Title: Are You Familiar with an Agent Named Fox Mulder?
Author: aka "Jake"
Rating: G
Classification: V, Challenge Fic 

Summary: Scully takes a close look at Mulder.

Disclaimer: The characters Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are the property of Chris Carter, FOX and 1013 Productions.

Author's Notes: Written for Fandomonium's Voyeurism Challenge. Special thanks to mimic117 and xdksfan for beta. 


Are You Familiar with an Agent Named Fox Mulder? 
by aka "Jake" 

Crushed Dairy Queen coffee cups, fast food wrappers, and crumpled notepaper dot the floor, surrounding the wastebasket like ships run aground, lost in a violent storm. Sweat and mildew taint the basement's unconditioned air; the odor is reminiscent of tidal pools, isolated from the ocean, hermit crabs and barnacles abandoned by outgoing currents. Above the room's only desk, the ceiling is spiked with pencils. It gives Dana Scully the impression of a mutant, yellow-spined sea urchin.

Her eyes flit to the bulletin board. Missing persons reports, photographs, and newspaper clippings clutter the dusty, indigo backdrop. Piltdown Man, Barringer Crater, crop circles carved into Mandelbrot Sets, Viking Orbiter images of the Cydonia "Face on Mars," Nazca line drawings on the plains of Peru, pentagrams, Stonehenge, Bigfoot... 

It's a freak show of unexplained phenomena, a Ripley's "Believe It or Not" of human and inhuman possibilities. Implication? The fantastic *is* plausible.

A large UFO poster dominates this flotsam like the maidenhead of a sinking vessel. "I WANT TO BELIEVE" it proclaims, a sci-fi geek's mantra in 200 point Helvetica bold, all caps. The picture's alleged alien craft hovers in an otherwise clear, blue sky, reminding her of Melissa's floppy, straw hat, tossed into the Gulf of Santa Catalina after their Cousin Janet's wedding in Del Mar four summers ago. She can still hear her father's tsk tsk above the crash of waves and squawk of seagulls.

Her eyes sweep Mulder's desk, cataloguing the profusion of items piled there. His nameplate, more yellow pencils, books about the occult, mummies, and a biography of John Glenn, video tapes without covers, a Darth Vader action figure facing off with a Wonderwoman PEZ dispenser, an open bag of sunflower seeds, and stacks of file folders tagged with red Xs. The inbox is overflowing. Phone directories are heaped at the edge of the desk's back corner. The telephone is perched haphazardly atop a leaning tower of reference books, which are tagged with post-its, bookmarked with take-out menus. An unexpected call could raze it like a tidal wave.

Sitting in the eye of this maelstrom is Fox Mulder, captain of what some might jokingly refer to as a ghost ship, its hold bursting at the seams with dubious treasure and fool's gold, spoils that will eventually drag both ship and crew down to the ocean floor. 

His face is spectral, glowing silver-white above his lightbox. His eyes are unreadable behind the glare of his glasses. He sorts slides, ignoring her in favor of celluloid evidence, images of phantasmagoria, little green men, and who knows what other bugaboos. She can only guess; from her perspective, it is impossible to see exactly what grips his attention.

His personal appearance is as untidy as his surroundings. He wears a rumpled, striped shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, breast pocket gaping, weighted by his clip-on ID. His tie -- a loud navy and red stripe -- is loose and askew. Five o'clock stubble casts gritty shadows across the lower half of his face. His hair is disheveled; a lock fishhooks in the middle of his brow and she is tempted to tuck it into place. Maybe straighten his tie, too, while she's at it. 

He shuffles his slides with graceful hands, picking and choosing and rearranging, as deft as a magician with cups and balls. She half expects him to pull a rabbit -- or an alien -- out of his lightbox. His concentration is so fixed that his jaw hangs slack and he breathes through his mouth like a little boy putting the finishing touches on his sandcastle. 

Then his Adam's apple bobs. Excitement vibrates his limbs. He has found what he's looking for. Glancing her way at last, he seems almost startled to find her standing there, watching him. 

He's a handsome man, despite his unkempt appearance. Warning bells clang in her head like a beacon buoy warning off ships in the fog.

She reaches out.

"Agent Mulder. I'm Dana Scully. I've been assigned to work with you."

He grips her hand and gives it a firm shake. A smirk twitches his lips. His eyes are sly.

"Oh, isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded?" he asks rhetorically. "So, who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?"

She feels her smile falter. The X-Files. Fox Mulder. She knew him by reputation, she told Blevins upstairs. Oxford educated psychologist, he wrote a monograph on serial killers and the occult that helped to catch Monty Props in 1988. He had a nickname at the Academy. "Spooky" Mulder. She had assumed it referred to his status as the best analyst in the violent crimes section.

She scans the bulletin board again.

This new assignment might be more of a challenge than she had anticipated.


THE END