This rather silly fic was inspired by a throwaway scene in 'High Priced Spread'. I couldn't get the thought out of my head that this was a part of some ongoing game - and, like all games, they escalate.

Mary: Way to work the word shuttlecock into the conversation, jackass.

Marshall: It's one of the funnier words.

Floppy Stuff

Eleanor could not quite put her finger on the strangeness that was Mary and Marshall. It was like that time she caught them playing chess with the yahtzee dice.

"A game is not a game, without an element of luck," Mary had pronounced. "Everybody knows that."

But Eleaner was already eyeing Marshall's decimated pieces. "Wait a minute, are you actually rolling dice for every single move?"

Marshall had shrugged nonchalantly. "I'll win a roll, eventually," he said.

Stan had been right. They lived in their own little world. and the sane need never apply - the same went for FBI agents, apparently.

Bemused, she watched Special Agent Connors storm out of the conference room, and ignore the proffered cup of coffee as he stalked through the room. The safety door slammed loudly behind him, and reverberated through the entire office.

Mary's voice wafted from the conference room, and Eleanor sneaked closer.

"Eww, really? You had to say that? " she heard Mary say, but her disgusted tone didn't quite hide the glee underneath, and Eleanor began to get an inkling as to where this conversation was going. She risked a peek inside, and took a sip from the coffee cup. No use letting it go to waste.

"Hey, I'm not the one with the potty mouth," Marshall drawled. "Maybe if you kept the words to a PG rating..."

"Who? Me?"

"Mais oui."

"Are you going all frenchy on me again?"

"See, there you go," Marshall deadpanned. "I was making an innocent comment, and you just upped the rating."

She threw at an apple at him, and Marshall caught it out of the air and took a bite out of it. "Schrodinger's Cat," he said, after a moment's pause.

"What did I say about weird and unlikely geek words?"

"Hey, I just spent the last five minutes talking about erectile dysfunction, you're getting off lightly."

The coffee scorched down Eleanor's throat, nearing choking her, and Stan was suddenly at her side, patting her back. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Oh, fine, just went down the wrong way," Eleanor got out.

"Riiight," he drawled. "Well, why don't you recover yourself while I have a frank exchange of words with my inspectors…"

The door shut, and Eleanor decided against accidentally hitting the intercom button. There was such a thing as too much information.

Schrodinger's Cat

The small garage was a heap of smouldering rubble, and the wall they were using as a shield had been peppered with heavy ammunition. Mary and Marshall were on their hands and knees, and crawling along the sidewalk.

"Really, Mare? You thought that was an appropriate time to describe the uncertainty principle?" Marshall bit out, as a bullet whirred over his head

"Hey, how was I to know he really did have a bomb in the box?"

Marshall threw her a disbelieving look. "You mean, other than the fact that he was a convicted bomb maker?"

"Details, details…"

Another shower of bullets carved the air above them, and they exchanged a long look.

"Salty balls," she pronounced, as she checked her gun.

Marshall groaned. "You must hate me," he said, as he slid his spare clip home. "On the count of three."

They leapt to their feet, guns ablaze.

Salty Balls

"Well, that was just mean," Mary said, leaning back in her sun chair as she watched Brandi hastily retreat into the house,

"Hey, you said nothing about this being a nine to five deal," he said, glancing up from his newspaper. "And look on the bright side, she'll never ask that question again."

"If you think that that's the last time Brandi will ask if we're sleeping together, you don't know her very well," Mary said, before pausing. "So, that thing you said about the—"

"Don't go there, Mare."

"Hey, I'm just saying—"

"Mare."

"But—"

"All right, you asked for it - gravity well."

Mary blinked. "Say what?"

Marshall smirked. "I guess you'll just have to look it up first," he said. "Wikipedia is your friend."

Mary slapped him upside the head. "Meanie"

Gravity Well

Marshall leaned against the doorjamb, and took a sip of his coffee, as Mary sat down beside the witness. She was an eighteen year old waitress from New York, called Anna, and she had witnessed a mob hit. Gently, Mary laid her hand on hers.

"You see, Anna," she said. "It's as if your life is this large body in space, and you have this gravity well surrounding it, pulling in all these grubby bits of satellite and meteorite in, and no matter how hard you try to, you just can't manage escape velocity and leave this suckass life behind."

Anna looked at her, mouth ajar, before she burst out crying and fled from the room.

"Five seconds," Marshall said, as the girl shoved past him. "A new record."

"But I hadn't got to the good part yet," she protested. "It had rocket ships in it and everything!"

"I'm guessing she just doesn't like gravity," he said. "That, or she's about to slit her wrists..." Mary's eyes narrowed, and Marshall straightened on reflex. "Mare, think about what you're going to say—"

"Too late," she shot back. "Phone sex."

He gave her a long look. "You know I'm going to make you pay for that, don't you?"

"Bring it on" she declared. "I can take you."

"Brave words," he said. "I consider it a challege."

Phone Sex

She was frozen, unable to move, as the message on the answer phone played to it's inevitable conclusion and started to beep at her accusingly.

"I knew it! I knew it! I knew you two were sleeping with each other." Brandi crowed, her finger slamming down on the replay button. Marshall's voice reverberated around the kitchen, once more.

"Hey, sugarpie, guess what I've got planned for to—"

With a flexibility she didn't know she had, Mary leapt over the kitchen counter and pulled the plug from the wall. The damage was already done, however, and she had no idea how many times they'd hit replay before she'd walked through the door. Quite a lot, if the state of Raph was anything to go by.

"How could you?" he asked, his voice slurred. "After all we've been through…" Mary eyed the bottle in his hand. Oh great, tequila, this was going to be a fun evening.

"For the third and last time, Raph, Marshall and I have not slept with each other. He's my partner."

As one, Brandi and Jinx snorted.

"Honey," Jinx said. "Don't you think it's better if you come clean with Raph. I mean, we've always known that you and Marshall have this little unacknowledged…frisson—"

"What? No!"

"Don't interrupt me, Mare, if there is one thing I know about, it's infidelity!"

"How many times do I have to tell you; I did not cheat on Raph!"

It was 3.00 am in the morning, and they were playing drunk chess on the floor of Marshall's living room. They had lost the yahtzee dice during the last game, so pulling at straws was the next best thing.

"I think," Mary said, "We may need to find a different game. This one is getting a little too hot." She pulled the whiskey bottle from Marshall's nerveless fingers, and took a large swig.

"You're not talking about the chess game, are you?" he asked.

Mary shrugged and shook her head.

"I told you we should have stuck to the PG version." Marshall weaved slightly as he spoke, and then lost his balance and fell backwards – quite a feat, considering he was already sitting down. "Russian roulette?" he suggested, from his new perspective on the ceiling.

Mary eyed him – or at least tried to. There seemed to be more than one Marshall on the floor, and she had run out of eyes. "You mean, with real bullets?" she asked, eventually.

"Is there any other kind?"

She thought about it. "No, too messy…"

"Whist? I think I could make up a foursome..."

Mary's mind wandered back to the one whist game Marshall had convinced her to join. They had all been over sixty, and as mean as a rattlesnake. "Too high risk," she decided.

Marshall sighed and, after a moment of effort, managed to prop himself up on his elbows. "Hey, what about poker?"

Mary let the idea rattle around her head for a minute. "Sure, why not," she said. "I mean, as long as we don't play for money, what could possibly go wrong?"

"You know, for a cynical old hag, you can be endearingly naive sometimes," Marshall said.

"Yeah, yeah," Mary snorted. "That's what all my secret lovers say."

"You're never going to let the phone sex thing go, are you?"

"As if... where are your cards?"

FINIS