Man Hands

CROSSOVER FIC
The XFiles and Seinfeld


Title: Man Hands
Author: Su
Rating: PG, K+
Spoilers: The Bizarro Jerry
Category: AU, the world of Seinfeld, as we think
we know it. Scully and Mulder, well...you know.
Disclaimer: The X-Files and Seinfeld are privately
owned. No profit is being made from this ficlet.


New York City
8:00 p.m.


As Scully perused the menu, she said, "So, I guess you'd
say our findings were inconclusive." Still not looking
away from the printed page, she smiled. The chicken dish
sounded interesting. She'd had it before, not here, of
course, and tried imagining how it would taste with
caramelized onions instead of sauteed mushrooms. She
decided she'd compare.

Mulder, not taking his eyes off what, or in this case,
who, he was studying, casually replied, "The findings
are our findings, Scully. They are what they are." A
pointed look of mystification claimed his face.

"And that would be?" Scully prompted. Her light sigh
had escaped of its own volition.

"Open to subjective interpretation, which is what you'll
supply when you write the report. I'll punch it up
where it needs it, for extra-terrestrial effect."
Sluggishly, he muttered something incoherent under his
breath, and returned his eyes to his point of interest
several tables from them.

Scully looked up then, and noticed Mulder's inordinate
absorption with whatever was going on over her left
shoulder. "I'll see what I can do with an objective
conscience," she dryly remarked. It was her turn to
stare. Mulder hadn't blinked for a while, and his eyes
were widening all the time. "Is there a problem?"
Scully asked delicately.

"Hmmm?" he replied, sounding as though he was suddenly
dining alone.

"Mulder..."

"Oh, sorry, Scully...it's just that..." His voice
trailed, and his look that Scully had lately begun
terming, 'musey' reinforced itself.

She shifted, about to glance over her shoulder when
their waiter, with pitcher at the ready, asked if she
wanted water. "Yes, please. No ice, thank you."

"Water for you, sir?"

Sounding removed, Mulder uttered, "It can't be."

"Honest, it's just water, sir, but if you'd like a
drink...a cocktail, some wine...I can get that for you.
What would you like?" Mulder was miles away.

Scully shook her head, and the waiter got the message.
He said he'd be back momentarily to take their orders.

"I don't believe it."

Scully's eyes demanded that Mulder's find hers
quickly, or dinner promised to be a bumpy ride. As
she rolled them, she rejoined, "Now that's rich
coming from you."

"I haven't seen him since high school."

"Who?"

"But I'd know that face anywhere."

"Whose face?" Scully pursued.

"It hasn't changed that much."

"Mulder--who are you talking about?"

"Jerry Seinfeld."

"What's a Jerry Seinfeld?" Warily, Scully looked
in the direction of her wound up partner's canting
head.

"He was the eleventh grade's, well, no. To be
honest, the entire school's class clown. He was our
answer to Milton Berle. See him there. He's with
the blonde looker." 'He's making up for all the girls
who hadn't wanted to be caught dead with him. He was
more undateable than I was,' Mulder thought,
immensely glad that he was here with his attractive,
shapely FBI cohort. "Uh huh, they're seated near the
decorative plant-lined partition."

"Jerry Seinfeld," Scully intoned, a fraction
tongue-in-cheek. So, it wasn't an EBE, a mothman or
even your average Fiji mermaid, after all. It's a
Jerry Seinfeld, an old chum from school. Sometimes
normalcy had a wry way of asserting itself. "So...are
you planning to go over and say, 'hi?'"

"As a matter of fact, Scully, that's just what I plan
on doing. Come on, I'll introduce you."

"But we haven't ordered yet. Let's order first, at
least. That way, our food will be started while you
and he get re-acquainted. I'm starving, Mulder.
S-t-a-r-v-i-n-g." There had been no breakfast, no
lunch, and Scully wasn't going to get shortchanged
on dinner. Yes, they were physically here in the
restaurant, but that did not mean that having a plate
of food before her was a reality. Once Scully was
chewing and swallowing, that would be the reality.

Mulder, more bouncy than she liked to see him,
was on his feet. He was motioning grandly for
his partner to join him. "It'll only take a
minute...promise."

"Yeah, sure," Scully muttered. To their puzzled
waiter, who regarded his departing 'servees' with a
questioning look, she explained, "We'll be right
back." Indicating Mulder, she continued, "Saying
hello to an old friend."

The waiter nodded after settling his shrugged
shoulders back in place.

Upon immediate recognition, Seinfeld bolted to his
feet and the old school chums heartily embraced.
"How long has it been?" Jerry fairly cheeped.
"Fox Mulder--well, uh, Mulder. See, I haven't
forgotten."

"Too long," Mulder corroborated, and nodding, he
awarded, "and of course you wouldn't. You were
the only kid I actually told my first name to.
Self-preservation."

Scully raised an eyebrow dramatically, and her
look of, 'huh?' flashed in her eyes.

"The bullies in our school were brutal. Even
teachers called him, 'Mulder,'" Jerry anxiously
supplied.

Wanting to say, 'that figures,' she decided a
question would be more fitting. "Did I miss
something?" Scully asked, reading the answer in
Mr. F. Spooky's eyes.

"Speaking of which," Mulder handily interjected,
"Jerry, it's my pleasure to introduce my
right-hand woman, in a manner of speaking, Miz
Dana Scully. Scully, Jerry Seinfeld."

Seinfeld's eyes flew to Dana's hands, and he
grinned, liking how small they were; they suited
the petite redhead to a tee. "Scully?" Jerry
questioned, a perky look of knowledgeableness
sparking in playful eyes. "He calls you by your
surname?"

"And I call him by his, as if you couldn't guess.
It's just something we fell into," Scully said,
sounding amenable. She cast incredibly soulful
eyes Mulder's way.

He smiled, taking on her look with a potent one
of his own.

Jerry redirected his attention and introduced his
vivacious dinner companion. "Miz Scully, Mulder,
it's my pleasure to introduce Miz Gillian Mittmanus.
We've been seeing each other for...uh, well."

"Oh, Jerry, it's been about a month, now."

Jerry winked. "Yes, that's right. Nearly a month,
hands down."

Scully shook Gillian's hand first. Before Mulder
went to take Ms. Mittmanus' hand, he looked askance
at Scully. He couldn't help but notice how she was
flexing her hand, as though she might have been
working the kinks out of it. Out the corner of his
eye he could have sworn that he saw Jerry look
squeamish as the girlfriend grasped his hand. That
was some grip; a vise had nothing on her. It got
weirder for Mulder. Losing feeling in his hand, as
well as sight of it as Gillian shook it vigorously,
he worked to get his hand free. Before he could
censor his gut reaction, "My, that's quite a grip you
have," tumbled past his lips.

It had sounded innocuous enough, but Scully knew
better.

"Yes, yes she does," Jerry said, sounding
confirmatory and crestfallen at the same time.
Coming out of a momentary lapse of the mood having
turned decidedly awkward, he invited, "Join us why
don't you."

Mulder's eyes had never strayed from Gillian's big,
beefy hands tearing bread, attacking it as though
she had a grudge against it. Scully had more than
a very good idea about what was running through his
fertile mind at breakneck speed. Reading that black
hole of a mind was nearly second nature, what with
all that they'd been through. Her mind was ordering
him to, 'Stop treating her like an X-File. That's
an order!'

"How are your lobsters, ma'am...sir," Gillian's and
Jerry's waiter solicitously asked. He smiled down
upon the bright red crustaceans, as though he was the
pair's proud papa.

"As soon as we tear into them we'll let you know,
sir," Jerry retorted.

"Ah, very good," the waiter said, and, a bit stiffly,
walked off.

"Well?" Jerry asked of Mulder. "Are you gonna sit?"

"Tell you what," Mulder proposed. "We haven't ordered
yet. You finish your meal, and when you're through,
join us for dessert. We'll ask for a table for four."
He glanced over at Scully's and his table, seeing that
their waiter was still waiting for them. The tall
fellow wasn't looking as patient as he had looked when
they had trooped over here. "We left our server with
his motor running."

"Along with his meter, by the look on his face," Scully
observed. "This is New York, after all."

"You're on," Jerry generously agreed, dividing his
attention between watching Gillian wrap her mannish
hand around his bottle of beer, and Mulder's equally
intrigued looking face. "Is that all right with you,
dear?" He fixated on what Gillian was doing, which was
twisting the cap off of his beer, then hers. Just loud
enough he muttered, "Oh, twist off."

Gillian nodded, looking pleased with her accomplishment.
Looking up at Mulder, she said, "We'll be happy to join
you for coffee and dessert, Mister Mulder." With a
dogged look on her face, she began tearing into Jerry's
lobster with her meaty hands. Adoringly, she smiled at
Seinfeld who had paled.

Mulder was no stranger to the look Jerry had on his face.

Tenderly, Gillian was moved to remark, "Don't you just
love lobster?"

Mulder's eyes did a closeup of her hands. Scully
eschewed the horrified look on Seinfeld's face as well
as her partner's tacky preoccupation with this woman's
singularity.

"Enjoy," she said, and wasted no time heading back to
where she deemed she and her partner belonged.

Not quite on her heels, Mulder followed. Back at their
table, he requested the table for four, explaining why
he needed it. Their waiter nodded, quickly removed
their settings and everything else that went with them.
He showed the agents to a roomy booth, and they made
themselves comfortable. Boon-wise, it was great. This
new vantage gave Mulder an even better view of his old
pal and his lady friend with the unusually masculine
hands.

"Mulder, I will not sit with you and your friend if all
you're going to do is gawk at her hands."

"I'm not gawking, Scully," he said, zeroing in on
Gillian's hands from this new angle. Raptly, he
watched her. With her bare hands, she deftly cracked
open then ripped the shell off her lobster tail with
those burly, bizarre hands. "They're hard not to notice,
you've got to admit."

Irritatedly right with him, Scully fired off, "No,
Mulder, they're not. So what? She's a woman with large,
somewhat man-like hands, but they're just hands. I
counted the fingers on either, and came up with five
apiece, just five. No more, no less."

"I counted five apiece too." Lowering his voice so he
was nearly whispering, he conjectured aloud, "I'd love
to get a look at her feet, just to satisfy my curiosity.
Although, the pumps she's wearing don't look as though
she picked them up at a big and tall gals'."

"Mulder, enough!" Scully sternly charged. She scanned
their lay of the restaurant for their waiter, having
grown markedly more prickly.

"Starting in on Jerry's lobster didn't make a hit, and
look at those mitts go on hers," Mulder softly exclaimed.

"What if my hands suddenly morphed to the size of hers?
Would I morph into a freak before your very eyes, Mulder?"

Choosing to ignore that loaded question, he replied,
"You know, Scully, this reminds me of something I
investigated way before you came on the scene. There
was this tribe, interestingly enough, made up
predominantly of women on this island forty nautical
miles to the west of Hiva Oa in the South Pacific.
I'll have to get back to you on its name. The thing
of it was, the few men of the tribe had small, dainty
feminine hands and feet, along the lines of your hands
and feet."

"I don't want to know. Really, I do not." Scully
nearly bared her teeth. Where was that waiter? Right
about now, the bread basket, minus the bread that she
had polished off, was looking mighty appetizing.

"Sure you do, Scully. In that case--"

"Gillian isn't a case, Mulder, she's your old high
school friend's girlfriend, and when I say enough is
enough, I mean it."

Mulder closed his mouth; he became the closest thing
to putty when Scully's temper did the color of her
hair justice. "Did I say she was?" Gradually, though,
his eyes drifted back to get their fill of Ms. Mittmanus
still going at it with white knuckles. Mulder got the
feeling that even if the lobsters had been alive, with
claws unbound, Gillian would have bested them both,
easily.

Finally, their waiter returned. Scully ordered the
chicken; green bean almondine and red potatoes rosemary
came along with it. Mulder had a steak, rare, that came
with broccoli swimming in chive butter. They both had
the garden salad.

Mulder devoured the steak, but left the broccoli where
it was. Scully enjoyed the chicken, but had to admit
that the recipe wasn't as good as the one she'd had at
the other restaurant in D.C.

"Scully...I promise."

"You promise what, Mulder?"

"I promise that I'll keep my eyes completely off
Gillian's dukes when they join us."

"You'd better," Scully said, wiping her mouth with her
napkin. "Man, or woman, people can't help the size of
their hands. Maybe a little plastic surgery, in some
extreme instances, but genetically speaking, there's
nothing wrong with a woman having huge hands." As she
finished laying her napkin down, she saw Seinfeld
making his way to their table. "Here comes your
friend..."

"Mulder..."

"Jerry..."

"I'm going to need a rain check for joining you and
your lovely companion for coffee and dessert. Gillian
sprained her wrist. I think it was that last, good
twist on my lobster's claw that did it." Jerry
demonstrated the action for dramatic effect.
"We're going to Emergency to be on the safe side."
He produced his card, handing it to Mulder. "Call me
the next time you're in town. We'll catch up."

"Yeah, I'd like that," Mulder replied, nodding with
an amused smile on his lips, but squelched it when
he saw Scully giving him that dagger look. "How's
being a comedian treating you these days?"

"Oh, can't complain. I'm appearing at this little
comedy club in the sixties on Broadway. Come again
soon, and I'd love for you to catch my act."

Nodding, Mulder said, "Sounds good. And, hey,
before you go...how's George? Is he still with
Yankee management? Steinbrenner's right-hand man?"

"Uh...no, not exactly. That went south, but he's
fine, great, as a matter of fact. We're writing
this pilot for a show that NBC might be interested
in picking up."

"Really?" Mulder said. "What's it about?"

"Nothing," Jerry proudly said.

"Nothing?" Mulder echoed, and exchanged an
investigative look with Scully.

"You know, the nothing, boring stuff that goes
on in our lives."

"Not everyone's, though," Mulder said quietly,
but Scully easily knew that he'd said that.

"One premise we had was we're stuck in an elevator,
and while we are, my character asks George's
character what if he was abducted by aliens. They
take him aboard their mother ship, back to their
planet as a curiosity." Jerry looked as though he
was just warming up.

Mulder did not dare look at Scully for fear he
could lose it. Scully noticed that Gillian had
come back from, she assumed the ladies' room, and
was looking for Seinfeld.

"Would he rather be in their zoo, or their circus."

"What did George say?" Mulder asked, keenly wanting
to know.

"He said zoo, because then he could pretty much set
his own schedule. I said that if he were in their
circus, he could ride on their train, see the whole
planet. But then he pointed out that in their
circus, they would have him wearing a little hat,
jumping through fire, putting their little alien
heads in his mouth..."

Mulder was definitely going to lose it any moment
now if his old chum didn't stop. Scully pretended
that she wasn't hearing any of this.

"I reminded him that at least it's show business."

"Yeah, sure. And, just think if he tried doing
stand-up, it wouldn't translate well. Aliens are
sure to have very different ideas about what's
funny," Mulder said, calling upon his own personal
experience, validated by himself.

Jerry was aware that Gillian was waiting for him,
but it was no incentive for him to get going. "Good
point. Anyway, then George candidly pointed out that
in their zoo they might put a woman in the cage with
him and expect him to...well, you know. Get him to
mate."

It was then that Scully and Mulder dared to look
into the other's eyes. Mulder's question almost
threw Jerry for a loop. "What if the female wasn't
human?"

"Which was kind of my question: What if she's got
no interest in you?"

"And what did he say?" 'Same old Jerry Seinfeld,'
Mulder thought comfortingly.

"What do you think he said? 'Then I'm pretty much
where I am now. At least I got to take a ride on
a spaceship.'"

'Good old George,' Mulder thought, again comfortingly.

"Well, got to go. Even from here, her wrist does
look swollen," Jerry said.

Before he could stop himself, Mulder piped up, "How
can you tell?"

The men traded fraternal looks while Scully knew she
wouldn't be speaking to Mulder for quite some time.

As Seinfeld turned to leave, Mulder charged him with,
"Say hello to George for me."

Jerry wheeled around, looking game, and promised,
"Oh, I will, I will. Nice meeting you, Dana. Guess
you keep this guy in line, huh?"

"You could say that...and you just did. So, yes. Yes
I do."

Jerry winked at Mulder and bestowed, "Wonderful
running into you, Mulder. See ya."

"Sure thing. Hope to see ya on T.V. I watch a lot
when things are a little slow," Mulder added, and
smiled at Scully who, much to his delight, readily
smiled back.

Once Seinfeld had gone, Scully asked, "Mulder, does
he know what you do? What was that whole thing about
aliens?"

"No, Scully, he doesn't. He hasn't got a clue. Those
are just my old pals Jerry and George for ya. Too bad
George wasn't here too. You would've been in for a
genuine treat. The guy is magic."

Rolling her eyes, Scully said, "One treat at a time,
Mulder, was more than enough."

End