From: AIIThingsX1013@cs.com Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 19:20:01 EDT Subject: "One Kind of Challenge by Kasey Miller" Source: direct Title: One Kind of Challenge Author: Kasey Miller Email: aiithingsx1013@cs.com Category: VH Keywords: M/S UST Rating: R for language and suggested sexual situations Spoilers: None Summary: Challenge fiction at its best Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Basically if you recognize something or someone in here, it's not mine. But you probably figured that out already. Author's Notes: See the end for the challenge list MONDAY MORNING J EDGAR HOOVER FBI BUILDING WASHINGTON DC X-FILES OFFICE For once, Scully had beaten him to the office. This didn't happen very often, if at all. She was sitting in her chair, nose in a case file, calmly stirring something in a small Styrofoam bowl. "What's that?" Silence. "Scully, I asked you a question." More silence. He walked over to her and tapped her lightly on her shoulder. She jumped a mile and looked up at him, startled. "Jesus Christ, Mulder. You scared me." She pulled tiny earbud headphones out of her ears and hit the stop button on her Discman. "Sorry. I just wanted to know what you had there." "Cream of wheat." "Huh?" "Cream of wheat, Mulder. It's what's for breakfast." "That is some nasty shit, Scully. What are you listening to?" She blushed and mumbled something into a spoonful of cereal. "What's that again?" She was taking an awfully long time to chew a mouthful of food that really didn't need much mastication in the first place. "John Tesh." His mouth dropped open in shock. "John Tesh? You've got to be kidding me!" A grin crept across his face. She opened a drawer and stuck the cd player inside. "No, Mulder, I'm not kidding. I can actually think while I'm listening to his music instead of the screaming and yelling crap that you call music." He went to sit down at his desk and pulled out his cd organizer. "Screaming and yelling, Scully? You mean to tell me you didn't like that Clutch song I played for you the other day? Or Sum 41? Or the bodies on the floor song?" She smiled and shook her head. "It was ok, but not what I would call thinking music." He put his cds away and opened another drawer to look for a pencil. "What in the hell...?" She looked up with her spoon in her mouth. "Muller? she mumbled. "I can't believe you did this to me, Scully. You...you...switched all of my pencils." She swallowed and raised an eyebrow. "That's to ensure that we don't lose all of our pencils to the ceiling tiles. Plus, it's all they had in office services. I'm sorry." "But they're mechanical pencils. I...just don't know." "I'm sure you'll be all right, Captain Kirk. Did you see what else I got for you?" He scanned his desk for his new addition and spied it in the far left hand corner. "What is it, Scully?" "An electric stapler. Go ahead, try it out." He fumbled around for a stack of papers that needed stapled, and stuck it under the lip of the machine. Nothing happened. "It doesn't work, Scully. It's a dud." "Well, whatever you do, don't..." SMACK! "...smack it. It never helps." Nothing. Suddenly, the stapler kicked into gear and started stapling furiously. "Help, Scully! I can't get it to stop! I think it's possessed or something!" He wasn't able to pull the papers from the clutches of the demon stapler or turn it off, so he hooked the cord with his foot and yanked as hard as he could. Power cut, the stapler ceased its frantic motion and Mulder was able to extricate his papers. "Look what it did, Scully." She couldn't help snickering at his display of staples, resembling an intricate Celtic pattern carefully marking his papers. "I'll have you know that this was our expense report for the last case." She giggled even louder. "It's all your fault, you know." Not able to keep it in any longer, she burst into raucous laughter, punctuated by the shrill ring of the office phone. "I guess I'll get that." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Fifteen minutes later they were seated across from Assistant Director Skinner, listening to the details of their next case. "Xenia, Ohio. Several murders have occurred out in the farm areas surrounding the town. Murder weapon is a 'garden claw' through the chest. There are no witnesses, but family members have described a series of strange phone calls beginning on the day of the murders." Scully leaned forward in her chair. "How strange, Sir?" "Not your average heavy-breathing, Prince-Albert-in- a-can prank caller. A computerized message is relayed, then the line goes dead. When they dial *69 to see who was sending it, the number always comes up as their own, which meant the call was originating from..." "...somewhere inside the house, right? Sir, that's an urban legend. Hell, they based a beer commercial on it. You can't be serious." Mulder was giving Skinner an incredulous smile. "Agent Mulder, I am serious and I am not making this up. Whatever gave you an indication that I have any kind of imagination?" Scully lifted a hand to her mouth in an attempt to hide a smile while Mulder slouched in his chair and sighed noisily. This was going to be a long case. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX LATER THAT AFTERNOON XENIA OHIO PLOUDERBACK FARM "This is the farm of a Robert Plouderback Senior, owner of the aptly named Plouderback Plumbing. His son-in-law was found clawed to death in the living room where he had been watching Sunday football. He was alone at the time of attack, his family having been called away on an emergency at the last moment." They were walking through the yard of the Plouderback home as Mulder laid out some of the specifics of the case. As they headed toward the barn, they admired some of the more exotic animals that the Plouderbacks owned. "Wow, they have a camel. That's pretty nifty, Scully." She pointed off in the distance at an orange object streaking across the fields. "And there's a bengal tiger. I didn't know they could have these animals here." "It's private property and not inside the city limits so I think pretty much anything goes." It had been raining, so the ground on the way to the barn was growing slippery with mud. Mulder stepped and slid, nearly doing the splits. "SHIT!" He righted himself and looked down at his shoes. "Don't look now, Mulder, but it appears that you might have stepped in something other than mud." "I don't need to look, Scully, I can smell it. Probably a big pile of camel poop. Great. This is fucking wonderful." "Oh come on, let's look through the barn and you can probably wipe most of it off on some straw." They stepped into the darkness of the barn and fished their flashlights out. Beams of light filtering in from outside combined with their flashlights cast odd shadows against the wooden walls. Scully was investigating a horse stall when Mulder's phone went off. "Mulder, what in God's name is that?" "What do you mean? It's my phone." "It's the Imperial March from Star Wars, Mulder. How did you do that?" "The Gunmen. They've got a lot of new sounds. Lemme get this, OK?" "Think they'll give me a nice ring?" "Uh, yeah, I'm sure they will. Mulder." He listened to his phone for a moment, then quickly yanked it away from his ear and punched a few buttons. He stared in amazement at his cellular display. "Holy shit Scully, I think the murderer just called me. How, I don't know. When I checked my caller ID, it was showing my own cell phone number." "You have caller ID? Surely *my* phone has caller ID." "Scully, focus. You probably have caller ID but don't know how to access it. And stop calling me Shirley." She rolled her eyes, but pulled her gun and assumed a defensive stance. "Mulder, they're probably watching us." He also freed his weapon from his hip holster and headed for the back of the barn. He crept up the ladder leading to the loft as she covered the ground floor. A few minutes later she heard a loud thump and a shriek coming from the loft, and she scrambled up the ladder to assist. Mulder had a young man pinned to the floor, struggling to put handcuffs on his wrists. "What were you doing up here?" he screamed at the guy. "Nothing, dude. I ain't gotta talk to you." "You do and you will. Maybe not now, but you will." "Your momma." Mulder chuckled in spite of the situation. "My momma what?" The guy didn't respond. Mulder glanced up at Scully, her gun still drawn and pointed at the guy on the floor. He gave her a goofy grin and his eyes twinkled mischievously. She slowly lowered her weapon and holstered it, wondering what on earth Mulder was up to. "Hey, asshole, I asked you a question. You made a reference to my mother and I was wondering if you were going to finish that thought." Silence. "OK, how about we trade snaps? You up for it? OK, OK, I got one. Yo momma is so fat, when she sits around the house, she SITS AROUND THE HOUSE! How was that? Your turn." More silence. "You're right, that wasn't that good. How about this one? Yo momma is so stupid that she thought innuendoes were Italian suppositories. No, no, wait. Yo momma is so fat that when she wears a red shirt people follow her yelling, hey Kool-Aid man!" The handcuffed guy being pinned by Mulder's knees was not amused. Scully, however, was snorting in a most unladylike manner. "You're not playing along, *dude*. I'm disappointed. I figured you could show me a thing or two. Teach me a new snap. All right, I have one last one for you. Yo momma is sooooooooo fat, she can't even jump to a conclusion." For the second time that day, Scully erupted into uncontrollable laughter. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX THAT EVENING BEAVERCREEK OHIO RED ROOF INN Mulder pounded on the bathroom door in an attempt to expedite Scully's shower. "Scullaaay, hurry up! I am hella-hungry!" He heard a low buzzing noise over the sound of the water and put his ear to the door. "Hold on Mulder." Did she just gasp? "Mmmmmmmmmmmmohhhhhhhhh..." Did she just moan? Suddenly the shower turned off and he could hear her step out of the tub. He quickly ran over to the desk and propped open her laptop to make it look like he had not just listened to her through the bathroom door. He punched a few keys, cursing under his breath at the "x" key that was still stuck from the time he had spilled his soda all over the place. He made a mental note to have the Gunmen fix it and then concentrated on the solitaire game in front of him. Scully opened the door and walked over to her suitcase where she put her suit away. "Ready now, Mulder?" He jumped and closed the computer screen. "Yeah, I'm ready. Let me just um, check my hair." She gave him an odd look as he passed her on his way to the bathroom. He took a cursory glance at his hair in the mirror, then began a hasty search of her toiletries for the source of the buzzing noise he heard. All he could find was an electric toothbrush. He shrugged his shoulders and walked back out to the room. "I'm ready. Where do you want to eat?" "Well, there's a Greek place down the road, a Chinese place, a BBQ rib place, Red Lobster, Friday's, B-Dubya's and a Chili's. OK, there's plenty of places to eat. We just have to decide where." They walked out of the hotel room and down the stairs to the car. Mulder unlocked and opened the door for Scully. "What a gentleman, Mulder. Thank you." He circled the car and got into the driver's seat. "So since I'm such a gentleman and an all-around nice guy, you'll play a game of Naked Monopoly with me later tonight?" "Mulderrrr..." "OK, seriously consider it?" Silence. THE END XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Author's notes: There is a reason I'm in love with Aimee, and that's because she's got a warped little mind. OK, it's not the only reason, but this is neither the time nor place to get into that. She sends me these challenge lists at work and expects miracles, I think. Once you read the list, you might have more sympathy for me! 1. cream of wheat 2. a John Tesh CD 3. mechanical pencils 4. demonically possessed office supplies 5. death by garden claw 6. prank callers 7. a bengal tiger 8. someone steps in a pile of poop 9. Mulder changes his cell phone ring to the "Imperial March" from Star Wars 10. a "Yo Momma" joke 11. use of the word "hella" a la South Park 12. use of an electric toothbrush for something other than toothbrushing 13. a sticky keyboard (explain how it got that way) 14. a game of Monopoly Xenia, Ohio is my hometown. We're famous for bike trails and killer tornadoes. Great place to live. Bob (P)Louderback does own a plumbing business (nice guy, too) and he does live outside of town on about ten or fifteen acres where he keeps his exotic animals. He has a camel, a bear, an ostrich, a lion, but no bengal tiger. There is a Red Roof Inn in Beavercreek right across from The Nutter Center and down the road from Wright State Uuniversity. The Greek place mentioned is The Greek Isle Deli and has out of this world gyros. I'd like to recognize some of my favorite authors for their inspiration: Madeleine Partous, Char Chaffin, Susan Frankovitch, Shannon Kizzia, and Donnilee. Last but not least, I'd like to thank Aimee for her warped little mind and her love and support. Keep 'em coming, babe! Love you.