Title: Luck Be A Lady Author: Paige Caldwell Email: paigec38@yahoo.com Classification: Challenge Fic, MSR, Humor Spoilers: Season One, Post-ep "Jersey Devil" Rating: NC-17 Disclaimers: The characters belong to 1013. No infringement intended. Summary: Sometimes, a lady has to blow on the dice and give them a roll... Author's Notes: Written for Fandomonium Virtual Season of Smut Challenge (Season 1). Thanks to Tali and Tarras for the amazing webpage. (More author's notes at end) "Hey whatta you say, we grab a hotel, take in a floor show, drop a few quarters in the slot, do a little digging on this case?" I spent the entire drive back to D.C. replaying Mulder's suggestion. It had all the makings of a cheap pick-up line, except he wasn't joking and I wasn't laughing. The sad part was that I was tempted, not because I was a cheap date, just desperate enough to actually have one. Of course, I knew better. I'm wasn't about to gamble the last of my "get a life" tokens on someone well-versed in sexual innuendo yet too obsessed with work to act upon it. So what if he had a great ass? His nose evened those odds considerably. I wonder if he meant that we'd share a room? ********* Mulder called. He was sitting in a drunk tank at the Atlantic City Jail. As usual, without me he got into trouble. He needed me... I drove back in record time, fueled by the twin accelerants of knowledge and opportunity. I'd hit the jackpot at my godson's birthday party. I couldn't wait to tell Mulder that I had a date. A real one... I hoped that he'd be jealous. ********* "Well, it's not hard to see why they mistook you for a vagrant," I teased. He gave me a forlorn puppy-dog look that made me want to take him home and give him a bath. "You gonna rag on me or you gonna take me to get something to eat?" His whine popped my bubble bath fantasy. I was back to my old cynical, but not dateless, self. "Am I buying or did you manage to pan-handle some spare change while you were at it?" His slight grin made me blush. Even filthy, he was adorable. ********** I shouldn't have fed him. I should have either left him starving in the alley or coaxed him into the back seat of my car. Instead, I had to listen to his theory about the Jersey Devil while I sipped what had to be the worst coffee in the world. "It was peeking through the garbage Scully, if it was a man-eater, why didn't it come after me? Probably felt threatened in some way..." The only thing threatened was my sense of propriety. I was a lady, after all, and he was talking with his mouth full. "Mulder, listen to yourself." I said calmly, resisting the urge to pass him a napkin. "You're already ascribing it a motive and an alibi. This thing, chewing somebody's arm off is not exactly a defensive posture." "But you do believe that I saw something, don't you?" I dropped my gaze to the thick sludge in my cup. I dared not look into his eyes, fearing that I might be hypnotized into believing anything he said. "You saw something," I phrased my words carefully, "I'll give you that but I'm not about to go in and sell it. Not when it's nothing more than a sighting in a dark alley." "I still got a hotel room I'm paying for." I lifted my gaze and met his stare, unflinching. I didn't care if he was a hazel-eyed Medusa and turned me into stone. How dare he try to proposition me into working rather than into his bed! "Yeah well, I have got to get back to Washington by 7:30, so..." "Another birthday party?" he asked. "No. I have a date." I said this firmly, triumphantly. "Can you cancel?" He was so casually sure of my answer that I couldn't help but blurt, "Unlike you Mulder, I would like to have a life." "I have a life," he protested I looked away with a slight laugh. Who was I trying to fool? Sure, I would have liked a real life, but at this point, I'd would have settled for real, not imaginary, sex with my partner. ********** My date with Rod put things into perspective. His idea of a "real life" involved chasing his kid through the surf while he read "The Finer Points of Estate Planning" under a beach umbrella. I was actually relieved that Mulder called and interrupted my date. I didn't even care that my partner's "amazing thought" was that the beast-man might actually be a beast-woman. After this dating fiasco, I'd consider swinging from a chandelier if it meant another opportunity with Mulder. That's when I decided that some gambles were worth taking. You can't win big if you don't play big, or in this case, at least play along with your partner. So I did. I returned to Atlantic City and helped him track down his she-devil. When she clawed him, I played doctor even though his comment about her beauty made me want to rip his lungs out. I even turned down another date with Rod and his snot- nosed kid, with a high degree of difficulty accomplishing this within earshot of Mulder. What finally worked was my tongue-in-cheek threat about hurting Mulder like a beast-woman. I'm not sure what challenged him more, my comment or the subsequent tongue action that ensued in the shadows of the FBI garage. Sometimes, a lady has to take matters into her own hands. Sometimes, she has to blow on the dice and give them a roll. That night, in the back seat of a Bureau issued sedan, we both got lucky. I'd say more, but I'm a lady. And, a lady doesn't kiss and tell, suck and tell (never speak with your mouth full), fuck and tell (your one friend, Ellen, is mad at you for dumping Rod, anyway), or keep a tally of how many times you come, (even if you update that tally three times). The End. Author's Notes: Special thanks to the very talented David Stoddard-Hunt. His excellent beta helped me complete a challenge fic three weeks before our wedding.