TITLE: Asylum AUTHOR: Marta Christjansen EMAIL: TedFan@aol.com ARCHIVE: Please let me know. CATEGORY: Humor, X-over SPOILERS: Assumes knowledge of everything through Season 7 (just to be safe). RATING: PG-13 SUMMARY: Mulder's dream (well, one of them) comes true. DISCLAIMER: They're not mine, but that's not for lack of wishing... Asylum By M.C. Christjansen Mulder was being followed. He'd become aware of it midway through a late-evening run, warned not by an actual presence, but his own gut-feeling that something was out of kilter. He paused twice in hope of spotting his tail, once to do a few hamstring stretches and again to re- tie the laces of his running shoes. He swept the vicinity with surreptitious glances, unwilling to betray the fact that he'd been spooked, but whoever it was remained cloaked in the night. Not for the first time in his life, Mulder regretted leaving both his weapons home. He debated what to do next. Muggings weren't unheard of in this part of Alexandria, but he had nothing worth taking except a quarter in his T-shirt pocket for a phone-call and his keys and ID. The best he could hope for, if it was indeed a mugging, was a beating; the worst was something he preferred not to dwell on. Subtly, he altered his course, maintaining a steady, deliberate pace until he was within a block of his apartment building. Then he put on a sudden burst of speed, sprinting like a deer through backyards, leaping fences and hedges and trash cans until at last he reached the sanctuary of Hegel Place Apartments. A panting Mulder fumbled for the key to the rear entrance, only to sense that his pursuer had caught up with him. He turned, pressing his back to the solid brick presence of his building. "I know you're there," he called out. "Show yourself." For effect, he stuck his right hand under the hem of his T- shirt, just at the hip, where his holster would have been had he been wearing it. Silence. Then a faint rustling noise as someone stepped through the scoungy boxwood hedge enclosing Hegel Place's rear perimeter. Mulder felt a muscle in his jaw twitching and hoped that he wasn't displaying the "panic face" he'd once shown Scully. "Move into the light," he ordered, his hand still beneath his shirt. A small slim shape moved out of the darkness to stand in the cone of light cast by the building's security lamp -- a child, a boy about twelve years old, thin, with dark curling hair and huge dark eyes. He wore a faded Knicks jersey and shorts, but no shoes. "Why were you following me?" Mulder demanded, perhaps a bit more harshly than circumstances required. He let his right hand drop to his side. "Why aren't you home doing your homework or something?" "Are you Agent Mulder?" the boy asked. His voice sounded rusty, as though it hadn't been used in a long time. "Why do you want to know?" "I want asylum," replied the boy. "Go home, kid." "Wait! I have to show you something." Mulder flung himself into the shadows of his building and waited for the inevitable muzzle flash. He felt mildly foolish when none was forthcoming, but did not budge from his hiding place. "Watch," the boy said, and his face and body softened and blurred until there was no longer a 12 -year-old boy facing Mulder, but a small gray humanoid, its slender body and long limbs still encased in the Knicks jersey and shorts. Only the dark eyes remained the same in the hairless, dome-shaped head. It had no nostrils to speak of, only a pair of openings above the slit of its mouth. "Oh, shit!" said Mulder, stepping out of his refuge. He looked around, saw no one else, and prayed that none of his neighbors happened to be looking out of their windows. "I ran away, Agent Mulder," said the alien. "I want asylum." It was definitely a moment for a snap decision. "You'd better come upstairs with me," said Mulder. "Before someone sees you and calls the cops." He leaned out and grabbed the creature by its wrist, pulling it into the shadows with him. The clinical portion of Mulder's brain noted that its skin was smooth, suede-like in texture, and warm, but not at all unpleasant to the touch. The alien nodded and let himself be hustled indoors, where he trotted along beside his host like some kind of mutant Weimeraner. To Mulder's intense relief, no one in the building was seized with the desire to take out the trash or walk the dog, and the odd pair made it to Apartment 42 without being spotted. "This is where you live, Agent Mulder?" inquired the alien as Mulder unlocked the door and gestured for him/it to go inside. "It's so small. And dark." "Be it ever so humble." Mulder locked the door and slid the dead-beat into place before turning to look at his "guest," who was studying his apartment like an Egyptologist confronted with a new and heretofore unknown tomb. "And it's Mulder, just Mulder. Now, tell me what's going on." "I already told you: I want asylum." Only me, thought Mulder as he stared at the being in his living room. This could only happen to me. "Oh! Fish!" The creature darted across the room and climbed up on the arm of the couch to gaze wistfully at the inhabitants of Mulder's aquarium. "They're so pretty. When can we eat them?" Mulder strode forward, ready to defend his pets. "These fish aren't for eating." "Then what purpose do they serve?" The EBE dabbled two skinny, gray fingers in the water. Mulder's goldfish swam closer, just in case someone felt like giving them a snack. "They're company ... sort of." He wasn't about to admit to a total stranger (and an extraterrestrial biological entity at that) that occasionally he just liked to sprawl on the couch and watch them swimming aimlessly around the tank when he wasn't in the mood to look at one of those videos that weren't his. "Do you interact with them?" Since there seemed to be no real threat to the fish, Mulder relaxed slightly. "I feed them and I watch them swim around in their tank and when they die I flush them down the toilet." The alien withdrew his fingers from the tank. "There's no intellectual discourse between you?" "They're just fish. All they know how to do is swim and eat and poop and make little fishes." The visitor turned his head to look at his host. "That's how many of my people feel about your species." Mulder folded his arms over his chest, taking a mildly aggressive stance to conceal the fact that he was trying not to shudder. "There are major differences between humans and fish. My species has self-awareness, imagination and the ability to change its environment." He held up one hand and waggled his fingers. "Not to mention opposable thumbs." "Opposable thumbs are over-rated." The little alien returned his gaze to the goldfish hovering near the surface of the water, blissfully unaware of anything but the possibility of that they might soon be fed . "You work with what you're given. If you can't, you die. Do these fishes have names?" Mulder explained that he called the elegant black fantail Scully, the one with the bulging red forehead Skinner, and the three small plain ones Langly, Frohicke and Byers. "What about this one?" asked the EBE, pointing to a silver and black speckled specimen. "It keeps pursuing the pretty black one." "You speak pretty good English for an out-of-towner," Mulder remarked, changing the subject abruptly. "Well, we've been intercepting your radio and television transmissions and analyzing them for years." The alien hopped down to the floor to examine the litter of newspapers, books and magazines covering the surface of the coffee table. "Do you have any root beer?" "Uh, no. How about iced tea?" "All right." Mulder went into his kitchen and retrieved a couple of cans of iced tea from the refrigerator. He offered one to his guest, who had trotted after him. Popping the top of the can he'd kept for himself, he gulped down several mouthfuls before noticing that the alien seemed to be having trouble with the ring tab on his drink. Mulder opened it for him. "You know my name," Mulder remarked, handing the can of tea back and leading the way back to the living room. "What's yours? "I don't think you'll be able to repeat it." The alien emitted a spate of consonants. "Call me whatever you like, as long as it isn't Sam Francisco." Imitating his host, he lifted the can to his mouth, tilted his head and drank. Mulder dropped onto the couch. "You've seen `Alien Nation'?" The EBE morphed back into its twelve-year-boy form. "The TV series was great, in spite of the stupid names. The film was a shallow shoot-`em-up buddy picture with some heavy-handed performances by actors who should've known better." "I guess you picked up Siskel and Ebert, too." The alien made a thumbs-up gesture. "How about if I just call you Bob?" Mulder asked. "Unless it has some obscene meaning in your language." "Like Matthew Sikes' name did in Tenctonese?" The newly christened creature stooped to finger the fringes of the rug on the floor in front of the couch. "Bob is fine." He looked up. "Why your parents would name you for an eater of vermin?" "I wish I knew the answer to that myself." Mulder took another drink of his iced tea. "Your file indicates that you are considered an attractive specimen of your gender and species, despite the protrusion on your face. Was the idiomatic form of the word in use when you were spawned?" "I doubt it." Straightening, Bob drank from his can of iced tea again. "This iced tea is good stuff, but I'd really like to try root beer. Are you sure you don't have any?" An idea presented itself to Mulder, and he wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. "Sorry, but I know someone who can get you some. Someone I'd really like you to meet." Bob studied him a moment before saying, "That would be your partner, Agent--" he glanced at the aquarium, where the black fantail was still being aggressively pursued by her black and silver speckled tank-mate "--Scully, would it not?" "Is there a problem with that?" "Not at all. I would be honored to meet her. Please communicate with Agent Scully and ask her to bring us root beer." Mulder grabbed the phone and punched the speed-dial. "Scully, it's me," he said before she could say hello. "I know it's late, but this is very important. I need you to get over here right away." "Mulder, what is it?" asked Scully. "Is something wrong? Are you all right?" "Have I ever shown you my `excited' face, Scully?" "Can't say that you have, Mulder. What's going on?" "Something wonderful, Scully, and I want to share it with you. Please, Scully. Hurry." He heard her sigh, a soft susurrus that caressed his ear like a lover's tongue. "I'm on my way, Mulder. But if this involves too much beer and the three Wise Guys, you're all dead men." "No beer, no Wise Guys, I promise. But do you have any root beer? You need to bring some root beer." "Root beer? Mulder, are you out of your mind? It's --" a pause while she checked the time "--a quarter to one!" "Don't you have any?" "Mulder ...." "Okay, okay. Just hurry, Scully. And don't forget the root beer. I promise you won't regret it." "It's more a question of you regretting it, Mulder." Mulder hung up and turned back to Bob. "Scully's on her way. She'll bring you root beer." The alien, back in his child-guise, grinned hugely and high- fived him. "Cool! Do you mind if I keep looking around while we're waiting?" Mulder made an expansive gesture. "Mi casa es su casa." He sat down on the couch again, drinking his iced tea and watching the little alien poking about his apartment and wondering what to do with him. "Hey, Bob?" Yes, Mulder?" Bob had discovered Mulder's basketball wedged into the wastebasket. "What d'you do? You know--" he gestured toward the ceiling with his iced tea "--up there." Bob pulled the basketball free and dropped it on the floor. It rolled lazily across the floor until it bumped against the coffee table's leg and started to roll back towards Bob. "I'm an archivist. That's how I found out about you and your beliefs, Mulder. Your file is very active." "I'll bet." Mulder sat up suddenly and leaned forward, an anticipatory gleam in his hazel eyes. "My sister-- and Scully--" "I'm sorry," said Bob. "I tried to get that information, hoping it might influence you to view my request for asylum more favorably but access to their files is restricted to archivists of a higher rank than mine. Will that make a difference?" Mulder sank back as a wave of disappointment washed over him. "No, but it would've been nice to know ..." The alien approached him and patted his arm gently, saying again, "I'm sorry." "You know," Mulder said after a moment, "you're not the first of your kind to run away and go native here on Earth. A long time ago, one of you came here and fell in love with a game we play called baseball. He disguised himself as a human, a black man, and played the Negro League until his past caught up with him. One of my people, who had become his friend, discovered his secret, and kept it for many years before sharing it with me." "They executed him, you know. I've seen the archive." "I know," said Mulder. "Aren't you afraid they'll off--execute you as well?" "Even if they do, at least I'll have had the satisfaction of being useless for once in my life." "And that's good thing?" Bob paused, struggling with what he wanted to say. "My people are analogous to ants, Mulder. We work, we feed, we rest, we work again. The concept of recreation is unimaginable to us. It is non-productive, and those who are non-productive--" "--Get spiked in the back of the neck." Bob winced. "I wouldn't have put it that way, but yes." "Sorry." Mulder leaned back again, adopting a sort-of half- sprawl. Bob raised an arm and pointed at the door half-concealed by shadows in one corner of the living room. "What's over there, through that portal?" "The bedroom, for resting--" "--and procreating," Bob added cheerfully. "Will I get to witness human procreation?" "Only if someone introduces you to adult videos." "I've seen those. I'm an archivist, remember?" Bob sighed, his shoulders drooping a little. "Rubbing your bodies together to produce young as you do is so much more pleasant than my own species' means of reproducing itself." "Bob, your species' means of reproduction puts a whole new spin on the phrase 'safe sex'." The alien blinked. "We can't help that. And we derive no pleasure from the act, unlike your species, which seems to have turned it into as much of a recreational activity as well as a reproductive one. We can't even masturbate because of the way we are made." "No wonder you ran away," Mulder said, pitying his new friend's inability to experience the bliss to be had from spanking the monkey, let alone from making the beast with two backs. He ran his left hand over his crotch, then snatched it away when he realized what he was doing. "Not even when you look like us?" Bob shook his head. "No. May I look at your bedroom?" "Enter at your own risk. It's a little messy in there." Bob opened the door and stepped inside, closing the door carefully behind him, as if to prevent anything from escaping. Alone in the living room, Mulder toed off his sneakers without bothering to untie them, then propped his feet on the coffee table and leaned back on the couch. He drank more of his iced tea, ignoring the occasional noises coming from behind his bedroom door as Bob explored it. There's an alien in my bedroom, going through my stuff, he thought to himself. Can life get any better than this? He heard footsteps in the hallway, then Scully's signature knock of two staccato raps. Levering himself up off the couch, he made it to the door just as she let herself in with the key he had given her years before. She was wearing sandals, slim blue jeans, a black bra buttoned beneath a crisp white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her hair was slightly disheveled, as though she'd run her fingers through it instead of using a comb. Life had just gotten better. "Here I am," she said, instead of a mere 'hi.' She dropped the six pack of ICB, still icy from the Stop-and-Rob's cooler, into his arms. "And here's your root beer, although I still don't understand why you couldn't have run out for it yourself." "I have a guest," replied Mulder, dragging his gaze away from the shadows beneath her shirt. "I can't leave him. And, no, he couldn't have tagged along." Scully peered past him into the apartment, then looked up at her partner once more. "I don't see anyone." "He's in the bedroom," Mulder said , leading the way into the living room, where he put the six-pack on the coffee-table. With a sigh, Scully leaned over and set the six-pack down again on a back number of the Lone Gunman to prevent yet more rings from appearing on the already heavily scarred surface. "Mulder, I would be honored to meet your guest, but couldn't it have waited until tomorrow?" "No." He grasped her arms above the elbows. "Scully, I told you I would show you my 'excited' face. This is it." He paused for effect before adding, "I'm showing it to you because there's an alien in my bedroom." Scully heard the rush of the Metro in her head. If anyone but her partner had uttered those words, she would have whipped out her cellphone and dialed the nearest mental hospital. "An alien," she repeated. "Yeah." Mulder went to the door in the corner. "He ran away from the other aliens. He wants asylum and he came to me for help." He disappeared behind the door, returning a moment later with a 12-year-old boy in a Knicks shirt and carrying an armful of Mulder's autographed baseball collection. "Tell me about the mirrors over your sleeping platform," the boy was saying as he looked back over his shoulder at Mulder. "I've seen them before, in adult videos. Is their purpose to enhance the sexual act, or simply for admiring yourselves as you go about it?" The tips of Mulder's ears turned crimson. He leaned down and said in low voice, "Not now, okay?" Then, standing up straight again, he said, "Hey, Scully, this is Bob. Bob, this is my partner, Special Agent Dana Scully." "I am honored, Special Agent Dana Scully." Politely, he held out his right hand for her take, which she did after a momentary hesitation. "Um, thank you, Bob. Me, too." They shook hands solemnly. "She's very quiet," observed Bob to his host as he withdrew his hand. "She's surprised. So, Scully, what do you think?" "I think that Bob looks more like your love-child than an alien, Mulder," Scully said, resisting the impulse to smack her partner in the head, just in case he was playing a late-night joke on her. It would be difficult to top this one, but she'd find a way even if she had to kiss Deputy Director Kersh to do it. "He's in disguise." Mulder took the baseballs from the boy. "Show her, Bob." Bob obliged, morphing from human 12-year-old to diminutive gray within seconds, thus relieving Scully of the awful possibility of having to kiss the deputy director. Scully took a deep breath. And another. Bob turned to Mulder. "She's very pretty, but not so pretty as the Scullyfish. Have you mated with her?" "No!" said Mulder. His ears crimsoned again, and this time the color overflowed and spread to his face. "Scullyfish?" his partner asked. "Mulder, you named a fish after me?" "The fancy black one that the silver and black-speckled one likes to chase," Bob offered helpfully. "I think it wants to mate with her." "Mulder--" "Scully, we need to talk. Let's just step into the bedroom and-- " "Are you going to mate now? May I observe?" "No!" Abruptly, Mulder dumped his autographed baseballs back into the gray's arms and grabbed his partner by the wrist, leading her toward the bedroom door. "Amuse yourself with those while I talk to Agent Scully privately." "May I drink root beer?" "Yes!" Mulder shut the door and turned to face his partner, who was leaning against the wall beside it with her arms folded. "Scully, I--" "You never let me play with your balls," she interrupted, words that rendered him speechless, and very turned on. The room went silent, except for the ticking of Mulder's wristwatch. "Stop that!" he croaked when he could breathe again. "We--we have to figure out how to help Bob." He tore his gaze from the black lace peeking out from beneath her shirt. "We can't just hand him over to the government. At best they'll interrogate him; at worst ... I don't even want to think about it." "Maybe the Gunmen?" "They'll put Bob on their front page under a 96-point banner." Someone knocked on the apartment's front door. "Now what?" demanded an aggrieved Mulder, glancing at his watch.. "It's going on 2 a.m." Scully unfolded her arms and stood up straight. "Let me get it." "It's my apartment!" "Yes, but you smell like a locker room, sweetie." She slipped past him and out the door. He sniffed his armpits, then hurried after her. "I do not!" There were two callers standing out in the hallway: a craggy- faced white man and a younger, smooth-faced black one, both dressed in identical, immaculately pressed black suits, white shirts and black ties, and wearing, despite the hour, dark glasses. "Can we help you?" asked Scully at her iciest. "Do you know what time it is?" Mulder demanded, crowding up behind her. Behind him, Bob had resumed his human form. "We found this in the hall way. Looks expensive," the white man said, holding up a sleek, shiny object, rather like a high-tech pen with a red light on the end. "Is it yours?" Mulder and Scully looked at the object. "Give 'em something nice to remember," warned the black man. There was a burst of bright white light ...