TITLE: Merry Little Basement
AUTHOR: Kilroy-M
RATING: T for Teen. UST ahead.
CATEGORY: V for Vignette. You could say MSR, as well . . . just like with everything else X-Files related I've ever written. . . .
SUMMARY: Electronic surveillance devices. Rapidly approaching holidays. Mulder and Scully take it from there.
SPOILERS: Uh . . . no. Not really. I guess you should mentally shelve this one in one of those (rare) Christmases during which nothing horrible happens to Scully, which kind of narrows it down, but I don't believe there are any explicit timestamps in order for this. It would work best pre-Emily.
DISCLAIMERS: I was drugged! . . . No, actually, I wasn't, and even if I were, I doubt I'd hallucinate that the X-Files were mine. Sorry to disappoint.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I haven't had much time to write lately, what with being in college and all, but this popped into my head while I was wrestling with a recalcitrant Christmas tree. But whatever your faith or denomination, I hope you have a happy and peaceful holiday, winter, New Year, time with friends/family, whatever it is that you celebrate. :)
(Rustle)
(Scratch)
"Pass me that 404 form, please."
(Whoosh)
"Thank you. Thank you very much. Now I'll have to try and uncrinkle this so it doesn't look as if someone's made it into a paper airplane and shot it across the room at his partner. Not only has this made my evening, it's going to make A.D. Skinner's, too."
"Do I detect a hint of frustration in your voice, Scully?"
"No. It's almost Christmas. I don't have time for hints of frustration."
"More like a dash."
(Silence)
"Or a tablespoon."
(Silence)
"Or -- all right. Sorry. I give up. Want another 404?"
"No. That one's yours, Mulder, and you're not going to pass it off on me."
"Can't hurt to ask."
(Rustle)
(Rustle)
"Do you believe in Santa Claus?"
"Mulder."
"It's a valid question."
"No, it's not."
"Honest to God, Scully, I'm not just trying to provoke you. Do you now, or have you ever, believed in the mysterious, red-cloaked, chimney-shimmying entity commonly known as Santa Claus?"
"I'm fully aware that the phenomenon is based on the life of a factual saint."
"Did you believe in him? Ever?"
"Briefly, Mulder, I'll admit. Up until the point when I realized that Santa Claus had handwriting that looked an awful lot like my father's."
"So you don't anymore."
(Sigh) "No. No, I don't."
"Right. No adults do. And yet, year after year, parents not only lie to their children but also create a smokescreen of what seems to be physical evidence-"
"Mulder, are you asking me to debunk Santa Claus with you?"
"Ooh, close one! I was going to ask you why it is that you don't want to do that very thing."
"Well, let's see . . . relatively harmless, if somewhat overblown, child's game . . . millions of little happy faces . . . the fact that they grow out of believing it anyway. . . ."
"So you're saying you would willingly participate in a massive conspiracy."
"Now you're taking me out of context."
"Not really. You implied that you'd encourage children to believe a lie in order that they'd remain happy in the present moment. Promoting mass delusionality, Scully? Sounds like a conspiracy to me."
"Most children just grow out of the belief -- if they ever fully subscribed to it in the first place. I don't think that parents should go to great lengths to convince their children of the Santa Claus myth, or any lie, if the children show interest in knowing the truth; however, I don't think that believing in a benevolent higher power for a few years is going to scar a child for life."
"What about the moment of disillusionment? That's going to hurt any sentient being, from a child to an adult, with equal seriousness. What are the benefits of that, besides preparing a kid for a life of further disappointment?"
"I think you're overdramatizing this."
"I think you're a co-conspirator."
"What?"
"We all are. Every moment we're not picketing Mall Santa and demanding higher wages for elves, we're helping parents delude kids up until that final heartbreaking moment of-"
"Mulder?"
"Yes?"
"You're stalling, aren't you?"
"Yes."
(Sigh)
"Don't get the wrong idea here, Scully. I'm not opposed to doing this work, as such. I just find it impossible to keep my mind from wandering in the meantime."
"I believe that letting one's mind stray and letting one's work go undone are not mutually inclusive."
"Me, too. That's why I'm making great progress with my paperwork."
"What? You kept writing while you were grilling me on Jolly Saint Nick?"
"You didn't? You rebel you!"
"I can't believe this. You were trying to distract me, and now you have a head start. That's not really in the Christmas spirit."
"I'm not Christian. Say, Scully, do you have a Christmas tree?"
"I have a small fake one. I can re-use it and not have to worry about needles on the carpet, and look at me, I'm still doing my paperwork, and before you try to elucidate me on the sordid history of the Christmas tree, you should be fully appraised of the fact that you told me all of that last year, so I know it all already."
"No way. I told you the stuff about Saturnalia?"
"Yes. Also the stuff about the Germanic fertility symbols."
"Even the mistletoe?"
"Oh, especially the mistletoe."
"Is nothing sacred?"
"According to you, everything is. Or, at the very least, doused with quasi-Freudian symbology. . . . Oh, come on, Mulder, don't look so put out. I'm not disparaging your research, I'm just saying that I happen to enjoy putting up a Christmas tree regardless of it all. It's acquired different meanings since its ancient Pagan beginnings, after all, and it also reminds me of my childhood."
"Even the mistletoe?"
"Oh . . . especially the mistletoe."
"What?"
"Hm?"
9Pencil tapping on desk) "Never mind."
"Hm."
"Oh, come on, Scully, don't look so smug."
"Hm?"
"Don't 'hm' me, Agent Scully. There's plenty about my own debauched youth that you don't know, as a matter of fact."
"No doubt there is."
"What? Aren't you even curious?"
"If your next revelation begins with a word that rhymes with 'Phoebe' and ends with a word that rhymes with 'Green,' I don't want to hear it."
"Fine."
(Silence)
(Off-key humming)
(Cough)
(Off-key humming)
"Mulder-"
"Scully-"
"Debauched youth is one thing, but if you'd stop humming I could get my work done a lot faster."
"What? I was just about to tell you to quit humming."
(Off-key humming)
"All right. So I know it's not me, and you know it's not you, but you don't know it's not me and I don't know it's not you, so that leaves . . . Santa Claus."
"Mulder?"
"Yes, Rudolph?"
"Look busy."
"What?"
(Creak of opening door)
"Agents? How's it going in here?"
(Coughing fit)
"Just fine, sir."
(Coughing fit continues)
"Is something the matter with Agent Mulder?"
"No, sir. I think he'll be fine with a glass of water."
"Well, just let him know to avoid the water cooler upstairs unless he wants to run into a mistletoe-related injury."
"Thank you, sir."
"Well, I'll leave you to finish that paperwork. I need it on Kim's desk by five."
"Of course."
(Creak of door shutting)
(Off-key humming)
(Silence)
". . . Santa Claus, Mulder?"
"I've never lucidly imagined Skinner with a beard, I have to admit, but I think it could work. Except for his jolliness-challenged aspects. And the fact that I've never seen him in red."
"Not happening in this lifetime."
"So . . . about this paperwork . . . there's no chance of a helping hand, is there. . . ."
"So . . . about that mistletoe-related injury. . . ."
"What, you want to help me with that?"
"That's not what I said. I did not say that."
"Ooh, I think I want to take it out of context, Agent Scully."
"I think I'd like to be out of context right now. All of me. Preferably asleep in bed."
"Hm?"
"I've been exhausted for the past few days, and-"
"Hmmmm?"
"Oh, no. Don't you 'hm' me, Agent Mulder. Not when we both have leaning towers of paperwork that are due on Skinner's secretary's desk by five. I cannot afford to be led along another conversational wild-goose chase with you now, of all times."
"Can I at least turn on some mood music?"
"Are we talking 'Blue Christmas'?"
"Ah, you know me so well. Yes, we're talking 'Blue Christmas.' "
"Fine, as long as you don't keep hitting the 'repeat' button until it breaks like last year."
(Click)
(Elvis fills the air)
In a warehouse a number of blocks away, the Syndicate crony in charge of listening in on the Hoover Building surveillance devices groans and slumps down onto the table in front of him, headphones slipping off his head. This is going to be a really long night, thinks the miserable crony, wishing he had something to kill his headache. Well, it'll probably be fine if I take a five-minute break, right? I'm not going to miss anything but the King.
In the subsequent fifteen minutes, said crony misses twelve forms finished, eleven incidences of flagrant innuendo, ten exasperated sighs, nine paper airplanes, eight Trademark Scully Eyebrow Raises, seven witty comebacks, six tossed pencils, five references to little gray men, four references to journalistic paranoiacs as being 'The Lone Santa's Elves,' three "Blue Christmas" encores, two gratuitous Skinner references, and one completely accidental breach of the unspoken Bureau policy that says you shouldn't kiss your partner even if one of you happens to be wearing a tie-pin shaped suspiciously like a sprig of mistletoe. No, honestly, it really was an accident.
Somewhere over the Arctic, a jolly old man who bears very little resemblance to Assistant Director Walter S. Skinner winks and taps the side of his nose.