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Off-Off-Off Broadway by Jennifer Stoy (jstoy@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu)
1013 Production Offices August 22, 1998
"Dammit it all to hell!" Chris Carter shouted. "This script idea sucks! You're fired! You're all fired! I could find fanfic writers who do better stuff than you hacks!"
"Yeah, maybe," one of the maligned writers retorted. "But then you'd have to hire a woman and write more scenes for Gillian."
"And maybe we'd have to deal with continuity," Gilligan said from the back of the room. Carter calmed down, and his face took on a thoughtful expression.
"Continuity-- equality-- quality-- hmmm," Carter said. He burst into laughter and the rest of the men in the room did the same. Vince took an extra moment-- he'd actually *meant* that continuity bit.
"Chris, what exactly are you looking for?" Shiban asked, hoping in his heart of hearts that the answer would be crazed mutant action figures who attacked children and goats.
"I'm looking for this season's Post-Modern Prometheus! You know, that exceptional, brilliant piece of writing and directing that garnered us most of our Emmy nominations?" Carter asked. "But wait-- who wrote it? Who directed it? Why, I believe it was *me*! Me me me!"
For some reason, he didn't dare say it was *all* about him. Whenever he did, he would get the faintest whiff of fish and pain in his head, as though he'd just been slapped.
"Yes, Chris," Shiban said bravely. "Post-Modern Prometheus was wonderful."
"Yes, yes it was!" Carter replied. "And I've just realized the way out of this dilemma is simple. *I'll* write the next Post-Modern Prometheus! All of you lousy hacks-- out! I need to get inspired! I'll show you what GREAT television is all about!"
Everyone silently filed out of Carter's office, collectively rolling their eyes. Carter leaned back in his chair and tried to think.
He tried.
And tried.
And TRIED!
Then he fell asleep listening to some random CD, after trashing several pieces of paper a la the classic writer with writer's block in movies. Head cradled in arms, blissfully ignorant of the pencil that would leave an unattractive red indentation on his cheek, Chris Carter, Super Genius, slept and dreamt.
And then he woke up with an idea.
"OH!" Carter gasped, brushing the pencil off his face and shaking his head (unaware that while he'd slept, Spotsy, Vince, and Shibes had come in and braided his mighty silver mane like Coolio.)
"I have an idea! I have a terrible, awful idea!"
He pushed everything off his desk, jotted down a few notes, and began to write.
And this is what he came up with...
*Soothes the Savage* STORY BY: Chris Carter SCREENPLAY BY: Chris Carter DIRECTED BY: Chris Carter EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Chris Carter ACCEPTING ALL THE PRIZES: Chris Carter
Fox Mulder sat at his brand new desk, feet scuffing up the brand new coat of polish. He examined the new file that had mysteriously found its way into his in-box that morning, agog at the evidence that passed before his bespectacled eyes.
Dana Scully opened the door to Mulder's office, singing cheerfully.
"When I've got a brand new hair-do, with my eyelashes all in curls, I flit like the birds on air do, I enjoy being a girl!"
Mulder also broke into song.
"O what a beautiful morning, o what a beautiful day-- I've got a beautiful feelin' everything's going our way!" he sang. "We've got a new case."
Scully lifted her eyebrow fondly. "What is it this time? Flukemen? Mutant cockroaches? Mothmen?"
"I think it has to do with your abduction-- and my sister Samantha. The truth may be in this file. I need your help on this one, Scully. I really do."
"But, Mul--"
"Thanks, I knew I could count on you. We're leaving in three hours for Fargo, North Dakota."
With that, he was out of his seat like a shot, and rushing down the hallway. Scully stared after him for a moment and then sighed, remembering an old musical number.
"When I'm with a pistol, I sparkle like a crystal-- Yes, I shine like the morning sun! But I lose all my luster when with a bronco buster-- oh, you can't get a man with a gun--"
Scully sighed ruefully, feeling the press of her weapon against the small of her back.
"No, you can't get a man with a gun," she murmured to herself, leaving the office to follow Mulder.
* * * Syndicate Headquarters New York City
High above the city, in a smoke-filled room, the members of this highly specialized group of men watched from monitors the drama that played out before them.
"Poor unfortunate souls," the first elder murmured, looking at the cigarette smoker. "Can you help them?"
"I admit that in the past I've been nasty," the smoker sang. "They weren't kidding when they called me, well, a black-lunged son of bitch."
"But how about nowadays?" another man sang.
"I've mended all my ways," Cancerman sang. "Repented, seen the light, and made a switch."
Slowly but surely, the entire smoke-filled room was filled with the song of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.
"Poor unfortunate souls! In pain, in need! This one longing to be thinner-- That one wants to get the girl-- And do we help them? Yes, indeed--"
The entire room burst into laughter-- and then coughs as old age and emphysema caught up with the Consortium.
The phone rang. One of the lackeys picked it up and handed it to the fat Italian guy.
"Hello?"
"It's Krycek," a terse male voice replied. "I have a message for you."
"What is it?"
Krycek broke into song. "If we played even, I'd be your queen. But someone was cheatin'-- And it wasn't me. I've laid it on the table, you held something back. If love is Vinny, give me the Fox."
"What?"
"It's over between us, Vincenzo. Through. I'm leaving you."
"For whom?" the Italian man asked.
"It doesn't matter. You abandoned me-- love don't live here anymore--" Krycek sang in a plausible imitation of Madonna. Vincenzo hung up the phone.
"We have a serious problem," he said. "Alex Krycek has just defected, again."
"We have no problems. There's a man who lives a life of danger," Cancerman replied. "To everyone he meets, he stays a stranger. With every move he makes, another chance he takes. Odds are, he won't live to see tomorrow."
The chorus broke into song again. "Secret AGENT man! Secret AGENT man! They've given you a number and taken 'way your name--"
Evil laughter echoed over the city as Vincenzo wondered what it was he'd done wrong.
"How do I live without you, Alex?" he mused to himself. "I want to know. How do I breathe without you, if you ever go? How do I ever, ever survive? How do I, how do I, how do I?"
* * * On the Plane to Fargo---
Chris Carter looked up from his brilliant new idea.
"Krycek/First Elder. Not even the sickest fic author would dare! That's why I'm executive producer and they're just fanfic writers."
There was a timid knock at the door. "Who is it?" Carter asked.
"It's just me," his secretary said. "Rupert Murdoch on line one, sir. He wants to know what you're going to do about the Mulder/Scully romance."
"Tell him there will NEVER be a romance on the X-Files. Period. I swore there wouldn't be, and Chris Carter is not a liar."
"But, sir--" the secretary said.
"OUT!" Carter yelled. The secretary sighed and shut the door. "Now, back to where we were-- Mulder and Scully on the plane-- never be a romance, my ass--"
* * * The stewardess was a tall, buxom brunette. She looked a lot like one of those girls in those videos that weren't Mulder's, Dana decided.
"What can I get you two?" the stewardess asked.
"Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker," Mulder quipped. "Mountain Dew, please."
"And for you, ma'am?"
"Water," Scully replied. She looked at Mulder, who was ogling the stewardess. "Ahem."
"I wasn't lookin' at anything!" Mulder said, snapping to attention.
"Sure you weren't. Mulder, I was thinking about this case. Isn't it awfully convenient that *all* the secrets happen to be enclosed in this *one* case?"
"You bet it is! Aren't you glad? I mean, all this digging through each case for one little nugget of the truth was getting dull and expensive. This way, we can wrap it up and go on with our lives."
"Mulder-- what if it's a trap?"
"We gamble with our lives every day, Scully. I'm willing to take a chance. Go the distance--"
With that, Mulder burst into song.
"I am on my way-- I can go the distance-- I don't care how far-- Somehow I'll be strong-- I know ev'ry mile will be worth my while-- I would go most anywhere to find where I belong--"
Scully too had a song in her heart but she decided not to sing it out loud. But Tori Amos had always expressed her secret longings so well.
<
"Oh, Mulder," she murmured to herself. "Don't you understand? Are you gay? Are you blue? Thought we both could use a friend to run to--"
Finished with his first song, Mulder accepted his Mountain Dew and looked over at his dimunitive partner, who was off in a reverie of her own thoughts. His heart ached to tell her-- what?
There had been women before, but none of them could compare to the flame-haired, sapphire-eyed goddess slouched beside him in Donna Karan. But she could never love him. She was Beauty, he was the Beast.
<
Well, it had only been five or six years ago, but it was so true. Back in those days he'd been proud to be self-reliant, cocky, Spooky Mulder.
<
Her strict scientific rationalism had saved him so many times, and he knew how much he needed her.
<
"Won't you please, please help me?" Mulder whispered sotto voce. The rest of the flight passed in silence, the two agents lost in thought.
* * * J. Edgar Hoover Building Skinner's Office
"I don't care what my teachers says, I'm gonna be a supermodel, and everyone is gonna dress like me, wait and see, when I'm a supermodel--"
Kimberly poked her head in, and Walter Skinner jumped back three feet. "Yes?"
"Agent Fowley is here to see you, sir."
"What about Agent Mulder?" Skinner asked forlornly. "Or Agent Scully?"
"They disappeared again, sir."
Fowley sashayed in, looking as distressed as Skinner. "No word on Agent Mulder, sir?"
"No, Agent Fowley."
"Sooner or later, he's gonna be mine--" Fowley began singing for absolutely no reason.
"Sooner or later, she's gonna be fine--"
"Baby, it's time that you face it," Fowley growled. "I always get my man."
"Where's Agent Spender?" Skinner asked, realizing it was happening again.
"I'm not sure, sir. He's disappeared as well."
* * * He walked down the walkway, looking sharp and singing.
"Clean shirt, new shoes-- and I don't know where I am goin' to. Silk suit, black tie, I don't need a reason why. They come runnin' just as fast as they can-- coz every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man," Jeffrey Spender caroled. His father nodded.
"You understand that you must follow these instructions to the letter, Jeffrey?" Cigarette Smoking Man asked. "It is vital to the cause and to the future."
"But they don't make any sense."
"They will."
"But, sir, it's August! It doesn't snow in August!"
"Didn't you see that movie? I forget what it's called-- you know, the one with the woman cop up in North Dakota who went after those criminals? And it had that guy from Air Force One in it, not Harrison Ford-- anyway, my point is, it's always snowing there! And you will make sure that Agents Mulder and Scully are snowbound in that abandoned cabin!"
"For how long?"
"Until I say so. Go and do your duty, Agent Spender."
Spender sighed, and scuffed his feet, but he went and did what he was told. Cigarette Smoking Man looked after him and shook his head.
Meanwhile, back at the undisclosed ranch where all the Syndicate guys go to watch horses, score with chicks, and act like The Man--
"It's theme karaoke!" Vincenzo announced. He was trying really hard to get over the loss of his beloved Alex Krycek. "Will Smith songs all afternoon! I'll start it off! Where are my backup singers?"
"On your mark ready set let's go-- dance floor pro I know you know I go psycho when my new joint hit-- just can't sit-- gotta get jiggy wit it--"
The entire group chimed in on the chorus-- "Na na na na nana nana, na na na nanna na-- getting jiggy wit' it--"
Marita Covarrubias, back from deep freeze, wandered in on this scene. Everyone stopped in the middle of a cheery "Gettin' jiggy wit' it" chorus.
"Marita!"
"I'm back!" she replied. "At first I was afraid, I was petrified--"
"Kept thinkin' I could never live without you by my side--" Vincenzo added. "It's good to see you, Ms. Covarrubias."
"Your teeth still need brushing, Vincenzo. I have classified information from outside sources. It seems Agents Mulder and Scully are about to stumble upon the truth--"
"Catch up, Marita," one of the members replied. "We've sent them on a little vacation in the snow."
"Again? They just went to Antarctica!"
"No! We've evolved an insidious plan--"
* * * An Abandoned but Well-Stocked Cabin in North Dakota
"A snowstorm in August? Mulder, something's not right here!" Scully protested as they hurried into the cabin.
"Well, we are in North Dakota--"
"Be that as it may, Mulder, there's something fishy about this whole case."
"And how do you know that?" Mulder asked.
Scully groaned, and sank into the red velvet couch. "Mulder, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?"
"Exactly what are you implying, Agent Scully?"
"Mulder, this is a set-up from the word go. Someone wants us out of the way and imprisoned in this really posh abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere-- oh, my. Is it hot in here or is it just me?"
Mulder nodded. The sudden sheen of sweat across his brow gave his face a golden glow-- or maybe it was the fire blazing in the fireplace.
"Yes, it is a little warm in here."
"No kiddin', Space Ghost," Scully quipped. Mulder, who had never seen the original cartoon or the talk show on Cartoon Network, missed the joke entirely. "You know what, I'm going to go slip into something more comfortable. I'd suggest you do the same."
"More comfortable?" Mulder asked. "Okay."
Two flushed and blushing agents fled to their rooms, where specialized sound systems began to play.
Mulder threw himself on the plush king-sized bed and tried to think unsexy thoughts. The music totally wasn't helping.
"I love myself, I want you to love me, when I feel down, I want you above me! I search myself, I want you to find me, I forget myself, I want you to remind me--" the woman's voice sang cheerfully. "I don't want anybody else, when I think about you, I touch myself!"
Mulder's head popped up. "Scully's right-- there's something very wrong here."
In her own bedroom, Special Agent Dana Scully had stripped and changed into her favorite emerald colored satin dress gown.
"Nothing is so good it lasts eternally," she sang to herself. "Perfect situations must go wrong-- But this has never yet prevented me wanting far too much for far too long. Looking back I could have played it differently-- Won a few more moments who can tell? But it took time to understand the man-- Now at least I know I know him well."
Regret filled her heart for a moment, and then something else.
"I'm so sick of this," she said. "He may not love me. But I can't pine away like a goofy debutante!"
Courage filled her brave little heart, and she strode out into the living room to find Mulder dressed only in a pair of black silk boxer shorts.
"Wow," they both said together.
Meanwhile outside, there was quite an audience. Spender, who was the deejay for the entire affair immediately fumbled with the controls and came up with the perfect love song for these two.
"Wise men say, only fools rush in, but I can't help fallin' in love with you," the King crooned. Cigarette Smoking Man, who just couldn't trust his son, smiled and ruffled the boy's hair.
"Good job, son."
Krycek, who was watching from another window, had a different song in his heart.
"Yesterday-- all my troubles seemed so far away--"
"Shall I stay? Would it be a sin?" Mulder asked along to Elvis. "If I can't help falling in love with you--"
Scully's face softened. "Oh, Mulder--"
"Oh, God," Fowley said from the car she and Skinner were sharing.
"Big girls don't cry, Diana," Skinner said, trying to be comforting.
"Like a river flows surely to the sea," Elvis crooned as Mulder moved closer and closer to his partner, best friend, and true love. "Darling so it goes-- some things are meant to be--"
"Do I get a raise for this, Dad?" Spender asked.
"Sure, kid," Cigarette Smoking Man said.
"Take my hand, take my whole life too-- for I can't help falling in love with you--" Elvis sang as Mulder and Scully embraced, kissed, and gave into the emotions that had been there the whole time and a whole bunch of other people watched and took notes.
"She's faking it," Diana said.
"I don't think so," Skinner replied sadly. "Oh my God!"
"What?"
"Look over there-- it's Agent Spender-- and the Cancerman!" Skinner cried, pulling out his gun. "That doublecrossing little--"
Skinner shot twice. Spender let out a little wimpy cry, and then fell softly into the fake snow. Mulder and Scully were too busy getting busy and missed the shots completely.
"Oh my God! You killed Spender!" Diana cried.
"You bastard!" Cancerman cried.
Inside the little cabin, everything was well. "I love you so much, Mulder."
"I love you, too."
"Noooooooo!" Cancerman cried. "My son! My only son!"
And with the couple together inside wedded in bliss, and the group of interlopers outside freezing their envious little butts off and weeping over Special Agent Spender we FADE TO BLACK.
The End.
* * * 1013 Production Offices August 24, 1998
"Chris has cracked. He hasn't let anyone in for two days!" Shiban told the higher-up who'd come for a visit. "We've tried everything, but he just keeps cackling and turning up his CD."
"What CD is that?" the executive asked.
"A Chipmunk Christmas. We're afraid for our safety and our jobs, sir," Spotnitz said. "You have to stop him."
At that moment, still braided like Coolio, eyes sparkling with that special magic, Chris Carter emerged, clutching his precious script to his chest.
"I've done it! It's genius! Sheer genius! We'll win all the prizes, I tell ya, ALL the prizes!"
"Can we read it, Chris?" Shiban asked.
"No! You'll get it dirty! No, this is going to be locked up in a safe and kept as the final episode. You'll die in envy when you read it."
He cackled and ran down the hall.
"He's a genius," Spotsy said lamely. "He's the next Rod Serling."
"Or Roddenberry," Shiban added. "Should we tell him about his hair?"
"Let him find out for himself," Vince replied. "He'll be ready to talk to us soon."
Meanwhile, Chris Carter, Super Genius, took his precious script and locked it in his vault.
"I don't care what anyone says, this is pure genius," he muttered. "They'll see. They'll all see."
He locked the vault and looked up at himself.
"ALL RIGHT! WHO DID THIS TO MY HAIR?" he boomed down the hall. Spotsy, Shibes, and Vince all exchanged an embarrassed glance.
"Here we go again," they chorused.
The End
Author's Notes: Okay, there were a lot of songs in this story. Please don't sue me: Rodgers & Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Ashman/Menken, Maria McKee, Madonna, Johnny Rivers, Leann Rimes, Michael Bolton, Tori Amos, The Beatles, Jill Sobule, Madonna, ZZ Top, Will Smith, Gloria Gaynor, Divinyls, whoever did "Chess", Elvis, or the Beatles.
Thanks go to Nancy, Rachel, and Jaime for previewing the goods, the International Lyrics Server for being kickass, and to the faithful songfic writers who ignore the snarky threads, the poisonous parodies and realize that "with a song in your heart" you can go far.