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All three?

[ A shrug. ]

I had a leather couch at home. Wooden bookshelves. I could use a desk in here somewhere. [ The details feel random as he throws them out there. The idea of decorating a place deliberately, as opposed to slowly filling it with more and more clippings of news articles and the detritus of existence, feels more than a little alien to him. ] Oh - would you like some coffee? I'd offer you a seat, but.

Okay. Okay, that's good. Good starting point.

[He pulls his phone out of what turns out to be a belt bag tucked beneath his sweater—the best alternative to pants pockets he's come up with in his monster form—and starts typing a new note.]

A desk, okay. Desk chair, too, and a lamp...hmm? [oh. Coffee. He smiles thinly.]

Mmmhmm. I'm not exactly chair-friendly anyway. Yes to the coffee, though. Do you have almond milk?

Almond milk? [ David might as well ask for zebra milk - even Starbucks doesn't have anything but cow's milk, where Mulder comes from. ] I take mine black, usually.

[ Which is to say, there's currently a half-eaten takeout box of noodles in his fridge, and nothing else.

Regardless, he slides down from the countertop, his tails swishing along the surface and then continuing to do whatever the hell they want behind him as he gets some water and coffee grounds. At some point, maybe he'll get better than alien Folger's, but so far, he's made no effort. ]

You can pick up anything else that looks useful, too. [ With considerable fondness: ] It'll get Scully off my back about this place.

Uh— never mind. Black is fine. I'm just going to...take some notes.

[He gestures vaguely as he heads back toward the living room, though Mulder's last comment doesn't escape him. He pulls out a tape measure and starts taking measurements of the room.]

Oh? She's...on your back?

[Intriguing.]

Metaphorically speaking.

[ Mulder follows, leaving the Mr. Coffee equivalent to drip. And he follows - Rose isn't the first one to make noise about Mrs. Spooky. He leans against a wall, arms crossing, as he takes in the details of the man's feathers, tries to imagine what kind of bird they might belong to under other circumstances. ]

You're not the only one who believes in furnished apartments.

Uh-huh. [It's too late; the wheels are already turning in David's snoopy little brain, trying to figure out what the deal is there. He's going to have to do some reconnaissance on this one for sure.]

Oh, there are lots of us. I'd say probably more than there are people who live in blank, unfurnished depression boxes.

[He lets his tape measure snap shut to emphasize his point.]

What about art? Do we like art?

In my defense, I have a fully furnished place in Alexandria. I'd stay there if it weren't for the commute.

[ And you know what sounds like a waste of an alien planet? Furniture shopping. ]

Art's fine. [ At the very least, it fills up empty space on the walls. ] A television would be better. Maybe an aquarium.

Yeah, sadly that's not really a possibility here, what with the being on another planet shit.

[Okay. Art he can do. A television he can do. But...

His nose wrinkles.]

Mm, I don't do live animals. If you want an aquarium, you're on your own.

That works for me.

[ He'd rather buy his own fish, anyway. This, at least, won't be boring.

A pause, looking around the place. Have they missed anything? ]

So how'd you meet Scully?

[ Nailed it. ]

Hmm? [David glances up from where he's tap-tapping measurements into his phone, and then has to think about it a moment.]

Oh, um...I advertised my store on the network, and then she ended up testing out some products for me. And now we're friends. She's good people.

A store. Something besides this interior design business?

[ Note to self: Look up ads on the network forums. He's not stalking Scully, he's being normal about all of this. ]

Edited (typing a thing and then wanting to type something else) 2022-10-22 23:13 (UTC)

Mmm. Adjacent. It's called Rose Apothecary. We sell home goods, skincare products. Luxuries inspired by Earth.

[He seems very pleased with himself about it, too.]

Oh, and coffee bar. Very important. I make a mean latté.

A coffee shop with face wash for sale? You should've called it the Soap Bar.

[ All Mulder can picture is bubble bath bottles and all the smells that emanate from the Bath and Body Shop on the rare occasions he's walking through a shopping mall. The world of skincare products as major investment is still a distant dream for him.

Speaking of coffee, though - as he goes to check on the coffee maker, he takes advantage of the distance between them to ask what he really wants to know. ]

How's Scully been doing here?

[David immediately pulls a face.]

No, I think I like the name I picked.

[Mostly finished with his initial measurements anyway, David settles down in the middle of the living room, his huge lower half laying down Sphinx-style while he awaits his promised plain black coffee.]

Um, good? I think? She mentioned getting a job at GemSci. Meeting a few folks. [He at least has the tact not to brag about nabbing a friends-with-benefits situation with her, mostly because that's not really his style.] You haven't asked her?

I've asked. But you know how Scully is.

[ Does he? Mulder's got a feeling here, one he's going to try to pin down into something more certain.

The sounds of ceramic clinks and hot liquid pour out from the kitchen. He opens the cupboards, as though food might have appeared on its own while he wasn't paying attention, and finds a half-eaten bag of potato chips and an ad for a takeout place. Probably not servable to this guy. ]

She's going to say she's fine even if her leg's in a bear trap. [ This, on his way back into the living room, offering a mug to Rose. It's black with silver letters on it, advertising the name of a self-employed gem Mulder neither knows nor cares about - the equivalent of getting a magnet from a realtor and sticking it on your fridge. ] So: She's really been okay?

Mmm. [Brief; noncommittal. He glances up at Mulder as he comes back in bearing two mugs, taking the black one with a nod of thanks.] She seems very self-reliant.

[He takes a sip, braces for the worst and finds that it's actually not too bad. He even goes back for a second sip!]

She's been okay. I had to sort of...cajole her into, like, asking for help when she needs it, so.

[vague!!]

[ Very vague. Mulder parks himself on the floor across from Rose, his nine tails spreading out behind him like a fluffy corner rug. One twitches restlessly, endlessly, as he turns this intel over in his mind.

He plays it like it's no big deal: answering lightly after he draws a sip of coffee, some humor to his voice. ]

She needed design advice, too?

Mmm, no, not really. More like...

[How does he put this delicately.]

Making-friends advice. [A beat. He stares at Mulder over the top of his coffee as he takes a third sip.] Generating-Manna advice.

[ Fox Mulder - indelicate son of Martha's Vineyard, inveterate sleuth, so good at profiling it nearly killed him on multiple occasions - saw things going this way. Maybe it was inevitable from the moment Scully told him her interior design friend was a man and he didn't show up lisping his hellos. He saw paths chosen and wheels turned and Dana Scully, alone for half a year and change and trying to keep her head above water on the Manna front.

He doesn't picture Rose bending Scully over her blanket-drowned couch. He puts that image away as unlikely and, more importantly, unhelpful. For one thing, Scully believes in beds. For another, it's her life: one he's two years behind on and six months late to, in which she can do whatever and whoever she wants.

Still, she could have said something. He thinks he would have.

(He wouldn't have.)

None of this crosses his face. Mulder looks steadily at Rose and lets the silence last just a little too long before he answers. ]

I'm glad she had someone to help her out. [ With that, he drains his own mug - already half-empty, not as pointed a gesture as it could be - and sets it on the naked hardwood next to him. ] Do you need to know anything else about the place?

[He'd been wondering. Is this a strictly-business relationship? Something more? It's easy to picture, they really would make a good-looking pair, he thinks, him tall and handsome and—something else...broody?, her in her bossy pantsuits and self-assured mannerisms and delicate looks. He wondered, as he said the words, exactly how they might be received and interpreted, and in the too-long silence in between that and Mulder's answer, David gets all the confirmation he needs. Not strictly business, then.]

Mmmhmm. Happy to be a good friend, you know. [He takes another sip of his coffee, getting the sense that he's now officially overstaying his welcome, and fumbles for a moment before setting it down on the floor, too. Carefully out of reach of his tail, of course.]

You know, I'll just...text you if I have questions. And, um, we can talk about a payment plan, I assume you're not rolling in cash just yet.

Edited 2022-10-23 15:24 (UTC)

[ Petty and short-sighted it might be, but watching Rose fumble his mug is satisfying as hell. And, dryly - ]

Give me a few weeks. I'm thinking of taking up work as a gigolo.

[ He's been keeping an eye on his funds - or what will be his funds, once he's paid out for his Manna-generating - and considering that he's not working, he's really not doing too bad right now. At some point, he'll have to investigate whether it's worth getting a real job here, but his instinct is not if I'm stuck as a beat cop.

He gets up from the floor, intent on being the coolly gracious host all the way to his front door. ]

You've been a real help, Mr. Rose. Keep in touch.

A—oh, [David laughs, smoothing down his sweater as he pushes himself to all four fuzzy feet.] Honestly, you could make a killing that way, [he says as he follows Mulder to the door. He figures the least he can do is be a little complimentary. Never hurts, in his experience.]

Oh, I will. [He shoots him a sharp grin as he stalks through the door, making sure to tuck his tail and feathers neatly out of the way of any accidental slam damage.] Have to make sure you're home to receive deliveries.

Wouldn't be the worst thing I've done for money.

[ This is a joke, but also: fuck criminal profiling. ]

I'll be around. Good luck with your apothecary.

[ Impeccable behavior on his part. Unimpeachable. He even waits for Rose to get down the hall, out of reach of the door, before he closes it - having trapped a tail (or three) in a doorway already, he's willing to save someone else the trouble, even someone he doesn't like much. He can report back to Scully that it went fine, and that'll be that. ]

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