From: JohnieRed Date: 22 Mar 2000 01:23:09 GMT Subject: (1/2) By Johnie- X-Files, Over-the-Counter Drugs and Rock and Roll I wrote this one a year of so ago but some how it didn't get archived anywhere to my knowledge. I can't keep sending it to people I just don't have the time so I'm reposting in it's original form. I apologize if you've seen it before. If you're looking for something new I'm posting a new one too. X-files, Over-the-Counter Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll By Johnie Disclaimer: I'm only borrowing them and I promise to put them back where they belong when I'm done. Rating: PG-13 Category: Humor/Crossover, with Scully angst (Oh, you didn't really think it wouldn't have any angst in it did you?) Summary: Crossover/ Anne Rice. Scully's home with a cold and has a strange midnight encounter. Comments: to JohnieRed@aol.com Oh, yes. Comments. The author would so love comments on this humor/crossover. My first crossover. First I wrote a Skinnerotia and now this. My MSR fans will be most displeased. But don't worry y'all. I've seen Misery and know how you fans can be. I'll go back to MSR soon. In the mean time go reread Adagio or And Who Are You Not to Be? again. Or if your mind is really in the gutter go and read Expiation again and I'll be with you soon. *** Shit! I'm going to kill Mulder. Dana Scully cursed to herself viciously as she sneezed for what was perhaps the hundredth time that day. Her keys clanged loudly as she tossed them onto the coffee table. She yanked her soggy raincoat off, tossed it carelessly onto the sofa and marched down the hallway to grab a towel to dry her drenched hair. After a few vigorous rubs with the towel and her hair upgraded from drenched to damp. Just what her hideous cold had needed, a walk through a start-building-the-ark downpour. Why did she always get a parking space in front of her building on nice days but ending up parking two blocks away each and every time the weather was bad? Maybe for the same reason you and Mulder ended up staking-out a swamp in Florida -the supposed sunshine state- in damp, thirty degree weather, standing in knee-deep puddles, she told herself. And it had all been for no reason what-so-ever. Mulder's tip had been- Don't rehash it Dana. You'll only get the urge to shoot him again, she warned herself. And besides, as a doctor, you know three days worth of a chill is not the reason you have a cold. Colds are caused by viruses. You remember that day they taught that in medical school? Surely you can't blame Mulder for the world of microbiological organisms. Dana dragged herself into the kitchen and flipped the gas burner under her copper tea kettle on. Of course, since she was still pissed at Mulder for last weeks `wetlands caper', it was easy to blame him for her cold, especially since he had the same nasty cold but had been staying home to nurse and medicate his. But that option wasn't open for Scully, she made it a point to never go to work when under the influence of Tylenol Cold and Flu or anything else that said, Use caution when driving a motor vehicle or operating heavy machinery while taking this product. The gun she carried, she figured, qualified as heavy machinery. Besides it just didn't do for an FBI agent to be completely out of it on over-the-counter drugs and sniffling. So she had gone cold medicineless because she needed to drag herself to work to review the notes for the workshop she and three of the FBI's other pathologists had been chosen to give at Quantico in two days. In just two days, she groaned mentally. The other pathologists weren't field agents so their research was pulled together and their segments of the workshop were finished last week while she was in Florida. After the kettle had whistled and she had rummaged a package of lemon tea out the cabinets, she squeezed a fat glob of honey, praying it would soothe her scratchy throat, into a mug and dropped a tea bag in. While the tea was brewing, she went down to her bedroom and changed into jeans and sweater, then swept her hair up into a sloppy ponytail. She stopped in front of the mirror and looked at herself. Worn jeans, bedraggled hair, a red rimmed nose, and chapped lips, she assessed her image. I'm a long way from Cosmo cover material tonight. You're a federal agent not a fashion model. Get to work, she commanded herself. With an armload of notes she had scribbled on the plane ride home, she marched back down the hall, grabbed the files out of her briefcase, and spread the whole mess onto the coffee table. She retrieved her tea and plopped down on the floor and started fleshing out the second half of the outline she had worked out that morning. Halfway through the process Dana caved in and took a few cold capsules after sneezing so hard she made herself dizzy for a few seconds. Whoa, that was more disorienting than a loop roller coaster, she informed no one in particular as she sneezed again. I hope the cold medicine kicks in soon. I have too much to do to deal with this right now. But her thoughts were slowly becoming muddled as the night went on and by nine when she yawned and looked at the clock she realized she wasn't going to get much more done. Just as she stood to make more tea and perhaps look for something to eat, the phone rang. "Hello" "Hey, Scully. I was just calling to tell you I'll be back in the office tomorrow," Mulder said breezily. "I slept `til ten the last two days, drank lots of O.J., and went to the health club to sit in the steam room and sweat this cold out. I feel great. Refreshed. Renewed. Revitalized." "Bully for you Mulder," Scully said, her tone slightly sour. "You don't sound too great Scully. Kinda stuffy," he observed. "That's because I hab the same colb. HaaaVe the same coooldD," she annunciated carefully, correcting herself. "You have a worse cold. I didn't sound like Elmer Fudd," he pointed out. Elmer Fudd? How flattering. How I just love Mulder's observations. "Thanks, Mulder." "Don't mention it. So how's the presentation coming?" "Well, since I spent last week wabing, waDing in brackish water up to my knees, surrounded stink weed, I am bit behind." "I don't remember any stink weed. Skunk cabbage maybe, but no stink weed," Mulder reminisced. Isn't that exactly what I needed, a botanical inventory of that charming swamp? "Well, thank you for clearing that up." "Glad to be a help," Mulder answered cheerfully, ignoring her sarcasm, "Let me know if you need anything." As she hung up, she thought, how about two days sleep, an unstuffed head, and a fully written presentation? She leaned onto the coffee table, laid her head down on her folded arms, and drifted off. "Miss Scully, can you please tell me the five hallmark signs of inflammation?" Dana jerked her head up in panic at the caustic sound of Dr. Emily Binta's voice. Her most hated professor stood glaring at her and six other students over a cadaver on a stainless steel table. Dana looked down at the body. It was the body of a gaunt middle-aged male with thinning hair. He showed signs of cancer or some other wasting disease. She protested, "But this patient-" "I didn't ask you about this patient. I asked you the five hallmark signs of an inflammatory response." "Swelling, redness, heat, pain, and loss of function to the affected area," she automatically replied. "And how does the inflammatory response begin?" Dr. Binta demanded. "With the activation of acute-phase proteins, the most important being C-reactive protein." "And why is that?" Dana swallowed. Why was this happening? She was having a hard time remembering the answers. Her brain was working so slowly, like a train chugging asthmatically up a steep hill. Didn't I study? Didn't I do my reading last night? I can't remember last night. Why can't I remember? And why aren't we discussing the body in front of us? Surely it was the autopsy they were to observe later. Of course, she couldn't recall her schedule for the day so she couldn't be sure. She looked around the room. Where the hell am I? This isn't the pathology lab. It was a large, completely white kitchen with copper pots hanging on the walls, and a wallpaper border with fat dancing sheep. Why on earth am I in a kitchen? And why is there a dead body in the kitchen? The walls were so bright they hurt her eyes and the floor was a single sheet of ice white linoleum polished so glossy she could probably see herself in it. In fact, she noticed as she peered downward, she could. Then she noticed something wrong. Oh, my god. I'm not wearing any shoes, she thought in panic. She looked around quickly. Did anyone notice? Everyone seemed to tower over her in her bare feet and a bright pink polish she didn't remember painting on her toe nails gleamed garishly against the pure white of the floor. "We're waiting, Miss Scully." "I, uh, the C-reactive protein binds to the membrane of microorganisms and activates the complement system which increases phagocytosis by phagocytic cells and... umm, uh..." Dana frantically searched her memory for the correct information but found it wasn't there. What was wrong with her? She was always so well prepared, especially for Dr. Binta who was a known harpy. "Well, it would seem you were too busy to do your reading last night, Miss Scully. Perhaps you had a hot date?" Dana winced mentally and felt the cold damp feeling in her armpits spread to her stomach. Every organ of her body seemed to be sweating and going rigid with embarrassment. "Perhaps you did read the chapter on hypersensitivity reactions," Dr. Binta continued. "Why don't you explain the first class of hypersensitivity reactions for us, Miss Scully" "Type one is an anaphylactic reaction which occurs because the Fc portion of the receptors on mast cells and basophils bind to IgE antibodies. The mast cells release histamines and the basophils release... They release pharmacologically active agents that-" "And what would those agents be?" "I, uh, I don't recall." Scully's mouth was growing dry and her palms were clammy and sticking to the fabric of her lab coat as she tried to discreetly wipe them off. The tendons in her neck stiffened until they felt like tree trunks. "You're an agent and you can't identify other agents?" What was that supposed to mean Dana wondered. "Well, then perhaps you could tell us how joint movement enhances the nutritional uptake of articular cartilage." "I... I..." Dana could feel her pulse racing, the roar of the blood rushing through her ears almost drown out the sound of Dr. Binta's voice which seemed to be getting more shrill with each word. The other students were mortified for her and wouldn't look her in the eye. "Or maybe you could tell us which bones hyaline cartilage acts as a model for during fetal development." "Ah....." A panic attack was now imminent. Dana's breathing became shallow and she felt herself getting dizzy. Her tongue seemed to no longer fit in her mouth. Dr. Binta was somehow growing taller and she now loomed over Dana. "And if you can't tell us that perhaps you can explain this ridiculous autopsy report which you have obviously interpreted very liberally substantiate Agent Mulder's fantastic claim of a-" Mulder? Mulder!? But she was in med school, she hadn't met Mulder yet. She looked around frantically for something to explain the bedlam of her thoughts. I'm in the executive board room at the Bureau. How did I get here? She looked down and began to laugh hysterically. My feet are bare. Where the hell are my shoes? "Do you mind explaining what you find so amusing Agent Scully? And why are you wearing Flame Flamingo polish on your toenails? Don't you know that shade of pink looks terrible on redheads?" Skinner's voice asked sharply. Dana looked up but Dr. Binta was still standing over her. "Miss Scully! I asked you a question! Which blood thinning medication wouldn't be contraindicated in a patient with hypotension?" She glanced down at the notes on the clipboard she was holding hoping for an answer, but all that was on the yellow legal pad were the same two words scribbled over and over: Please believe. As she read them a droplet of red liquid hit the page and rolled down onto her lab coat making a tiny stain. Blood. It was blood, she realized. My nose is bleeding. Why is my nose bleeding? "I have cancer," she remembered out loud. "You're in remission," Dr. Binta snapped. "And either way it's no excuse not to have done your reading for today. How will you write your field report if you can't even tell me what this is?" The professor who now stood a foot taller than her original height strode over to the board room table and yanked the sheet off of the body laying there. What the hell was it? The skin of its gaunt body gleamed ashy grey under the fluorescent lighting. Dana walked over to the table for a better look. It was an alien body with Donny Pfaster's head. There was a large rent in the skin over the right hip. Skeins of small intestine drooled out of the tear and down the side of the table, pooling on the floor in front of the chair she had often sat in. A large fluke worm wiggled around in the ropy mess. Dana's throat began to burn. Oh, my god. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. "What is this? Agent Scully? Agent Scully?" It was Skinner's voice. Dana whirled around in a full circle. Dr. Binta was standing next the body and on the opposite side of the conference table was Janet Reno. "Agent Scully if you don't answer Dr. Binta's question immediately you will be held in contempt of court!" Janet Reno threatened. "Where is Agent Mulder? He's missing and he didn't file an expense report," Skinner shouted from behind her. "I... He..." Dana felt the room spin and everything went black. Her head snapped up a split second before she returned to consciousness. A spasm of coughs racked her as she tried to take a deep breath. As her head jerked around, she realized the walls around her were familiar. My living room. I am in my living room. It was a nightmare. Just a bad dream, she told herself. My forehead is hot. I'M hot. Fever. I have a fever. Just a fever induced odd dream. Dana coughed again and hoisted herself up onto the couch. The cotton of her sweater stuck to her sweaty torso and her hair had come loose from its ponytail and hung in her face. Her notes were scattered on the floor. The yellow sheets of legal paper her outline was written on were dealt across the carpet like cards. The soft glow of the desk lamp highlighted the chaos. For some reason the overhead light had gone out. "Great, now I have a mess to clean up too," she cursed standing up, succeeding in stubbing her toe on her regretfully neglected copy of Angela's Ashes in the process. "Goddamnit! That hurt," She balanced on one foot and rubbed her abused toe. "Well, I certainly don't think Frank McCourt ever suspected his book would elicit that response," a voice commented from somewhere behind her. Panic at hearing a strange voice in her home rose on the tide of adrenaline that swept through her body during her nightmare. Reaching behind the couch to the sofa table she groped blindly until she felt the reassuring weight of her gun in her hand. She raised it and pointed it in the general direction of the voice. "Who are you? Come out where I can see you!" She could see a vague shadowy shape standing by the window and had directed the question toward it but another voice spoke from the arm chair. "Lestat, you've frightened her. I told you this was a dreadful idea." Continued. See part one for disclaimer. Questions/ problems to JohnieRed@aol.com The shadow spoke, "Oh, Louis. Don't whine and spoil my fun. I told you that you didn't have to come." The figure in the armchair leaned into the soft glow of light emanating from the green-shaded desk lamp. The light revealed a tall, dark-haired man wearing acid washed jeans and a ratty black cable-knit sweater that was fraying at the cuffs. His skin was a eerie opalescent white but what fascinated Scully was his eyes. His eyes were a bright startling green. They beamed out at her, cutting through the dark like the beacon from a lighthouse, warning her that to come closer was dangerous. "Who, who are you?" she stammered. Suddenly she was more curious than frightened. The first figure stepped out of the darkness. His bright blond hair was pulled into a ponytail and he was turned out expensively in what looked like Italian loafers and a suit custom made for his tall thin frame. Somehow without her realizing he had moved, he came to stand directly in front of Scully. How did he get here, Scully wondered. My fever must be worse than I thought, I didn't even see him walk across the room. "Allow me to introduce myself," he said dramatically, "I am the Vampire Lestat." "The Vamp- what the hell is this-," she abruptly stopped to indulge in a fit of coughing, almost doubling over as she gasped for breath. "Wait. Wait! I know who you are! You're that crazy rock star from the eighties. The one with the cultish groupies who really thought you were one of the undead." Dana felt slightly giddy and stifled the urge to giggle at an aging rock star's inappropriate appearance in her living room. What is wrong with me? It must be the fever. Everything seems so odd. Why aren't I more upset about this? This isn't exactly normal. I just knew it. I knew something like this would happen if I kept working on the X-files. Now I have an insane musician who thinks he's a vampire in my living room. "I thought your career washed up along with the Thompson Twins. They aren't hiding in the closet or anything are they?" she asked, this time unable to hold back the giggle. The tall figure in the chair chortled. "Well, Le Monseigneur Rock Star, it seems your past has come back to bite you." "Louis, as they say these days, `put a sock in it'," Lestat retorted. But whoever Louis was he wasn't going to shut up, Dana noted as he rambled on talking about utter nonsense as far as she could tell. "Oh, no. You didn't want to listen to me. When have you ever heeded anyone with good judgement? You found the account of the X-files in the Talamasca data banks -which you broke into with that `laptop' of yours- and you just couldn't resist. Let's pay the redheaded skeptic a visit you said. You've never been able to prevent yourself from indulging in any that involved shock value. One would suppose you'd have learned your lesson by-" "Do shut up, Louis!" Lestat groused. "This is not happening. This is not really happening," Dana murmured to herself as she walked down the hall to the bathroom and began fishing through the medicine cabinet for the thermometer. "No. No. It's not. Its just the fever. I have to take my temperature." I'm so hot and I'm shivering. I don't have to be a doctor to know that means I'm probably running a temp. I must be hallucinating. There's really no one in my living room. If its too high I'll have to call someone and go to the emergency room for IV fluids. "Oh, god," she groaned, two minutes later. "A hundred and two degrees. No wonder why I think I'm talking to Wham," she said to herself already forgetting whom she had seen in the living room but managing to come up a name from the eighties music scene. "Wham!? They weren't even a real group! And I resent being compared to that no talent boy-toy with ass implants." Dana swung around quickly to find both of the strange figures from her living room standing behind her. Her clammy palm didn't have a good grip on the porcelain of the sink and shock of seeing them behind her after she had convinced herself they were just figments of her fevered imagination was too much, she lost her balance and slid to the floor. Louis bent down and picked her up with ease. "Lestat, she's ill. Let's put her to bed." A sudden feeling of weightless overcame Scully, the room whirled around her and she found herself stretched out on her bed. The bedspread felt cool against her hot back and the familiar, reassuring comfort of her bed relaxed her. Her head lifted seemingly of its own accord and she felt the pillows being plumped up behind her. "I think we should get a cool cloth for her head and perhaps some medicines. What do they use to treat ague these days? It's been so long since I've been ill. More than two hundred years," Louis mused. "Well, I do know. Remember how I charged bodies with that mortal? Well, I was ill during that time and I learned about, among other things, this marvelous drug, aspirin. It brings down fevers and takes away pain," Lestat informed him with an air of superiority. "Then please go find some immediately," Louis said exasperated as her smoothed the sweaty hair off Scully's forehead. "And bring some cool water. She feels like she's on fire." "Oh, very well. I'll play nursemaid if you'll stop nagging me." Lestat swept regally from the room but Scully was only vaguely aware of voices in the room and didn't notice. She felt long gentle fingers brush the hair out of her eyes. "Mulder?" she questioned. "Shh, drink this," a voice ordered her. She felt the cool acidic tang of orange juice slide down her throat. "Swallow these," the voice instructed and she obediently gulped the two aspirins. She sighed as a cold cloth washed over her face and arms. Again and again the cloth washed over her. The feeling was so delicious she didn't protest when she felt her clothes being stripped off. After her clothes were off, a tank top went over her head and running shorts were pulled up her legs. There was no awkwardness in the gestures, she was being lifted effortlessly and her limbs seemed to obey whoever was doing the dressing rather than her. Scully opened her eyes and tried to focus. All she saw was a blurry figure of a tall, dark-haired man with green eyes leaning over her. Mulder, she told herself, it's okay, it's Mulder. Mulder would make sure she was safe. He wouldn't let anything happen to her when she was vulnerable. But how had he gotten here? She must have called him. What time was it? She couldn't remember how long she had been sick or what she had been doing. She gripped Mulder's hand and squeezed it hard. Lestat peered over Louis's shoulder in time to see Scully reach for his hand. "Tsk, tsk, Louis, I hope you don't plan on becoming enamored of another mortal. It didn't turn out very well last time." Louis ignored him and turned back to Scully. Scully was still trying to focus her vision and when Louis turned she caught the full impact of his eyes. They were green but a thousand colors whirled in them, around and around, making it look as though they were wildly trying to focus. Kaleidoscope eyes, she thought, now I know what the Beatles meant in that song. Louis dripped the face cloth into the basin of cold water Lestat had brought in, wrung it out and placed it on Scully's forehead. "Mulder?" Scully murmured softly. "Oh, my," Lestat commented in obvious delight, "she thinks you're her partner. You do bear a passing resemblance to him. Now what would he be doing in her bedroom? What kind of *partners* do you suppose they are?" Louis gave him a look. "Oh, I am so very sorry I can't read your thoughts right now. I would love to see myself burned in effigy in your no doubt vivid imagination." Lestat stood and strode toward the door. "I'll leave you to your damsel in distress." Scully looked at Louis again and began to mumble, "Picture yourself in boat on the river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly. A girl with kaleidoscope eyes..." "Where are you going?" Louis demanded. "Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies," Scully sang off key, a bit louder this time. Lestat shrugged and waited for Scully to pause before replying. "Maybe to visit her *partner*. Of course, visiting a believer isn't as much fun as visiting a skeptic but, ah, well, I must amuse myself somehow. I'll leave you to your fair maiden. You can take care of her. And if playing nursemaid gets boring, read her thoughts, they were quite interesting when she was dreaming. You should have listened in instead of reading through her collection of Arthur Miller plays." With that he swept out of the room, and Louis presumed, out of the house. "Climb in the back with your head in the clouds and you're gone. Da, da, da-da, da..." Louis sighed again. It was going to be a long time before sunrise. ******* Scully drifted into consciousness. Without opening her eyes she realized she hadn't closed her blinds before turning in; the insides of her eyelids were glowing pink, all the tiny capillaries lit up, looking like a crazed road map. She swallowed painfully, noting that the glands in her neck were swollen. Great, she thought, I must have strep. I'll have to go to the doctor for a throat culture. I don't remember getting in bed. I must have had quite a temperature last night. As she grew more awake, she chuckled at the dregs of her dreams that came back to her. I can't believe I dreamed about a washed-up rock star, medical school, and Mulder sitting by my bed. I don't know where that all came from. Except Dr. Binta, she corrected, I just knew she would give me nightmares for the rest of my life. She sat up and stretched elaborately. Each and every limb was achy and she couldn't breathe through her nose. I feel like hell, she informed no one in particular. Well, there's worse things than a cold, she mused, like last night. If last night actually happened, that would be worse. Thank god, it didn't, she thought as she stood and headed toward the bathroom. Suddenly she froze in mid-stride as her radio-alarm clock went off. She turned and stared at it as though it were possessed. It was playing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Beatles. END Song lyrics used the story??!?. Oh, my! Another fundamental tenet of Johnie is broken. What is the world coming to? Maybe I've been in the sun too much lately. Maybe a newspaper taxi will appear on the shore and take me away. Copyright apologies to the Beatles. Unless this is one of their songs Michael Jackson now owns the copyright to, if that's the case then I'm not the least bit sorry so pbbbblllliitttt!