website. There was plenty of
information on how and where to buy Sharpie products, as well as
what they were good for, but there appeared to be nothing about
how to remove the stubborn ink from skin.

"You're not coming up with anything," Scully stated.

Mulder grunted and continued his search, spreading out now to
sites about household cleaning products as well as pens in
general. Scully let him ignore her for another minute or two and
then she headed back into the bathroom. After a lot of rummaging
through drawers and a little comparing of colors, she thought she
had found a solution to their...problem.

"Anything?" she asked Mulder as she returned to the living room.

He pushed the mouse away from him, turned, and pouted at Scully
over his shoulder. She took that as a 'no' and plunked her bottle
of Loreal No. 15 Cover-up down on the desk in front of him.

"No way, Scully," he said instantly. "No makeup."

The foundation, a color called Autumn Bronze, was too dark for
Scully. It was the one she hadn't used since long before she
started on the X-files, the one she had been saving on the off
chance she'd ever end up vacationing at the beach again in her
lifetime.

Scully held the bottle up next to Mulder's face. He grimaced, but
Autumn Bronze would look, well, almost fine on him.

"Come on, Mulder," Scully said, tugging on his shoulder.

"Scully, what part of 'no way' didn't you understand? Ow!"

Scully had grabbed him by the ear again the moment the obnoxious
question flew from his mouth. She dug her fingers in and dragged
him whimpering back into the bathroom.

"Shower, Mulder," she commanded as she let go of him and stepped
back into the doorway.

Mulder rubbed his ear, pouting at her in an obvious play for
sympathy he was not going to get. Scully glared at him; she
hadn't pulled him that hard.

"Yes, master," he muttered.

Scully frowned at his forlorn tone but nodded over his compliance.
She knew she should go now so he could undress, but she hovered in
the doorway. Mulder's eyes, still twinkling with mischief, locked
with hers as he reached down to undo his pants.

Scully's mouth dropped open rather wantonly, and her heart did a
little flip-flop in her chest. Swiftly she stepped backward into
the hallway, pulling the bathroom door closed in front of her
before she could see anything she shouldn't.

She spent the ten minutes Mulder was in the shower telling her
body to behave itself. Their friendship couldn't get any better,
only more complicated. Too complicated. Romance was out of the
question.

But, when the water had shut off and he called for her, Scully
pushed the bathroom door open to find him naked from the waist up.
He wore his work slacks, but the rest of him was all shiny hair,
lean muscle, and glistening skin.

She wondered for a moment if he realized they were just going to
put the makeup on his forehead. Then she saw the smallest hint of
a smirk on his face and figured he had remained half dressed
simply to remind her of what she had all but admitted. The
bastard was teasing her, even now. She wanted to strangle him,
but when she dragged her eyes away from his chest and looked up at
what she had done to his forehead, she supposed she deserved the
torment.

"Well, what now, Scully?" Mulder asked, his muscles rippling as he
planted his hands on his hips.

Scully lowered the toilet lid and told Mulder to sit. "The ink
faded a bit more while you were in the shower," she said as she
stood between his legs and inspected his forehead. "Tomorrow is
Saturday. Let's just get through this meeting, keep our jobs, and
then if all else fails you can stand in the shower until Monday."

Mulder glanced at Scully's shower. "Be careful what you wish
for," he warned with a naughty leer.

Scully felt her cheeks heat up again. She clenched her teeth and
narrowed her eyes at Mulder in a warning of her own. With a
dramatic sigh, he plunked his chin into his palm, supporting his
head as he tilted his face up to the light.

Using a sponge, Scully began to dab the makeup onto Mulder's
forehead. She worked clinically, with sharp movements, like the
responsible doctor she'd always thought she was. But it took
effort to ignore the heat coming off his bare chest and the sweet,
clean Mulder-smell that surrounded her.

"Do we really have to do this?" Mulder asked, his frown depending
every time she touched him. "The makeup's gonna show, Scully.
People will talk."

"As if that's ever stopped you before, Spooky," Scully said,
chuckling despite herself.

"Try Spookette, Scully," he grumbled, touching his forehead and
looking less than amused.

"Oh, Mulder, it's just a little cover-up," Scully sighed. "Look,
if someone asks, tell them you were in an accident and I said it
would be better to cover up the damage than to show up battered
and bruised at work. Or tell them a suspect beat you up. Hell,
tell them I beat you up."

Mulder snickered. "You think I look whipped now," he said
sarcastically.

Scully shrugged and continued applying the makeup, trying not to
analyze this act of covering up her claim on her partner. For a
few hours her stalwart denial had been broken. She had been as
nearly naked in front of him as he was now in front of her.

Maybe -- okay, certainly -- some part of her did want to have him,
to mark him as hers and no one else's. He was a brilliant, noble,
gorgeous man. He was her best friend. But some things were
simply not to be, and words -- of love, of desire -- no matter how
indelible the ink, would eventually fade away to nothing, over
time or death or disappointment. She had to take these words
back. Before anyone got hurt.

"At least," Scully said for Mulder's sake, "the makeup is covering
it. And as long as you stay out of bright lights, I doubt anyone
will notice."

"Sure," Mulder mumbled, sounding completely unconvinced.

"You look fine, Mulder. Trust me," Scully said without thinking.

Mulder snorted. "Scully, have you seen my forehead??"

Scully tried not to flinch. "I was drunk!" she insisted again.
"And you let me do it."

"Hey, I said no!"

Scully frowned, silently admitting and regretting that she had
violated him. But then she remembered Inebriated-Mulder pawing at
her throughout the evening. "You didn't put up much of a fight,
though, did you, Mulder?"

Mulder cocked his head and then looked down at his upturned hands.
He clenched his fingers a few times as though he could still feel
her flesh pressed into his palms, distracting him. "I didn't, did
I?" he said with a grin and a leer.

"Mulderrr," Scully warned.

"And neither did you," he said quietly.

"Mulder! I. Was. Drunk!" Scully barked.

Hardly noticing that Mulder's face had fallen, she slapped some
powder on his forehead to set the makeup, and then she turned and
walked away from him. When she came out of her bedroom dressed in
her robe and ready to take her own shower, he was gone.


The day they'd been informed of its time and location, Scully and
Mulder had agreed to stay quiet during this morning's
informational meeting regarding the new travel expense policies
about to be applied to all FBI mobile divisions. Scully figured
they had suffered enough reprimands for 'unnecessary' expenses
since the X-files had been snatched away from them and Mulder had
been left to his own devices.

Characteristically, she arrived at the meeting precisely on time.
The first thing she noticed about the giant, crowded conference
room was that the air inside was hot. Too hot. People were
complaining, and she overheard some chatter about the heater being
stuck on high.

Sighing, she scanned the room's huge oval table. Mulder was
already there. He had, thank God, positioned himself with his
back to the windows so that his body was lightly silhouetted, a
dusky shadow falling across his all-important forehead.

Though Scully refused to look anyone in the eye as she took a seat
near A.D. Skinner, Mulder and the agents around him seemed calm
and together. Keeping her fingers crossed, she concluded that her
partner hadn't been noticed and hassled about his made-up face.
At least, not yet.

The meeting began and, as expected, turned out to be a grand
example of bureaucratic tedium. Scully tried to pay attention,
but as the minutes and then hours passed, the heat in the room
continued to rise. Her eyes flashed constantly to her partner.

By ten o'clock she could feel her pantyhose sticking to the backs
of her knees. But that was, of course, the least of her worries.

Though everyone was sweating, no one looked as wet or as miserable
as Mulder. His blue shirt was damp around the collar and down the
center of his chest. His short hair was beginning to look rather
soggy, and beads of sweat visible from where Scully sat across the
big table had gathered on his brow and were trickling down into
his eyes. He sat with his hands on the table, his fists clenched,
as if he was trying with all his Mulderness not to fidget. Or not
to throw himself across the table and ring Scully's neck. Or... or...
he was trying not to reach up and wipe the sweat -- and the makeup --
from his forehead.

Oh, God. And judging by the constipated look on his face, he was
about to cave.

Feeling dizzy, Scully turned to her left and gave Skinner a
discreetly pleading look. It was ridiculous to keep them all in
the meeting when the heat was so miserable.

If Skinner saw Scully's plea, his reaction was undetectable.
However, a few minutes later when there was a break in the
discussion of yet another new policy she was sure her partner
would insist on disregarding at every turn, Skinner rose and
cleared his throat. When all eyes in the room were on him, he
suggested that if no one had any urgent information to share, they
would continue with the meeting after the heater had been fixed.

Scully saw Mulder breathe a sigh of relief and reach for his
briefcase. As he pushed his chair back from the table and began
to rise, Kersh -- that fucker -- said, "Before we go, Agent Mulder,
why don't you tell the group about some of the creative
punishments I've handed out in response to your incessant breakage
of some of our most important travel regulations. As an example
to the others. Please."

Mulder, visibly startled, stuttered rather uncharacteristically.
"I... Uh, I mean, you, Sir... Uh, you... Um, big piles of
manure?" he whimpered. Then he shook his head in silent apology,
which consequently released a big ball of sweat from his brow.
The drop slid down into his eye, making him blink as though he were
batting his eyelashes at A.D. Kersh. Urgently, Mulder reached up
and wiped the sweat -- along with most of the makeup -- from his
forehead.

The murmuring began almost instantly. "What's on his head?"
Scully heard people asking. "What does it say?" they wanted to
know.

"Oh, Mulder," she whispered, dropping her chin to her chest and
rubbing her own sweaty temples.

After several long seconds, Mulder recovered his wits and smacked
his palm over the letters just as some young agent called out,
"Property of Dana Scully! It says Property of Dana Scully!"

Jeffrey Spender jumped up from his seat next to Diana Fowley.
Dizzy as she was -- again -- Scully thought she heard him exclaim,
"Well, no shit!"

No shit.

And the room erupted in laughter.

Scully looked around at her colleagues and her bosses. Most of
them had respected her. Now some, especially the younger agents,
were laughing at her outright, practically in tears. Some agents
pointed. Others looked embarrassed as they giggled, and they
wouldn't meet her eyes.

Several of the bosses and a couple of female agents, however,
weren't laughing at all. Diana, in particular, gave Scully the
evil eye, looking as though she were about to whip out her claws,
spring across the table, and shred her into little bits of
humiliated woman-flesh. And Scully almost had a mind to let her.

Amidst the chaos, she heard the word property whispered and
shouted a hundred times. Her face had turned to fire, and now the
room started to spin. Faces were distorted by ridicule and her
own humiliation. The door looked so far away and the path to it
was blocked by a sea of bodies.

She looked at Mulder, as if he could bail her out. He was
slouched in his seat, scratching his head. She wondered if he was
going to even try to explain this one. After a moment, he looked
up at her with a shrug and a sheepish little grin.

One of the younger agents followed Mulder's gaze. "Yeah! Go
Scully, go Scully," the man started to chant when he saw her.

Mulder's cheeks turned pink. He bowed his head in apology for the
young agent and the rest of the circus, but Scully couldn't
accept. Furious and humiliated, she forced her way through the
crowd of special-agents-turned-pre-pubescent-imbeciles, wrenched
the door open, and slipped out into the hall.

"As if anyone didn't already know who belongs to who around here,
Mulder," was the last loud, laughing comment she heard before the
conference room door clicked closed behind her.

She went straight to her desk in the bull pen. She would bury
herself in background checks and expense reports. She would
forget the words she had written, the words that she knew weren't
even true. Everyone knew. And they had laughed.

It didn't take long for other agents to begin trickling in. As
far as Scully could tell, they were ignoring her, returning to
their own work. For just a moment she talked herself into
believing that the events of last night and this morning would be
forgotten, like a nightmare receding through the monotony of just
another workday.

She was wondering where Mulder had ended up when she raised her
head to see him coming down the hallway. On his heels stalked an
entourage of snickering agents and administrators.

Scully rose when Mulder came around her desk. His eyes were hot
with mischief, but they were also dark...dark with hurt. She had
hurt him. "How?" she asked quietly.

Mulder didn't respond, didn't act as though she had even spoken.
Instead, he clamped a hard hand down on her shoulder. With his
free hand, he scooped up -- of all things -- a Sharpie from her
desktop. He opened the pen with his teeth, then spit the cap over
Scully's shoulder.

Scully's eyes widened as he held the Sharpie up to her head.
Using his pinky he pushed her hair away to clearly expose her
forehead.

"Mulder, don't," Scully said as she wondered what God-awful
statement he planned to brand her with.

His eyes narrowed. "Five years, Scully. How could you not know?"

"Know what?"

"This," he growled. Then he lowered the pen to her head.

Scully waited to accept her punishment, but before the tip of the
pen could touch her skin, Mulder stopped. "Oh, hell," he said and
tossed the Sharpie back over his shoulder. His hand crept around
to cup the back of Scully's neck. His head, his face, moved
slowly closer to hers, as it had done the night before but without
the drunken confusion that had seemed to always make him miss his
mark.

Scully gasped, her chest swelling as his lips touched the corner
of her mouth. "Mulder, what are you doing?"

"Revenge, Scully," he whispered against her skin. "Sweet
revenge." And then he tilted his head and devoured her mouth.

His kiss clawed at her as possessively as his grip was tight on
her neck, holding her to him. All Scully could do was curl her
hands over his shoulders and hold on for the ride as he traced the
word 'mine' over and over on the flat of her tongue and the roof
of her mouth. He had said revenge, but this felt more like a
promise, a true branding, flesh searing flesh, binding them
together, for all to see.

When his tongue finally retreated, he pulled away with a quick nip
to her bottom lip. "Now everyone knows," he said breathlessly
into her ear. "Now you know." Then he pushed past her to his own
desk, ignoring the applauding crowd gathered around them.

Scully closed her eyes, trying rather unsuccessfully to block out
the spectators. She could still hear them. The roar of their
cheers, laughter and catcalls hit her in waves. What the hell had
just happened?

When she opened her eyes, even Skinner was flashing a grin her
way. Pleased? How could most of the bureau -- save, of course,
one hideously scowling Diana Fowley -- be pleased that right there
in the middle of the bullpen she and her partner had... She and her
partner had...

Scully sank slowly down into her chair, then swiveled around to
face Mulder across his desk. "Mulder, did you just pee on me?"

Mulder looked up from the report he had been -- supposedly --
working on. His eyes were twinkling but unreadable as he studied
her face.

"Fair's fair, Scully," he finally said with a smirk and a shrug.

Scully blinked. "W-what?" she asked around the lump lodged in her
throat. Mulder the Tease had struck again. She licked her lips.
She could still taste him there.

Mulder sighed and shook his head slightly. Then he leaned across
the desk, his face coming to hers, his breath brushing her mouth.
"Was it as good for you as it was for me?" he whispered. His eyes
had gone feral and -- finally -- serious, and she feared as well
as desired that he would devour her.

Just to torture him, however, Scully leaned back in her chair and
pretended to think until a worry line spread across his forehead,
underlining her claim on him. She felt the corners of her mouth
curl up despite herself.

"I hear there's a nice alley behind Casey's Pub," she said.

Mulder's eyes widened. Then he flashed her a genuine, comfortable
smile -- a rarity. "Is it lunch time yet?" he asked excitedly.

Scully smiled back, and she could feel something like contentment
touching her eyes, her lips, her heart. Taking his hand across
the desk, she caressed the backs of his fingers and then, turning
him over, the inside of his wrist. Satisfied with the little gasp
of pleasure her touch pulled from him, she reached into the
Styrofoam cup that held his pens and retrieved another Sharpie.

With a shaking hand, she wrote on his palm: I Want to Believe.


-fin-

End Notes: This is what happens when you stay up till 4:30 in the
morning extolling the virtues, or lack thereof, of Mulder/Other
stories with Ropobop. Thanks, Robbie! Ahem. Anyway, this was my
first and quite possibly my last attempt at humor. It was a lot
harder than it had looked. Feedback? "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Scully
said to Mulder. In my dreams.

Check out my other fic here: www.angelfire.com/la/xspot

Special Thanks: Robbie, Jen, ytwolf, Lisa, Lena and anyone else
with whom I might have discussed this with over the last four
months.

Thanks for reading!

Louise Marin - mibosh@earthlink.net - www.angelfire.com/la/xspot


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Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 22:06:27 -0800
From: Louise Marin
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