"The man does not sleep," said Frohike, for the fourth time that evening. "I've called him at two, three, four in the morning. He always picks up on the first ring. He always sounds exactly the same. He doesn't sleep. He recharges. Like a flashlight."

"Everybody sleeps," said Langly, not looking up from the monitor. "It's biology. Even you sleep. I've seen you. You drool."

"Twenty bucks."

"You're on."

"Gentlemen," said Byers, from the far end of the workbench, where he was carefully putting a bug detector back into its foam-lined case. "We were asked into Agent Mulder's apartment to sweep it for listening devices. Not to install one."

"It's not a listening device," said Langly. "It's a camera. Totally different. No audio."

"That is not the distinction you think it is."

But Langly had already typed something, and the monitor flickered, and there it was: a grainy black-and-white view of Mulder's living room from somewhere up near the ceiling. The couch. The desk buried in files. The fish tank glowing softly in the corner. The door, closed. Nobody home.

"Smoke detector," Langly said proudly. "He'll never know."

Byers sighed the sigh of a man who had been sighing at these two since 1989, and pulled up a chair.

*

At 11:42 p.m., the door opened, and Mulder came in, dropped his keys and his coat on the floor in roughly the same place, and stood for a while in front of the open refrigerator looking into it as though it had personally disappointed him.

At 11:51, he sat on the couch with a bag of sunflower seeds and a file folder and began to read, spitting the shells neatly into a coffee mug.

At 12:30, he got up and fed the fish.

At 12:31, he appeared to be talking to the fish.

"What's he saying?" said Frohike, leaning in.

"No audio," said Langly. "I told you. It's ethical."

Byers put his face in his hands.

At 1:15, Mulder was still reading. At 1:50, he was still reading, but lying down now, with the file on his chest. At 2:12, the file slid off his chest onto the floor, and he did not pick it up.

Langly sat up straight. "Is he—"

"Resting his eyes," said Frohike. "Doesn't count."

At 2:40, Mulder had not moved. His mouth was slightly open. One arm had fallen off the couch and was dangling toward the carpet.

"That," said Langly, "is a sleeping man."

"That," said Frohike, with less conviction, "is a man thinking very, very hard."

"He's drooling."

Frohike squinted at the screen for a long moment. Then he took out his wallet, extracted a twenty, and slapped it down on the workbench with enormous dignity. "This proves nothing," he said. "A single data point."

"I will say," said Byers quietly, "it's nice to see him get some rest." And none of them said anything to that, because it was true, and they all knew what kind of year it had been.

*

At 2:58, on the monitor, Mulder opened his eyes.

He did not sit up. He did not look around. He simply lay there on the couch for a moment, looking at the ceiling. Then, very slowly, he turned his head, and looked directly into the smoke detector.

All three of them leaned back from the screen at exactly the same time.

Mulder got up. He walked out of the frame. He came back with a legal pad and a black marker, wrote something on it in large letters, and held it up to the camera.

LANGLY: YOUR SOLDERING IS SLOPPY.
FROHIKE: PAY THE MAN.
BYERS: I'M SORRY YOU HAD TO WATCH THIS.

Then he reached up, and the screen went black.

*

The phone rang at 7:02 the next morning. Byers answered it.

"Your camera," said Mulder's voice, "is in my freezer, next to a very old box of fish sticks. You can come get it. Bring bagels."

"Of course," said Byers. "We're very sorry."

"No, you're not." A pause. "Did Langly win?"

"Langly won."

"Good," said Mulder. "Tell Frohike it was the first time in a week. He can have his twenty back if he never mentions it to Scully."

He hung up. Byers set the phone down and turned around to find Frohike already holding out his hand.

~ END ~

Pepperjack's note: This is my first fan fiction ever. Please be nice. Or be honest and nice. Thanks to Colleen for the beta and for talking me out of the part with the llama.