Title: Lunch Express
Author: drovar
Rating: PG
Category: Slash (slightly), Humor
Summary: A short challenge snippet inspired by recent
conversations with Kristina and Lopsided.

Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that
should not be indulged in lightly.

-- M.F.K. Fisher


There is appetite and then there is real hunger. Mulder had been
feeling the first all morning.  Right now that appetite had
settled into a gurgling gnawing real-life hunger deep in his
stomach. It was an all together unpleasant sensation that Mulder
intended to put a stop to right now.

The diner he was sitting in was certainly not his typical haunt,
but Spender had insisted.  After some perfunctory squabbling
Mulder had relented and joined him in this half-brother-male-
bonding-weekend-lunch thing. He had to admit as dingy as this
place was, with it's worn tables, yellowed wall paper and what
looked like 20 year old menus, they seemed to make a hell of a
sandwich.

Mulder leaned back against the worn vinyl seat, feeling the thin
scratch of a rip, half covered in duct-tape, through his shirt, and
surveyed his meal.  It was mouth watering. Thick slabs of whole
wheat bread, lightly toasted with a spread of liverwurst, topped
with aromatic grilled onions, fresh chilled tomatoes and crisp
green lettuce. A tall frosty glass of ice tea added just the
right touch. It was heaven.

He glanced over at Spender's lunch as the waitress set it down
with a clunk. She smiled down at Mulder, obviously taking his
measure and scoping him out thoroughly. Mulder gave her his
patented shy 'charming and disarming' smile and turned his
attention to the other lunch's owner as the giggling waitress
hurried off.

Spender, yes that same Jeffrey Spender was standing at the juke
box pumping in what seemed like a half-roll of quarters. He was
dressed in ratty army-surplus fatigues of all things. He looked
like one of those nondescript extras in "Stripes" or maybe the 
"The Guns of Navarone."

Mulder shook his head, and sighed in exasperation as the sound of The
Spice Girls began blaring throughout the small diner.  It was bad
enough to begin with and that much worse on the diner's decrepit
tinny speakers.  Mulder winced when ginger Spice, or Spooky
Spice, or maybe Sounds-like-a-tortured-cat-Spice, hit a scraggily
high note.  He shuddered. How could Spender possibly like such 
pabulum? And yet there he was bopping in that loose hipped, 
bounce of his. Mulder sighed and turned back to his
sandwich . . . at least there were still *some* good things in
the world.

 . . . . ??!! . . . .

Mulder stopped, there was very definitely something wrong here.
A telltale suggestion, a hint, of something awful caught his
attention from underneath the pickle balanced on the edge of his
sandwich . . . .   He gingerly tilted the pickle upward with his
butter-knife, as a sinking feeling settled into his rumbling
stomach. Someone (and he knew damn well who) had taken a bite out
of his sandwich.

"Spender!"

Jeffrey Spender stopped in mid-bop and cringed.

Mulder had to admit a small twinge of satisfaction at that. He'd
gotten used to exercising his big-brother moral authority at
times.

"What do you want Mulder?" Spender asked as he moved to the table 
and resumed his hop and bop to the music.

They'd never really gotten past the formalities of last names.
The Bureau and its habits were very much a part of their lives.
There had been a thankfully short and decidedly uncomfortable
attempt at Fox & Jeff, which had been quickly abandoned.

Mulder held up the offending evidence.   He fixed Spender with
his best 'so annoyed I'd feed you to Tooms' look. He wasn't
Scully, but he could still whip up a nasty stop-them-their-tracks
eyebrow arch when he needed to.

"You took a bite out of my sandwich!" Mulder said poking the
damaged lunch into Spender's cammo covered chest for emphasis.

"Just a small one!" Spender protested, looking down at the liver
colored stain on his chest.

"Small?" Mulder demanded.  "How can I eat this now?"

"Mulder, I don't have cooties. We're brothers, brothers do that
sort of thing."

Mulder stopped for a moment, and fixed Spender with an even worse
glare. "God only knows where that mouth of yours has been."
Mulder set the damaged sandwich down and cut a wide circle around
the bite mark.

Spender watched amused as Mulder amputated the offending portion.

"Nowhere yours hasn't been Mulder," Spender said with a wide grin
as Mulder looked up from his now somewhat smaller meal.  "After
all, you knew Krycek first."

[end]