Title: The Brown Cardboard Box
Author: Dru
E-mail: http/bloodstains. Gen/Het
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Langly decides to help Rebecca move in to her new apartment. Langly/OC
Disclaimers: However much I may wish, I do not own our favorite conspiracy theorists, nor do I own the city of Washington D.C., not that I would really want to. Still, the only things in this story that I do own are Rebecca Morris and the plot. This is part three in the 'Objects out of Place' series.
A/N: Just in case anyone was wondering this takes place around the time of All About Yves, just pretend that never happened ok?
Entr'acte Sprite: You are quite intuitive aren't you? Yes, I am a Phan, how smart of you to deduce as much from my story. Here is your update, I apologize for it being so delayed, I was having major writer's block and could only write a few sentences at a time. Thank you for the review.
"We're all going to die," the distraught passenger declared while holding onto his seat as if it were his only life line.
"Get a grip, it's only some turbulence," Rebecca Morris muttered, as the plane jostled around slightly but not enough to cause real alarm, in most people anyway. "It happens all the time," she was becoming quite annoyed at the man sitting next to her. He had been proclaiming their imminent demise since the plane had taken off.
"And I suppose you've flied many times before as to know that," he said, the plane's movement calming down until they were flying normally again.
"No I've never flown before, but I do know that the chances are very low that turbulence alone can bring down a plane," she went back to reading the newest Mary Higgins Clark novel.
"You'd be surprised at what can bring a plane down, lady," as he returned to reading his newspaper, glancing out the window every so often.
She resolved herself to ignore him, she was becoming very sick of his warnings and smart remarks. Although she was a bit afraid of heights, she wasn't nearly so paranoid as to panic whenever their plane trembled just a slight bit. His constant fidgeting was getting on her nerves as well. He was so alert, it was as if he had expected the plane to fall from the sky at any moment. And that if it did he would be able to, through some action of his, be able to save himself.
"Take a nap if flying makes you so nervous," she suggested, casting a sideways glance towards his fidgeting hands.
"Oh, no I couldn't possibly sleep. Not in these conditions," he glanced around skittishly.
"Stop being so paranoid," she laughed a little to herself, thinking about just how paranoid the men who she was about to work for were.
"What's so funny? I really don't think that our dire predicament is all that funny." he grabbed a little balloon filled with sand, a stress ball, and began to squeeze it.
"Nothing is really all that funny. And I really do not believe that our situation is dire. We're not in any real danger," she continued to read her book. She was near the end and she was, as she always did with her Mary Higgins Clark books, trying to figure out who the killer was before it was revealed. Currently she had picked the person who could no way be the killer, usually that was who it was.
"We're not in any real danger? Are you nuts? We're thousands of feet into the air and flying in a tin can that could come crashing down on us any second," he still had a death grip on his stress ball.
"Lots of people fly every single day,"
"Yeah, well lots of people die every single day too," She sighed and prepared herself for what was going to be a long flight.
"Attention Passengers, we will be landing at Airport shortly. Please buckle your seatbelts and prepare for landing," the message was repeated in Spanish and then the 'Please Fasten Your Seat Belts' light came on in a muted orange color. She blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes, having just woken from a rather long nap.
"Thank goodness that's over," the pessimistic man sitting next to her proclaimed, giving a sigh of relief. He had no need to buckle his seatbelt because he had never taken it off.
"For once this flight you and I agree on something," unlike him she had taken off her seatbelt to be more comfortable during the flight and had to rescuer it. She hadn't finished her book before she had decided to go to sleep and it took a few minutes of digging around and under her seat to find it. By the time she had, half of it's pages were creased and bent and it's cover had little droplets of orange juice on it, probably from the children sitting in the seat behind her she surmised.
"Isn't it good to see things from my point of view?" he began to gather some of his stuff lying about too, as the plane made it's descent.
"Your point of view would drive me crazy. Is there ever a time you don't think you are going to die?" for what seemed like the hundredth time this flight she immersed herself back into what was becoming her favorite Clark novel to date.
"No, because there's always a time when I could," he reached into the aisle to grab his stress ball that had rolled by the seat behind him. "Um, excuse me sir," he tapped on the seat rest in front of him. "Could you possibly grab my stress ball?" he asked. "It's right there by your foot" he pointed to the small blue balloon resting near the man's dress shoe.
"Sure," he picked it up and threw it at the man's head, where it bounced off the bald spot on the top of his head and landed in the lap of the child sitting in the seat behind him.
"Here yaw go mister," the little boy handed him the ball, which now had a hole in it and was leaking sand all over the Rebecca's seat.
"Thank you," he said, sheepishly as he tried to brush the sand off of her stuff.
"Leave it, it's fine," she glanced over him out the window to see the ground becoming closer and closer. "Besides we'll be landing soon," and then I'll get off of this crazy plane and back to sane people she added silently, although she highly doubted that the Lone Gunmen could be considered sane.
"Okay," he stared out the window watching as the ground rose up to meet them.
Soon the plane had landed on the runway and had pulled up to the terminal. All of the passengers hurried off of the plane, as though they had some important meeting that couldn't be missed. Rebecca only hurried because she couldn't stand to be on that plane any more. She knew that another hour or so listening to mutterings of "we're all going to die" would surely make her question her sanity.
"I still can't believe she worked for the L.A. Times," Langly muttered.
"You're just mad that you were wrong," Frohike grumbled, thoroughly tired of his friend's complaining.
"It's just she doesn't seem the type. To be working for something to evil," he stated, glancing at the screen mounted on the wall near the ticket booth. It said that the flight was on time, at least they wouldn't be waiting in this infernal airport for long.
"I would hardly call the L.A. Times evil," Byers commented, glancing at his watch for a second.
"Well, the government runs it," he sat down with a plop on one of the cushioned chairs lining the walls.
"Whatever, just shut up Langly," the oldest gunman replied, growing more and more annoyed with Langly by the moment.
"Hey look!" Jimmy proclaimed, pointing out the window.
"What is it? Another blinking light?" Frohike, as always, was quick to dismiss Jimmy.
"No, the plane landed," he said, slightly hurt.
"Finally," Langly jumped off of the seat and walked over closer to where the passengers would be exiting the plane.
"You're quite enthusiastic," Frohike noted, walking over to stand beside his friend. "Does that have anything to do with a certain lady who happens to be on that plane," he pointed to the gate where the passengers were already departing the plane.
"Shut up Dohike,"
"Ohh, so we're resorting to an insult you haven't used in years? Man you must really like her,"
Walking down the airport terminal, Rebecca felt much better after finally getting away from that annoying paranoid man she was forced to endure for hour upon hour. She looked forward to going to her apartment and taking a nice long nap. Of course, she knew that she would have to assemble her bed before she could sleep in it. That only put a slight damper on her plans though.
As she entered the airport she noticed the four of them standing on the side, near a row of seats lining a huge window. Langly seemed angry, his face was bright red. He was arguing with Frohike and neither them nor Jimmy and Byers noticed her. She walked right up behind where Frohike and Langly were arguing.
"'ello," she said, laughing when she saw them jump in surprise.
"What'd you do that for?" Langly asked, slightly embarrassed for reacting the way he did.
"Do what?" she replied, innocently.
"Scare us like that,"
"Us?" Frohike snickered. "I wasn't scared,"
"Shut up Dohike," he snarled.
"Two times in one day? Man you have it bad,"
"Thanks for dropping me off," Rebecca said, slinging her carry-on bag over her shoulder and hopping out of the van. They were parked in the side lot of her new apartment complex. 'Charleston Place' was the name of the nearly ancient building. It wasn't falling apart, it was just being overtaken by some type of ivy or other type of vine. It looked charming, much better than her old modern chrome and glass building. Just another symbol of her changing life.
"No problem," Langly said casually, his forearm on the back of the front seat. He had turned around to face her, sitting in the back with Jimmy. "Hey if you need any help unpacking-"
"You have to finish your article Langly," Byers reminded him.
"Byers, it can wait a day," Langly protested.
"And I could use the help," she added.
"Fine, but you have to finish it when you get back," he insisted.
"Sure, whatever," he jumped out of the van and pulled open the side door for Rebecca.
"Thanks," she smiled as she stepped out of the van.
After climbing six flights of stairs, for the elevator was not working and walking down no less than four separate corridors they had arrived at apartment number 632: Rebecca's new apartment. Langly was standing beside her, weary from climbing all of those stairs.
"You do have a phone, right?" he asked, as they stepped inside the dark apartment.
"Yeah, it should be hooked up," she ran her hand over the areas of wall near the door trying to find a light switch.
"Here it is," she heard Langly's voice coming from the kitchen, and a moment later light flooded the apartment.
"Why the hell is the light switch in the kitchen? And why does it turn every light in the apartment on?" she asked, setting her carry-on bag on the floor near one of the enormous piles of boxes scattered near the door.
"I don't know," he replied, coming out of the kitchen and wandering around the apartment. "This is a nice place, despite the screwed up wiring,"
"Thanks," she smiled, and walked over to the nearest box. "Let's start with this one,"
"Sure," Langly walked over to where she was standing.
Rebecca pulled and exacto-knife from her bag and plunged it into the tape covered crack where the two flaps of the box met. Slowly, she slid it across the box until it opened. "What the?" she asked as she looked inside.
"What?" Langly asked, peering over her shoulder and leaning a little closer to her than he really had to, his chest was nearly pressed up against her back.
"This is not my stuff," she pushed stuff around in the box, trying to see if anything that belonged to her was in there.
"You sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," she pulled out a orange and black striped man's shirt. "I'm definitely sure,"
"Wow, that sucks," he backed away and looked at the other boxes. "Maybe that box just got mixed in with your stuff," he suggested.
However, that was not the case. After opening and going through every single last box, they had yet to find a single possession belonging to Rebecca Morris. Maybe this was a symbol of things to come, solemnly thought Rebecca, she desperately hoped not though.
"At least your phone is hooked up," Langly offered, trying to be helpful.
"That's not my phone," she countered, walking over to the foreign phone. She did wish it was hers though, it was much better than the piece of crap white thing she had. "Hey, do you know the number of any nearby pizza places, I'm starving,"
"Pizza Hut is 555-6748," he recited off of the top of his head.
"Pizza Hut it is,"
Around thirty minutes later, the Pizza delivery man had just about as much difficulty finding the elusive apartment as them when they first came in, Rebecca and Langly were sitting down on the hardwood floor of her apartment with one large pepperoni pizza and two Cokes.
"I love-" here he took a bite "pizza,"
"Me too, but I know I really shouldn't eat it so often. I need to venture out into the world of real food," she said, as she gulped down some coke.
"Why eat real food? This stuff tastes just like cardboard," he took another bite of his pizza, and washed it down with some coke.
"I think the more common word would be chicken," she replied, reaching for a napkin.
"True, if this actually tastes like chicken. Which it doesn't," he leaned back against the kitchen wall. "I can't wait to see what your apartment looks like with your stuff in it,"
"I will yell at that moving company. And demand my money back," she moved so she was sitting next to him. "I wonder how often they screw up like this,"
"I don't know. Maybe your just unlucky enough to be the first major screw up," he grabbed another slice of pizza.
"I'm cursed aren't I?" she asked, smiling.
"Maybe, it could be an X-file," replied Langly as he devoured another piece of the pizza.
"A what?" she asked, confused.
"It's not important," he reached for another piece.
"Are you going to eat the whole pizza?" he had eaten over half of it already, and not many pieces were remaining.
"Yes, you going to stop me?" he reached to take the last two slices.
"Yes, I am," she grabbed his wrists and forced them away from the pizza box. "You weakling,"
"Weakling?" he tried to fight her and grab the remaining two slices of pizza. He was only able to get about a foot away from the box.
"Yes, weakling," she forced his wrists up and he fell onto his back, sending Rebecca sprawling onto his stomach. She was on top of him, pinning his hands above his head, her jet black hair falling into his face. "No more pizza for you," she said, smirking and kissed him gently on the cheek.
He stammered for a moment, trying to say something that Rebecca couldn't quite figure out before he just fell silent, and she got off of him.
She was still smirking.
THE END
