TITLE: Good Vibrations

AUTHOR: Kilroy M.

RATING: T. Adult language, but nothing horribly shocking. Some sexual tension, but nothing graphic. Allusions to drugs/alcohol, but nothing scandalous. I hear worse in school every day.

SPOILERS: Brief reference to "Darkness Falls" and "Detour," plus one line in Chapter 7 out of "Pilot," which probably doesn't even count as a spoiler anymore. (Does it make you depressed to think about how that episode is over 10 years old? It makes me depressed.)

KEYWORDS: MSR, UST.

CATEGORY: X-File; Mystery/Romance

SUMMARY: Another nice trip into the woods. Really.

DISCLAIMER: I don't get to make any money, so you don't get to sue for it. Those with further questions and/or objections should probably review the copyright laws, most specifically the parts referring to unlicensed use of copyrighted material for unprofitable humor- or entertainment-based purposes.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Since I never wrote back to any of the extremely kind and undoubtedly wonderful people who commented on my last series, and I feel guilty about it, I hereby dedicate Good Vibes to them. I hope they want it. Anyhow, I suppose this might as well be set in the fifth season, or thereabouts. It is less weird than Primal Fear, but only slightly. (Low angst levels!) If you want to tell me how you feel about that, go right ahead. :)

(Good Vibrations--Chapter One)

Bureaucratic Pathology, and other Unexplained Phenomena

DECEMBER, WASHINGTON D.C.

J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING -- ACCOUNTING OFFICES

A decrepit shoebox hit the desk with a heavy thud, musty dust particles trailing in the air behind it. The youngish intern who used the desk jolted back slightly in his seat, glancing up in surprise to see a smirking counterpart intern standing in front of it.

"What did you do that for?"

"Guess how old that one is," said the other intern, smirk turning into a scowl.

The first intern squinted at the graying cardboard of the shoebox. "Um . . . five?" he hazarded, half joking.

The other man let out an exasperated breath, rolling his eyes up to stare at the ceiling. "Six," he said clearly.

"Six!" the first yelped, jumping up out of his chair. "No freakin' way!"

"Way, man, way." The second shook his head in disgust and flipped open the shoebox's crumbling lid to display the yellowing slips of paper that stuffed the box full almost to bursting. "Will you just look at this baby. . . ."

The first intern leaned over his desk, eyes wide. "I cannot freaking believe this. Six years? Even for this place, that's obscene! That was -- what was that, two administrations ago!"

The second intern transferred his look of disgust to his partner. "Six months, dumbnuts."

"Oh." The first man subsided slightly. "But that's still way too long!" he rallied after a few seconds, feeling foolish.

"Well, yeah." The second one gave an indifferent shrug. "But -- I've heard rumors about this thing. It's the Moby Dick of expense claims, man. I've been searching, cleaning out the old boxes for a month and a half, and there she was at the bottom of the biggest, nastiest one – just looking up at me and smiling, I swear. I tell you, it was almost religious."

"I thought Moby Dick was a guy whale, not a girl whale."

"With metaphors, who the hell cares? With whales, who the hell cares?"

"Other whales?"

"Cut the crap." The second intern cleared his throat and crossed his arms. "The fact remains that now that this thing is unearthed, we need to go through the motions of reviewing it. Figure out what parts of it to pass on to our big bad boss and what parts to judiciously re-bury."

"That's not moral."

"Oh?" The second one pulled a receipt at random out of the shoebox and read it aloud: "A motel."

"What?"

"A motel."

"That's what I thought you said. I repeat: What?"

"A motel. That's what this joker thinks the FBI needs to pay for," the intern clarified.

The first intern gaped. "No. You mean a motel room. Or two."

"No, I mean an entire motel. . . . You see why we need to weed out the dangerous things before the boss sees them and blows an artery."

"Yes. Yes," said the first man nervously, and drew back slightly in his chair. "I think I see your point. Say, uh . . . who the filed this expense report, anyway?"

The second one glanced at the side of the box. "Says here, 'X-Files.' " The two interns glanced at each other. "That might explain something," he muttered, and carefully placed the receipt back in the box. A little too carefully--almost as if he expected it to bite him, or possibly to dissolve him from the hand up.

Even the Accounting interns -- read, "unpaid flunkies" -- heard stories. Mainly while eavesdropping in popular law-enforcement hangout bars, granted; but they still heard stories. And it would appear that the legend had just been confirmed, the Holy Grail been found. Except in this case it was more like the Arc of the Covenant, since the unlucky intern who first looked upon it was almost certainly doomed to an excruciating, horrible fate.

"Have fun," said the first intern brightly, picking up the papers he had been reviewing before the arrival of the overlarge shoebox.

It was the second man's turn to gape in incomprehension. "What?"

"I said: Have fun. As in, with that. Your job. Moby Dick. The she-whale."

"No. Don't do this to me, man, I really need your help." A note of panic crept into the second intern's voice.

"No freaking way," said the first intern flatly. "You found it. Hell, you were looking for it. That, to me, clearly demonstrates a want, or possibly need, to locate this travesty of an expense report. And that in turn implies that you were prepared to deal with the consequences of finding it. Like being the proverbial shot messenger when it comes time to hand our work over to the boss -- it's just an occupational hazard, so to speak."

The second man shook his head, disbelieving. "You've been hanging around those Prosecution interns during lunch hour again, haven't you? I can't believe that you'd desert me! If ever I needed your help -- hell, the times I've bailed you out-"

The first guy ran a hand through his hair. "Ummmm. . . ." He was not really a cruel person at heart, despite the time he spent hanging around in questionable company. He flicked a glance at the shoebox, which appeared to be glaring at him with a contained malevolence. Then at the doe eyes his co-worker was attempting to make. Sure, the sweet-and-innocent look was all a very obvious fake -- there was a reason some people entered accounting instead of acting -- but there was also a very real expression of apprehension behind it. That did it. The first intern's shoulders slumped. He surrendered. "Fine."

"Yes!" The second man punched a fist in the air. "I knew you'd come through!"

"Just let me finish this first," said the first intern even as he pushed his other papers aside. What did I just do? he asked himself. You just committed yourself to slogging through the most bizarre expense vouchers in history, that's what. Because you have no resistance whatsoever when it comes to people asking favors of you, even if they are horrible ones. And, possibly because of that, you're going to have to face your boss' almighty wrath even once you pare this mess down to something slightly more acceptable, he thought. Oh, well. It's better than having to watch this guy make pathetic faces at me for the next month.

"I don't know how all this could have happened," he muttered, poking in resignation at the box as his colleague pulled up a chair to his desk. Several yellowed scraps of paper fell out, all bearing outrageous financial figures. The first intern blanched.

"That's something we'll never know," the other replied. "And I, for one, am actually kind of glad for that."

Some people, needless to say, are not so lucky. . . .

AUTHOR'S ENDNOTES

And thus the story of How Mulder & Scully Stuffed a Shoebox Full of Weird Receipts commences.