Asylum
By Marta Christjansen

_______________________________
TITLE: Asylum
AUTHOR: Marta Christjansen
E-MAIL: Ted...@aol.com
DISTRIBUTION: Let me know where
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORIES: M/S UST
KEYWORDS: Humor/X-Over  
CONTENT WARNING: Sexual innuendo
SPOILERS: Assumes knowledge of everything up to and including S7.
SUMMARY: Mulder has late night visitors  
DISCLAIMER: They're not mine but that's not for lack of wishing  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was written in 2003 and beta'd by AxxlFan

________________________________

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 his cellphone, 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

<pleasefeedusohpleasepleasepleasefeedusrightnow>. "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 Langley, 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 cell phone 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: an older
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 both,

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 ...