From: shirlock Date: Tue, 4 Jan 00 01:32:53 +0800 Subject: Shooting Dana (1/1) Source: direct Title: Shooting Dana (1/1) Author: Shirlock Rating: So very G Category: goddess!Scully-fic / Artsy-fartsy HUMOUR fluff-fest. Spoilers: Timeline: After Amor Fati but I've lost Mulder's unsightly head bandage. Summary: Photographer spots a subject who's got 'the' look. First person POV. Disclaimer: David's Mulder and Gillian's Scully. Daddy's Chris. Edgar Sharp's mine. Nuff said. Feedback: shirlock@pacific.net.sg Completed: 3 Jan 2000 Distribution: OK to Gossamer and Spookys. Dedication: For Scullyists all over this, and other parallel universes. Happy New Year folks! ***** Freedom Plaza, Corner of E St and 14th. 12:13pm It's hot today. It's the first day of summer. I fall into a bench and remove my dark Raybans. The colours explode as my eyes squint to the contrasting, unfiltered UV scene before me. There are lots of people here. Some talking, some eating, some lying on the grassy area taking a cat nap. It occured to me how uninteresting folks in our nation's capital are. Bland faces, pasty from the lack of vitamin D and a general apathy groomed and styled into what passes off as young urbanised pathetic professionals- YUPPs. Don't blame me for being forthright. I'll never say 'that's a cute baby' if the baby's plain ugly. Trust me. And I've seen lots of junior Quasimodos. That summer in '94 for the Ugly Babes contest completely killed off any inclination to procreate after that half-a-day shoot. Whatever possessed me to be the designated photographer I'll never know. Oh wait, I remember now. The money made me do it. A pudgy man is wobbling on his bicycle which should have retired to the junkyard a decade ago. He's got an interesting face though. His chin is cleft like a deformity in an apple, and the slope of his forehead looks positively neanderthal. It gives him an air of danger because his entire face seems to be slipping off the sides of his face into the pit of that cleft chin. He probably works in the post office. I'm not stereo-typing. I'm reading the words off the back of his jacket-- US Post Office. See? A woman in green is talking to another woman in white. Green has a nice pair of lips. The kind that makes you want to look at them when they enunciate difficult words like quomodocunquize or vesthibitionism. Just to see how their lips curl and which consonents make them reveal teeth beneath. White is watching her companion, fixing her with a gaze so intense Green should be turning several shades of red if she weren't quite so pleased with the attention. Reminds me of a platinium print Clarence White once took of two women in the early 1900s. I lean back in the bench. I enjoy observing people. But more to the point, I love observing people observing others. Twisted voyeurism? My ex says so, if she is in fact, saying anything to me these days. I observe the superficial and guess at the underlayers. It's like divining the person's history from examining the individual features or form. That's why I am a shutter-bug and not a psychologist. People-watching is addictive, and I remember it started when I was twelve or thirteen. It happened during the summer when my elder sister brought her best friend Annie home for a weekend break from campus life at Yale. Gangly in the most awkward and beautiful way, Annie wore her platinium blond hair shoulder length and it curled just as it touched her shoulders. She had these big bedroom eyes and pixie nose. She's Finnish and spoke English with a wonderful accent. She was lounging in the hammock when I startled her awake. I took a picture of her just as she understood my intention. What a picture that had been. My first bone fide winner. I carry my camera everywhere I go now, as a justification. I have made a career out of annoying folks from all walks of life, even if I get sent to the ends of the earth to do so. People are the same everywhere. I may be a commercial photographer, but I take really intuitive pictures. Pictures that are never to be repeated. And I've done some crazy things to get that perfect shot that won't see the inside of any album, magazine or museum. It's for myself. Always for myself. I've learnt through years of watching, that the more ordinary the woman thinks she is, the more extraordinary she's likely to be. It doesn't matter if they're tall or short, black or white. I've been in this business for most of my thirty-eight years, but I've only captured six women whose beauty shines like a lighthouse at the edge of a perilious cliff. It's been years since I last snapped a photo of an extraordinary woman. So you can imagine my surprise when I met my seventh muse today. In Washington DC too, in all places. The Freedom Plaza is diagonally across from the Willard Hotel. The grassy area is now littered with tourists as well as White House and Federal Employees. It's lunch time and everyone seems to be patronising one very popular delicatessen near the National Aquarium. I siphon the last of my Diet Pepsi before crushing it and tossing it into the trash can with an audible clang. Lobbyists, Political Action Groupies, Senators, and tourists fly by me enroute to important meetings, or to the latest exhibition at the National Museum of Art five blocks down. I could hear snatches of their conversation as they stroll past me. "...it's at 2:30...call Vermeer for the schedule...We can go visit the Washington Monument afterwards...Come on, Congress can override the presidential veto. There's a two third majority vote in both chambers, Mike...McNally knows diddly squat. Albreight is gonna have his head on a platter--...But, I'm not saying they're alive, Scully; just not exactly dead..." My attention is caught by that last comment. "Death is like pregnancy, Mulder. Either you are, or you're not. " My attention is caught, strung up by its toenails and straining to hear more from whoever said =that=. I look at the weaving bodies of people, tuning in to the conversation from the last pair who were scampering past me. A tall man was trying to keep up with his com- panion, who was taking measured steps on three inch heels that spelled no-fear-of-heights. All I see are their backs, but then she stops. She swivels to face him and my eyes trace out her profile. Hot diggety dog. Fair-skinned with a flawless complexion. The noon sun is caught in her bright fiery crown of hair, making the burnished copper orange. She watches her companion with unblinking eyes, hands on her hips and shifts her weight to her right foot. He stands very close to her and watches her lips as if he could read her thoughts through them. Her entire posture is rigid, battle arms raised, then almost suddenly, her whole body relaxes. And she does something that I've only seen once in a hammock one Saturday afternoon a long time ago. It slips past her stoic barrier of some professional front and her eyes begin to laugh. The action mirrors in her well defined lips.The tall man is not surprised, but I sensed he captured that fleeting moment of utter beauty himself. A quarter of a second, and it's gone. The woman's head turns and catches my gaze. I don't know what kind of work she does, but she gives me a feeling she notices things too. People, maybe. And she has no qualms about looking people right in the eye. Her companion looks over to me just as I'm pulling my Raybans nonchalantly back over my eyes.She returns to their discussion after she is satisfied that I posed no threat. His left hand drops to the small of her back and they weave their way out of the labyrinthe of people towards the deli still talking about dead things and not-so dead things. Whatever. They return about fifteen minutes later, sandwiches in hand and drinks in the other. He opts for Diet Pepsi while she sips her hot Starbuck's coffee from a paper cup. They take up residence on the bench opposite me to my delight. My sunglasses offer me some quiet voyeurism as my finger itches to press the button. Sometimes in life, one gets extremely lucky. Today, I get sound as well as picture. I'll think about it later whether I'm truly lucky to get sound, but for now, I'll settle to hear her speak about anything. "I don't know why you're pushing this theory, Mulder." "Scully, if your autopsy findings showed no traces of Temgesic, what's an FBI Agent to think?" FBI Agent. Very interesting. "Any normal FBI Agent would think that it would be anything but aliens from the outer reaches of our cosmos who have nothing better to do than fiddle-diddle with space warts and liver spots." She replies in a voice that hints at half parts seriousness and half parts outrageousness. I found myself wondering if they were both from the FBI or they were stand up comics rehearsing a skit for Comedy Central. "Are you saying I'm abnormal?" He looks wounded. She chews around the corner of her sandwich very carefully. He's full of wit, when he ain't full of shit, yep. "Not everything is about you, Mulder," she says after swollowing, "but to answer your question--you are beyond normal. You are paranormal." He smirks at her, then tears out the waxy wrappings to reveal a giant reuben sandwich. They eat quietly as I digest the information they've given me. FBI agents; Temgesic; space warts and abnormality. She's waaay cool. I'm guessing of course, but I'm pretty sure she can smell the innuendos as fast as his brain's churning them out. I watch the people around us. There's a pudgy man sitting diagonally across from me who has caught sight of my muse. All I can say is the leer on his face is positively vulturine. He's watching her intently but Mulder haunches over and obscures his view. He cranes his neck to get a better view but Mulder must have a sixth sense. He snaps his head around and gives the man an unfriendly stare. I add my own death stare but too bad he doesn't look my way. Mulder's eating his sandwich with great relish while she's eating like she doesn't want her lipstick to smear on the edges of her tuna melt. There is something so severe about her look that I imagine her job is high- stress and probably related to crime. "Well, next time =you= call Detective Taylor to give him your forensics report." Mulder says. Forensics. I congratulate myself even as I strain to hear her. "He oogles, Mulder." "Yeah, I've noticed, and he has the gall to call you Dana." He replies mischieviously. "He's so button happy with his cel phone, Scully. He calls every hourly to ask me if you've finished your autopsy, when can he have the report. Is it possible to meet us in DC before the weekend? Does Agent Scully drink? Is she a Leo?" "And what did you say?" Her face is absolutely sphingine. I can't imagine the sphinx holds more mystery than what lies behind those lovely blue eyes. She spends too much time looking at Mulder stuffing his face. "I said 'Dana =should= have been a Leo.'" The man's face is only as smooth as his words and twice as cheeky. Dana. Dana Scully. She looks like a Dana. There are people in the world who can be called Yolanda Peckinpah and look nothing like one. Of course we can argue it's subjective, but by and large, few people look like their names. My sixteen year old intern, for example. His name is Mark Wilson, but he looks like someone who should be called Leslie Lipschitz. A klutz by any other name should be called Leslie Lipschitz I always say. That boy has paws for hands. And a squint bad enough to cross *my* eyes when I look at him. Call me a softie but I couldn't turn Mark away, besides, in the darkroom, so long as he doesn't goof up the chemicals, I don't care if he were blind as a bat. She ignores Mulder mostly with her eyes but it's apparent to me that her mind is thinking of what her companion has said. It's in the way her body reacts to his that makes the play interesting for me. This woman is beautiful in a polished way, enchanting in the way her features communicates intelligence. The fat guy on the grass is rubbernecking again. She is completely oblivious to others except for the man sitting next to her. Her movements are incremental, almost measured, weighed and ruled to convey total control. Her emotions so in check that I'd love a chance to unleash the wildness within her. For just a minute anyway. There is a rebelliousness in her eyes that are unchecked when the man Mulder makes another faux pas in his theory. "That's how people die naturally, Scully. Old people die in their sleep, for example." He plows on. My fingers itch to aim the camera at her right there. She's got =this= look on her face again. The laughing eyes and the smile that is, or isn't there. It's infuriating I can't take the picture because Mulder is looking right at me this time. Her gaze follows and I'm suddenly feeling like a particularly evasive strain of virus under a microscope. They're both investigating me, probably wondering about the camera and the windbreaker over my tile-white shirt and knee-long bermudas. I lower my head and pretend to read again. Maybe they'll think I'm a tourist. "But Mulder, natural death is the body's failure to continue, simply from being too worn out. Age being the reason for death. We're not talking about people in their eighties. The victims were aged fifteen and seventeen." She says. I sigh in relief. They've gone back to their mini-debate over life and death and whatever's in-between. I watch a scowling lad of twelve or thirteen looking at me as he lags behind his classmates heading towards the The Smithsonian Quad. I've seen better scowls than that, champ. Behind my shades, I watch the duo once more. "That's why my theory that they were practicing Maculomancy works. The kids were teens, but I believe their bodies were in fact, old. Eighty-six years old, to be precise. Liver spots, Scully. Count them."The man crushes the waxy sandwich wrapper and scores it into the bin beside me. Maculomancy? Quillions of quaiss kitirs. Is this man for real? She drops her head in defeat. He scrutinizes her once more and she gives in momentarily. She's fighting hard to tell him something she's not sure she wants to tell him. I have a vague feeling they've danced this dance before. Tangoed that. Discoed that. He's anticipating her movements by leaning back so that she can adjust once more to looking him in the face. "Okay..."she starts, "I did find something unusual..." As she speaks, I wonder about putting her in a court dress, circa 1780. Pull her hair up into a Rococo coiffure and plant her inside a panniered overskirt with a crinoline two feet wide. With one spotlight to her right maybe eight feet high so that it paints the silky material a shimmering green. I did that once with amazing results for an ad selling under wear. Why and how the concept required that kind of costume was beyond me. But the shot wagged tongues in the industry. Or maybe I could dress her like a Greek caryatid, in diaphanous robes flowing all the way down to her ankles. Surrounded and dwarfed by Doric columns in an Acropolitic venue somewhere with the Aegean sea in the background. Maybe a bough of olive in her arms. Ugh, no, maybe not. The olive branches are hokey. Even for me. Come to think of it, I don't think she'd look too spectacular in those scenes. She's really kinda small sized. Maybe a shower scene? Ah yes. You can never go wrong with water pelting off curves. I look at Dana Scully closely now, cleared of any suspicion I wasn't a dangerous suspect. I see what she's wearing over all those curves. A chic green blazer tailored to square her shoulders and celebrate the curves around her waist. I say celebrate because they're very snug. Trust Donna Karan to suit women up to a formula. Heck, I know. I worked for the high priestess of black savvy suits at her show in New York three years ago. Though I'd doubt she would approve of the bright hint of a scarf that offsets the unrealistic halo around her head. Her legs cross suddenly and I study the micro fibres of skin-toned nylons that's caressing her calves. Her sanforized skirt rides up a bit and she squirms to tame the material. My peripheral vision also takes in Mulder's furtive gaze sweeping motion of her bending knee over leg. There's no handbag, nor any ostentatious accessory repugnant to the eye like brooch or chunky bracelet. She's wearing a gold watch, and a matching pendant around her neck. A simple gold cross reflecting a starburst as the sun catches it at an angle. No rings on her fingers. My curiosity is getting the better of me. I wonder where she keeps her money. Or her filofax or name cards. Surely they can't all fit in her pockets? What does she keep in her pockets? I'd love to frisk her but something tells me that offensive looking bulge around her midrift is not a waist pouch. So much for that shower scene. I'll be likely getting that shot as much as I would getting shot for it. Sigh. Concentrate. How to get that one shot. Can I outrun them? She fidgets once more while her companion gets up, brush- ing off the crumbs which collected on his nicely pressed pants. She doesn't get up right away, which tells me that she doesn't follow him like a love-struck pup. Her partner starts talking right away about children, forests, abductions and wicca. I thought he was talking about The Blair Witch Project, but he seems entirely too earnest about it. He means what he says. Probably still talking about the case of the undead dead. She really is very pretty in an old-fashioned way. Her diminuitive size compels me to protect her, regardless of the fact that she may be trained to break my neck with her childlike fingers. Geez, I had fingers that size when I was six years old. This man, Mulder waits patiently for her as she tosses her head back to capture the last drop of coffee in the cup. She shouldn't have done that because she's revealing too much of the column of her neck. Pale and soft and cool to the touch. This Mulder has it bad for her. I can tell simply from his lack of movements. One second ago he was tugging his tie, hands fumbling about his pockets, head panning the area, next second his eyes are all over her neck. He reaches out and takes the cup from her hand and tosses it into the bin. It misses by a mile and six inches. One-hit wonderboy's hand is shaking from too much watching and too little doing. Does he know he's so goofy when her guard is down? "Mulder, did you watch the Blair Witch Project?" I hear her teasing then see the half-hearted smile she gives him. There it is again, lighting up her entire face. Darnit.That's three perfectly good shots I had missed. His face tells her no but his eyes are looking far away. "Hey. Toffuti rice dreamsicle, Scully?" He nods to the ice- cream parlour across the street. "They don't sell them there, Mulder." "What about old-fashioned vanilla on a cone?" "I don't want any." She says, eyes watching his carefully. "I do. Can you?" I roll my eyeballs not believing he's asking her to go and buy him dessert. Maybe he doesn't ever do that because she's knitting her brows together like he's just asked her to buy him a gunnysack of fried green tomatoes. She'd be shocked either way. He adds a whiney "please?" and she makes a beeline for the parlour. My muse is a softie too. Ooh, got to stop falling in love with the muses. Screws up my professional life. He walks about in small circles, stretching it seems, but I have this numbing feeling he's going to sit down next to me. I knew he would, but it still surprises me when he does. "Nice camera." He says to my Leica. It's probably as trusty as the gun I'm sure is loaded and safely tucked in the holster on his hip. "It's an oldie."I say truthfully. "Can I see it?" I offer it to him and he examines it carefully, as if he was trying to see if it is a weapon instead of a piece of photo graphic equipment. Satisfied, he says, "she hates being photographed." "Who?" "My partner. The one you've been watching since we sat on the bench." I didn't feel like telling him I've been watching her since she stepped into my line of sight. His entire body is scream- ing possessiveness and my horoscope says I shouldn't cross any FBI agents this month. No, wait, it wasn't my horoscope-- I think it was my agent's wife Marianne who told me that. "And don't think she's not wise to your tricks, Mister--?" "Edgar Sharp." I say, holding out my hand, hoping to find an ally rather than an overly protective FBI partner with more than a casual interest in my muse. He stares at my hand for three seconds, eyebrows just a touch higher than before and mouths, "another Ed." Still, he shakes my hand. I reach into my wallet and draw out a name card. I hand it to him wordlessly but he accepts it. "Good name." He says casually, adding, "for a photographer." "That's rather presumptious of you to think I want to photograph your woman-friend, Mister-- uh?" "Mulder," is all he says. He looks like he could be a Quentin Mulder or a Nelson Mulder. Anything but a Fred Mulder. I watch him watch me and see understanding in his eyes. Almost as if he understood what being a photographer was like. Seeing a subject with all the potentials in making a spectacular photo and not given permission to be snapped. "You don't see yourself while you're quietly looking over others, Mr. Sharp. I could be wrong about you wanting to photograph Scully, but I know what I saw, even if you are hiding behind sunglasses. If I were you, which I'm not, I'd use to a telephoto lens. Here's my card, let me know if you did get the shot." I didn't want to launch into my often used diatribe about how using a telephoto lens flattens and distorts the depth of field. Screws up the entire perspective of the photo. And if there's anything I am about my trade is that I'm an absolute perfectionist. Instead, I hazard a guess, "Psychologist, right?" I look at his card. Never in a million years would I give him a name Fox Mulder. I look at him closely and suddenly think-- it's most appropriate for this man somehow. FBI Agent, X-Files Division, jealous and protective partner. That's not on his card, but it might as well be. He smiles in kind and adds self-assuredly, "telephoto lens, Mr. Sharp." "Never used one. Never will." I reply, feeling very confident of myself.I squint at him, then relax as he lets out a breath smiling. He has a handsome face when he smiles, but I'm not interested in him. Maybe my intern Mark the klutz might be, seeing how he wants to be the next Mapplethorp. "Why are you helping me?" I ask, taking off my glasses to meet his hazel eyes. He stops to consider, then says "Because I see what you see. But she doesn't." No, they rarely do, I commiserate. "Mulder, you're absolutely right. I did want to shoot Dana, just once, because yeah, I think you understand why. I hide behind my sunnies because she doesn't know me. I don't want to frighten my subjects away. But you, and I could be wrong about you, but I think you should tell her what you see in her. If I were you,"I smile, knowing I'm using his words to capture his full attention, "which I'm not, I'd tell her what's inside here. " I tap the area above my heart and he nods, contemplating my parting words. I watch him straighten up and nimbly stride over to the hotel where she was returning, ice-cream cone in hand, taking a quick lick at the melting ball of vanilla just as he's about to relieve her of it. He fights her for possession of it and Damn! That's four very good shots I've missed today. Desperation calls for very desperate measures. I've done crazier things than what I was going to do. I'm pretty fit, I'm sure I could outrun either of them if I used the right tactics for distraction. I'm not going to have another chance after today so I do the first crazy stunt my mind tells me to do to secure that one shot. I know how to get that prized look on her and Mulder has to be present. I shift the aperture to f11, focusing between 4 and 6 ft, and jog ten paces to reach them. I'm about Mulder's height so I grab his neck and kiss him full on his lips for three seconds surprising the hell out of him and the ice-cream out of his hand. I break apart and aim the camera first at Mulder so as not to surprise her, then count to three before aiming it at her face. Laughter threatening to escape in her eyes, her eyebrows fractionally higher and her glossy lips slightly parted to reveal a neat row of teeth. Surprised to see me focusing on her. Cross- hairs lining up for the perfect shot and I hear the shutter snap. "Thanks Agent Mulder. I couldn't have done it without you." Then I skedaddled like the two fibbies were going to put lead in my pants. "Mulderrr?" was the last threatening purr I hear from my beloved muse as I ran towards the Metro station. Epilogue. Just to show what a cad I'm not, I sent a duplicate of that shot I took of Agent Dana Scully to her partner Fox Mulder. Yeah, I'm a softie but I am sure he appreciates that more than he'll ever let me know. Notables: Maculomancy: Divination by reading spots on the person. Apologies to anyone with a squint or to anyone named Yolandah Peckinpah or Leslie Lipshitz. No harm intended.