~12~ LISTEN ZARA ~12~
Under typically lowering English skies a heavy downpour began,
forcing Mulder to catch a bus home. He ran down the street from the
stop, cursing under his breath as he struggled to get the key in the
front door lock. Benny was a gods-be-damned awful landlord, but he
was also a cheap landlord, which meant Mulder's final year at Oxford
wasn't one where he also had to work part-time.
Stepping inside, he shed his dripping jacket and hung it on the coat
rack. He sniffed hopefully. Nothing apart from the usual lingering
odor of spice from the incense sticks Neal was constantly burning.
Which meant he was going to have to cook his own dinner because
Neal was out. And Neal was an amazing cook. Probably because he
was studying Chemistry as well as Physics.
He turned and watched Gary Sykes exit the living room, shrugging
into a navy shirt, his bright blonde hair practically glowing in the
unlit hallway.
"Gazza? Make us a cuppa?"
And don't forget the biscuits, Mulder wanted to add, because it was
almost 5 o'clock and Phoebe always had Bourbons or McVitties
chocolate digestives with her late afternoon tea. Or toast, if she was
really hungry. Cheese toast with a smear of brown sauce. Sometimes,
when she felt like she was 'slumming it', she would make him get a
macaroni pie or a sausage roll, hot from the chippie.
But he was the only one who knew that.
Right?
"I want beans on my toast, too!"
Mulder ghosted by the living room, his one brief glance inside searing
the image of her reclining on the sofa, a white sheet slipping off of her
perfectly pale shoulders.
"Hey, who ate all the fucking Tunnocks?" Sykes muttered, turning
away from the cabinet as Mulder rounded the kitchen table. "Fuck - "
Mulder grabbed Sykes' shoulder and almost landed his first blow,
which would have been a solid punch to the chin if momentum hadn't
kept the other man turning away. Unfortunately his follow through
was shit, and unable to stop his own forward drive, he found himself
facing away from Sykes instead.
Which gave Sykes the advantage, and he took it, grasping Mulder's
shoulders and smashing him against the kitchen table. Rage had
Mulder shoving the table away, unmindful of cups and saucers
shattering on the ancient brick-brown linoleum. He spun back,
catching the tail of Sykes' shirt and pulling him back. He wrapped one
arm around Sykes' neck and squeezed, trying to catch hold of the other
man's flailing arms at the same time. Sykes managed to pluck off
Mulder's grasp and spun away, whipping Mulder into the stove.
"Stop! Stop it!" Phoebe cried from the vicinity of the doorway.
Mulder paid her no attention, having narrowly missed burning his
face on the solid electric plate heating up the teapot. Twisting to one
side he sucked in a scream as he rolled on bruises from his fight with
Dennis Keogh. Distracted by the pain, he failed to move out of the way
of Sykes' fist a couple of times and after the bright white flashes
stopped, he ended up on the floor, not sure of how he had gotten there
or why.
He squinted up at all four of Sykes and Phoebe. They were looking
down at him and while he understood she shouldn't be leaning
against Sykes like that, the reason quite escaped him. But it was
wrong.
Sykes was grinning, jostling Phoebe as he jittered up and down on his
toes. Mulder wished he would stop moving, it was making him ill. As
the multiples began to coalesce into singles, he slowly clambered to
his feet, taking a moment to retch helplessly from the nausea. The
kettle on the stove began its shrill whistle, too late to warn Mulder
that the stove was on. Groggy and listing to the right, he gave his
unpleasant housemate and soon to be ex-girlfriend a wide berth,
heading into the blessedly dark hallway.
It was a struggle to put on his soaked jacket, and the headache he
hadn't known he had was pounding in full force after he picked up his
bag of dirty laundry. He caught movement from the corner of his eye
and jerked sideways, putting his back to the wall in case Sykes was
trying to get in another lick. But no, it was just Phoebe. Phoebe, still
wrapped in her white sheet. He could see the outline of her body
through it from the kitchen light.
"Fox, I'm so sorry," she said, her voice tight with excitement. With
malice. "Fox, I never meant for any of this to happen - "
"You never do," he said, wanting to turn his back on her, too wary to
do so. He turned just enough to see her outstretched hands, but her
face, no, he never wanted to look at her face again.
"Fox, what can I do to make it up to you?"
"Mulder," he mumbled around his sore jaw. "Just...call me Mulder."
Your favorite trick was to suck me inside
-Gary Numan - Everyday I Die
~fin~
THE BIG LIST OF NOTES:
This entire story came about from three things: CC said that Mulder
was recruited out of college, plus two scenes I couldn't get out of my
head; the scene of Mulder with Tosh at Seagate Prison, and the
opening scene with Phoebe. I always wondered under what
circumstances Mulder was recruited - I have a CIA recruitment
pamphlet from my freshman year in college, and I just can't see
Mulder reading one for the FBI and thinking Yeah, now's my chance to
find Samantha!
I also really wanted to capture Mulder in transition, between being a
distressed teenager to the experienced profiler, because how do you
learn to be like that? What must investigating your first case be like?
How do you handle corpses, lives taken, the possibility of your own
life being taken?
As you can see I'm a bit obsessed with the actual process of profiling.
TV always makes it look like magic, but in reality (from what I have
read and experienced in my own life) it's a combination of statistics,
soft science, psychology, hard fact (forensic pathology), the passing on of
experience, and finally, and perhaps most importantly, gut instinct.
All of these combined create people like Mulder, and Clarice Starling,
and Sarah Lund (Forbrydelsen/The Killing - original Danish version
only, please), as well as real life profilers such as Gregg O. McCrary,
Roy Hazlewood, and John Douglas. The toll of this work is terrible,
because you can't look at torture, cruelty, and suffering without it
affecting you personally. It's a side of the job that we as viewers rarely
see, but read any of the books by profilers and it the cost becomes
clear. Hmm, maybe that's a story for the future...
/gets off soapbox
I'm guessing CC thought Mulder going to Oxford would be 'cool', but
clearly he never looked at the logistics. This is Mulder's third year at
Oxford, in the (PhD) program.
I'm basing a lot of Mulder's experiences of living in a familiar but
foreign country on my own experiences of the same. Of course, I spent
10 years in Scotland, not England, so there are some huge cultural
differences. Hopefully I haven't made them blindingly obvious to my
British readers.
The full link of recommended books I've read for policing, profiling,
and forensic pathology can be found in chapt 12 of Lager Lovelies
if you search for xfdryad on livejournal. Active links for the TV shows
can also be found there.
All details of UK law enforcement are taken from Home Office and
National Appropriate Adult Network (NAAN)(!) websites. All wrong
interpretation is, of course, my own.
Everything I know about Oxbridge comes from the teevee, youtube,
and the uni websites. Certain Home Office procedures were blatantly
ignored in the light of Plot, or what passes for it.
Sloane Rangers - a fashion style of the young, upper class set in the
late 70's early 80's. Think pearls and houndstooth, big hair, Princess
Diana, fox 'hunting'. So-called after London's Sloane Street and Sloane
Square.
Lager Lovelies - Scottish brand Tennants had half nekkid women
printed on their cans in the 70's and early 80's. They were known as
lager lovelies
DC/Acting DS Tosh Lines - from the now sadly canceled 'The Bill'.
Damn you, ITV. I've made him bitchier than he is on the show. Tosh
was originally based at Sun Hill Police Station.
DC Ronnie Brooks - from Law & Order:UK. ITV's Bill replacement.
Yay! 'Tis awesome. Bradley Walsh *is* the UK Lennie Briscoe. Brooks
is wearing the camel trench coat. L&O:UK also has the best theme
music.
PC Barbara Havers - from Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley novels.
As much as I love Sharon Small in the tv series, physically Kathy
Burke is my true Havers.
Chinky - I know! I about fell out of my chair when I heard my BIL use
'chinky', meaning a Chinese meal. This might be only Scottish slang.
Pandas - nickname of police cars in England in the 80's. So called due
to their striped paint jobs, I believe.
Borstal - I've been told these reformatory schools/juvenile halls no
longer exist in England, but they still do in Scotland.
Shrewsbury College - The fictional Oxford college Harriet Vane
attended in Dorothy Sayers' 'Gaudy Night'. If you haven't read these,
you should! Also, by Mulder's time Shrewsbury is no longer strictly a
women's college.
'Inside the Mind of BTK: the True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt
for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer' - John Douglas and Johnny
Dodd. Wiley. 2007 - one of the more fascinating glimpses into the
ordinary life a truly horrible man. Not an easy read, but worth your
time if you want to see what a long term investigation looks and feels
like.
'Profilers: Leading Investigators Take You Inside the Criminal Mind' -
John H. Campbell and Don DeNevi. Prometheus, 2004 - consists
primarily of articles for the FBI and other Law Enforcement agencies.
'Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation' - Roy Hazlewood and Ann
Burgess, 3rd ed, CRC Press, 2001.
'Jigsaw Man' - Dr Paul Britton. Corgi [UK] 1998 - the autobiography of
Britain's pre-eminent profiler.
'Mapping Murder' - Dr. David Canter. Virgin [UK], 2005 - Dr Canter
believes that American-style profiling is ridiculous and that
the best way to catch spree, mass, and multiple murderers is to map
the location of the bodies found (probably works best in small
countries).
'What Cops Know: Today's Police Tell the Inside Story of Their Work
on America's Streets' - Connie Fletcher. Simon & Schuster. 1991. - Not
for the faint of heart.
'The Psychopath Test' - Jon Ronson. 2012. An amusing and personal
look into psychopathy, extremely readable.
'Serial Killers and Their Victims (5th Edition)' - Eric. W. Hickey.
Cengage. 2010 Utterly brilliant book, a fine overview of the field, but
perhaps not the first book one should read on the subject.
'Investigative Interviewing: Psychology and Practice' - Rebecca Milne
and Ray Bull. Wiley. 1998. Particularly "Chapter 7: Interviewing
Vulnerable People". While this book does not focus exclusively on UK
technique, it's best used in stories pertaining to
England/Wales/Northern Ireland.
If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading! :D
