From: "hawthorne" Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 13:10:21 -0500 Subject: new: The Gunmen Classifieds (1 of 2) by Hawthorne Kessler Source: direct Title: The Gunmen Classifieds (1 of 2) Author: Hawthorne Kessler Rating: PG-13 Category: S,H,A, a bit of UST Archive: Any and all are welcome to archive-- please let me know, as I'd like to visit. Feedback: I thrive mentally, spiritually and physically on feedback-- hawthorne@usinternet.com Disclaimer: The plot is mine, the characters are not. Author's Notes: Based on the feedback I've received in the past, it is glaringly obvious that a lot of people dig on the Gunmen as much as I do... This is a continuation of the Gunmen universe found previously in "The Gunmen Gossip Page" and "The Gunmen Personals", but is a stand-alone story. Summary: An X-File drought and Mulder's subsequent depression inspire the ever well-meaning Gunmen to provide a flood. X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X The Gunmen Classifieds (1 of 2) X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X Hawthorne Kessler The Lone Gunman Office Saturday, 1:30am "He's mopey." "Nah, man, it's more than that. He's on the edge. You could see it in his eyes, you know? In his eyes!" "Langley's right," Frohike agreed as he flipped open another back issue of "Celebrity Skin" Mulder had so graciously bestowed upon him. "He's bored out of his mind. I mean, the guy stayed here for eight hours, and at no time was a gun pressed to the back of his head, and-- holy cow, look at the carriage on this fine filly! -- you know he's desperate when he puts up with you two knuckleheads for more than twenty minutes." Byers cleared his throat, got up from his chair and began to pace. "Yes, I suppose it is more than just mopey. We've seen him before when he's had downtime at work, but it's never been this bad before." "It's obvious he's in bad shape when he starts giving away these babies," Frohike said as he held open the magazine to show his friends pages 38-39b. "How long has it been?" Langly asked as he reached out to grab one of the magazines. Frohike slapped the thieving hand away and answered, "Three weeks." Langly rubbed his abused hand with a grimace of annoyance. "How's Scully taking it?" "I hear she and Mulder actually spent an entire day cleaning out his apartment, which accounts for my new library." He gestered to the two-foot high pile with a happy grin. "Hey, those aren't just for you, you know! You've gotta share!" "Oh, please, you have no idea what to do with these babies. You'd probably just *read* them, for cripe's sake!" "We should do something," Byers announced before an argument over the potential usage of pornographic magazines could erupt. Frohike looked disinterested. "Like what?" "Well, it's been three weeks without any new cases. So either it's been a slow month for conspiracies and paranormal activity, which is astronomically unlikely, or the cases just aren't being given the proper amount of attention, and hence Mulder isn't given the opportunity to investigate." "So what do you suggest?" Langly asked with a pout. Byers paced for a moment or two, chewing on the inside of his lower lip. "Well, given the likelihood of the latter scenario, I suggest we find a way to get the information to Mulder so he and Scully *can* investigate." "How do we do that, 'O Intuitive One'?" Byers stopped in his tracks, his eyes going wide, a smile blooming on his lips. He became a man glowing with 25% inspiration and 75% perspiration coupled with anxiety. Frohike gathered his "Celebrity Skin" close into his chest, frightened by the look of foreign intensity and passion on his friend's face. "What?" he asked tremulously. Byers answered, "We find him some X-Files. Fire up the press, guys... we're going to place an ad." X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X* J. Edgar Hoover Building The Following Thursday 9:00am Mulder's body sluggishly trudged down the stairs to the basement, his eyes glazed and dull. Coming to work these days sucked. He supposed he could take some vacation time, but he'd end up doing the same thing he was doing now minus the futile, ridiculous rush of desperate hope he got when he walked into the office and prayed something had miraculously appeared for them to do, and when nothing had, his heart would shrivel up, turn to dust, all his other internal organs following suit. As horrible as that feeling was, at least it was a feeling. Without it, he'd sit in his apartment monotonously pounding a hole into his floor with his basketball and overfeeding his of late already overfed fish. At least here he had Scully to keep him company. Due to the acute lack of cases, they were now filling their days with horribly mundane paperwork, and when even that ran out, they'd play games or take ridiculouly long lunches. Hangman had been a favorite until he'd won thirteen games in a row using X rated words. It had been fun getting Scully flustered. As her face turned red from such words as "ejaculate", "cunnilingus", "fellatio", and "clitoris", he could be pretend for a time that his life was fun. He figured she got sick of being embarrassed because she put an end to the game and said she wouldn't play with him any more unless he grew up. They had cleaned the office to within an inch of its life. They'd cleaned his apartment, something Scully said she had been itching to do for years. They even tried to clean her apartment, but there wasn't much to do, and she wouldn't let him near her underwear drawer, which dashed his hopes, so they ended up watching videos all day (not his, which crushed his dashed hopes). At first the downtime had been relaxing. Now, after nearly a month of being cooped up in the office, and no cases with which to become obsessed, he was slowly going mad. He arrived at his office and opened the door with a mournful sigh. "No, Mulder, don't!" Scully cried out. He felt resistance in the door and heard a loud thud. "Scully?" he shouted. "Are you okay? What the hell!" "Mulder, help!" He shoved harder and managed to get the door open enough for him to squeeze through. With wide eyes he took in the huge cloth bags piled high on every spare foot of floor space. "Scully?" he called in confused shock. Her hand poked up between two bags. "I'm here!" As he manuevered bags out of his way he said, "How the hell did you get down there?" Her voice was muffled as she explained, "I was here when they began unloading, and they just kept coming, and finally I was trapped, and I was trying make some space when you opened the door and the whole thing came down on me." He grabbed her wildly flailing hand and hoisted her disheveled form out from under the mess. There was no where to put her down, so he held her in his arms. "What the hell is this?" he asked again. "Mail," she answered. He grinned. "If I had known getting some letters would allow me to hold you like this, I would have kept in contact with the French pen pal I was forced to corrospond with back in the sixth grade." She huffed and rolled her eyes. "The answer is over there," she said, pointing to the paper sitting atop the thankfully uncovered desk top. He hitched her up in his arms and got a better grip as he carried her over and around the many mailbags. When they arrived at the desk, she reached down and picked up the newspaper, opening it to page four. "Scully, that's an issue of "The Lone Gunman". Why do I suddenly have an icky feeling in my gut?" "It gets better, believe me. Listen to this: Wanted-- Cases of substantiated governmental conspiracy and/or paranormal activity, including, but not limited to: covert military operations within U.S. boarders, secret testing sights, alien sightings (at least two sober witnesses required), unexplained lights, before unknown creatures terrorizing neighborhoods and/or countrysides, etc. Residents of U.F.O.-infested trailer parks need not respond. Write X-Files Division, F.B.I. Headquarters." She paused. "Matt and Gerald in the mailroom officially hate us, by the way." She tossed the paper down and looked at her partner. "Those magnificent bastards!" Mulder shouted. Scully let her head fall with a painful thunk against his shoulder and groaned. X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X* to be continued... X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X* hawthorne@usinternet.com X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X The Gunmen Classifieds (2 of 2) X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X Hawthorne Kessler disclaimer, etc in part one X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X The X-Files Office Thursday, 11:38pm After much discussion, a tentative filing system was organized: U.F.O. sightings, alien abductions, cases of phone tapping/bugs/video surveillance, international terrorism, mysterious animals/beasts, telekinesis/psychic ability and miscellaneous. They had cleared out a spot around the desk and emptied the first bag onto the floor. There weren't only letters, but thousands of pictures, which Mulder dutifully paper clipped to the letter with which it came. Scully likened Mulder to a kid who just received the greatest gift in the universe and was told he didn't have to share. Mulder considered the gift equal to having Scully rip off her clothes and whisper in an incredibly sexy voice, "Mulder, I'm sick of being partners... Let's get nasty..." because having work to do was almost that wonderful. "Mulder... Mulder?... Mulder!" "Hm? What!" She waved the letter in his face. "Telepathic canine?" He gestered to the animal/beast pile. "Are you sure? Telepathic ability?" "Don't make it harder than it is, Scully." She plopped the letter down in the correct pile with a sigh, then paused. "Mulder? Why are so many of the letters sitting sideways in the stacks?" "Those are the ones I already know about." Her mouth dropped open and she grabbed one letter. "You already knew about the plot for common household flies to elect a supreme leader and take over the world?" "Don't be silly, Scully." "Thank God." "It was only one country. Greenland, I think." She fell back onto a half-empty mailbag and groaned. "Who knew there were so many crazy people out there?" She waited for an answer and when she didn't get one, she sat back up. "Mulder? Please don't tell me you're taking these seriously." "What do you mean? Of course I do." "Mulder, if all these were true, they'd be common knowledge, they'd be headlining the six o'clock news!" "Haven't you been reading? The news is in on the plot to conceal the existence of extraterrestrials!" "Oh, jesus, Mulder." She got up and stretched her cramped body. "It's late, I'm going home. I think you should go home, too." "Yeah, yeah, I'll go in a bit. I just want to finish this bag first." She put on her jacket and slid two bags out of the way so she could open the door. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" "Yeah, okay, tomorrow." "Goodnight, Mulder." With one last worried glance, she walked out the door. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Friday was spent doing much the same as the day before. Ten new bags were hauled in by the hostile Matt and Gerald of the mailroom. Scully gave them a sympathetic smile, which they sneered at. Mulder did not go home last night, she could tell. He tried to present a less rumpled facade this morning, but the stubble and circles under his albeit happy eyes, gave him away. The fact that the piles on the desk had gotten so high they had to be stacked on the floor was perhaps the most telling evidence. At five o'clock, Scully put her proverbial foot down. She snatched the picture of the alarmingly obese man standing next to a child covered with metallic green paint and wearing little tin foil antennae and said in a commanding voice, "Mulder, you are going home right now." "Ah, Scully--" "Don't 'ah' me, Mulder! I know you're in all your glory here, but if you don't eat, sleep and shower, you're not going to have a glory to be in. Do you hear me?" He sighed and grinned sheepishly. "Yes, I hear you, partner. I'll go home, I promise." She nodded. "Thank you. I want you to take the weekend off, okay? I'm going to call you in an hour, so you'd better be there. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I don't trust you." He chuckled. "I'll be there." She picked up her briefcase. "I'll see you Monday." He waved goodbye. When she cleared the door, he rolled his eyes. Yeah, he'd go home, but he'd be damned if he took the weekend off! He'd had enough downtime to last a lifetime. He gathered up a pile and carried it out to his car, then made several trips back and forth from the office, taking with him as many bags as his car would hold. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Sunday, 6:38pm There was a knock on her door, so she muted the television and got up from her sofa to answer it. A glance out the peephole revealed three men, each holding a large box. She opened the door. "If those are more letters, I'm going to be seriously pissed," she said through clenched teeth. The Gunmen brushed past her and placed their boxes on her kitchen table. "We've got a problem," Frohike announced. She got serious very quickly. "What is it? Is it Mulder?" "Yeah. We're kind of worried." "Well, what is it? What's in those boxes?" Langly stepped aside. "Take a look." She stepped forward, reached into the first box and withdrew a videotape labeled 'Red Hot Pokers'. She put it back and grabbed another, this one labeled, 'Going Down on the River'. She dropped it with a frown. "These are pornographic videos, right?" Langly nodded. She glared at him. "Why did you bring me porno--" "No, no, it's not like that!" Frohike rushed to inform her. "They're Mulder's." "They're Mulder's." "Yeah." "Okay, so let me rephrase the question: Why the hell did you bring me *Mulder's* pornographic videos?" "He brought them to us." She sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. "Why?" The guys followed suit, each of them taking a seat. Byers cleared his throat uncomfortably. "You see, Agent Scully, when we placed the ad in our paper, we were just hoping for a few tips to give you some new cases. We could see Mulder was going crazy without any work to do, and we just wanted to help. Never did we imagine the response would be so... enthusiastic." "How many subscribers do you guys have, anyway?" Frohike dropped his head in embarrassment. "I know we come off as massive publishing giants, but the truth is we only have about one hundred actual subscribers. Of course we do have a lot of readers, because we put stacks of issues in the bus depot, and they go like hot cakes!" Langly nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, they love us down at the bus depot." Byers sighed. "I think what we have here is a case of 'tell a friend'." Scully echoed his sigh. "Who told a neighbor, who told a cousin, who told a goat." "That would appear to be the case." "But that doesn't explain why Mulder gave you his prized video collection." "And some more magazines," Langly said as he opened another box and pulled out an old issue of "Penthouse". "I thought we got rid of all those," she mused in quiet chagrin. "Anyway," Langly continued, "He called us this morning and said he was coming over, which he did two hours later, bearing these boxes. He said he didn't want any distractions, that he was finding answers. He said he wanted to thank us for giving him his work back, that we saved his life, and that he thought we were the coolest, smartest people he had ever met." "Which tipped us off, big time," Frohike inserted. "Because, you know, we *are*, but it just didn't jive coming from Mulder." "He looked terrible, Scully," Byers said forlornly. She closed her eyes. They all fell silent. "Thank you, guys, for placing that ad. I know you had Mulder's best interest in mind. And mine." "Yeah, well, we could see he was depressed." She patted Langly's hand. "I know. I'm gonna go talk to him." Frohike stood as she did. "Do you want us to go with you?" She smiled fondly. "Nah, he'd probably give you one of his kidneys to split three ways. I'll go alone." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX He didn't answer when she knocked, so she let herself in. It looked like a post office had thrown up: there were envelopes and sheets of paper everywhere. "Mulder?" she called warily. "Scully!" he answered in a raspy voice as his head popped up from between two mailbags sitting on either side of him on the sofa. "I have one hundred seventy-eight 302's I need Skinner to sign off on! Can you bring them to the office for me?" "Mulder, it's Sunday." "Well, can you messenger them to his house?" She crossed the room, stepping on paper the whole way. She arrived at the corner of the sofa, took one look at Mulder, and gasped. "What?" he asked innocently. "You... holy God, Mulder, when was the last time you slept?" "Sleep? Sleep! I've got 302's here, Scully!" She heaved one of the bags to the floor and sat down next to him. "Why are you doing this, Mulder?" "302's," he said weakly. "Why?" "I... I... It's work, Scully. It's the X-Files!" He reached out and grabbed two handfuls of letters. "These are X-Files, these are answers!" "To what?" "To... to... I don't know, everything!" "No, Mulder." "Yes!" "No!" She wrenched the papers from his hands, then swept the coffee table clean with her arm and sat down on the table, directly in front of him. "Mulder, listen to me, okay? I'm sure there are a lot of good cases in here, but these are not the answers to everything. You can't possibly investigate all of these claims. We get cases sent to us at the Bureau because they are unexplained and they have a modicum of credibility. And I know we haven't gotten any new cases lately, and I know it sucked, but these are making you insane! Do you hear what I'm telling you?" He nodded slowly. "This is too much, Mulder, for anybody. The truth is out there, Mulder, but it's not in here." She picked up a letter from the floor. "And it's especially not in Mrs. Iona Perkins from Harmony, Minnesota, who says her dog, Puggles, can communicate telepathically with squirrels and migrating geese." "That was one of my 302's," he muttered. He looked around himself and groaned. "Oh, God, what have I done?" "Judging by the volume of paper in here, I'd say you aided and abetted in the murder of about ten square miles of frorest." He laughed painfully and covered his eyes. "I was just so glad to be working," he said woefully. "I know." He sat back and looked at Scully. "Maybe I should clean up." "No, I think you should get some sleep." "You mean you'll clean up for me?" he asked hopefully. "No way." "Oh, well. Hey, Scully, can I at least keep the partially substantiated alien septuplets?" "I'll think about it... No." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Monday, 11:30am Frohike handed over the final box like he was handing over his first-born child, and Mulder put it in his backseat. "Thanks for giving 'em back, Fro. I don't know what the hell I was thinking." "You were thinking, but it was with the wrong body part. Next time, take a southerly route." "That's good advice," he agreed as he closed his back door. He looked at the three men standing around his car. "Thanks for all your help, guys." Byers and Langly exchanged proud smiles. Frohike slapped Mulder on the back. "No problemo. Hey, Mulder, do you remember what you said before, about us being the coolest, smartest guys you've ever known? Did you mean all three of us, or just me?" X*X*X*X* THE END X*X*X*X* Further Notes: I'm sorry for the delay in posting part two... I've been busy, and I was hit with a nasty case of writer's block... I hope you enjoyed this story. Write to me at hawthorne@usinternet.com