From: TedFan@aol.com   
      
   Asylum   
   By Marta Christjansen   
      
   _______________________________   
   TITLE: Asylum   
   AUTHOR: Marta Christjansen   
   E-MAIL: TedFan@aol.com   
   DISTRIBUTION: Let me know where   
   RATING: PG-13   
   CATEGORIES: M/S UST    
   KEYWORDS: Humor/X-Over     
   CONTENT WARNING: Sexual innuendo   
   SPOILERS: Assumes knowledge of everything up to and including S7.   
   SUMMARY: Mulder has late night visitors     
   DISCLAIMER: They're not mine but that's not for lack of wishing     
   AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was written in 2003 and beta'd by AxxlFan   
       
       
   ________________________________   
      
      
   Mulder was being followed.   
      
    He'd become aware of it midway through a late-evening run, warned not   
   by an actual presence, but his own gut-   
      
   feeling that something was out of kilter. He paused twice in hope of   
   spotting his tail, once to do a few hamstring    
      
   stretches and again to re-tie the laces of his running shoes. He swept   
   the vicinity with surreptitious glances,    
      
   unwilling to betray the fact that he'd been spooked, but whoever it   
   was remained cloaked in the night. Not for the    
      
   first time in his life, Mulder regretted leaving both his weapons home.   
      
   He debated what to do next. Muggings weren't unheard of in this part   
   of Alexandria, but he had nothing worth taking    
      
   except his cellphone, keys and ID. The best he could hope for, if it   
   was indeed a mugging, was a beating; the worst    
      
   was something he preferred not to dwell on.   
      
   Subtly, he altered his course, maintaining a steady, deliberate pace   
   until he was within a block of his apartment    
      
   building. Then he put on a sudden burst of speed, sprinting like a   
   deer through backyards, leaping fences and    
      
   hedges and trash cans until at last he reached the sanctuary of Hegel   
   Place Apartments. A panting Mulder fumbled    
      
   for the key to the rear entrance, only to sense that his pursuer had   
   caught up with him.   
      
   He turned, pressing his back to the solid brick presence of his   
   building. "I know you're there," he called out.    
      
   "Show yourself." For effect, he stuck his right hand under the hem of   
   his T-shirt, just at the hip, where his    
      
   holster would have been had he been wearing it.   
      
   Silence.   
      
   Then a faint rustling noise as someone stepped through the scoungy   
   boxwood hedge enclosing Hegel Place's rear    
      
   perimeter.   
      
   Mulder felt a muscle in his jaw twitching and hoped that he wasn't   
   displaying the "panic face" he'd once shown    
      
   Scully.   
      
   "Move into the light," he ordered, his hand still beneath his shirt.   
      
   A small slim shape moved out of the darkness to stand in the cone of   
   light cast by the building's security lamp --    
      
   a child, a boy about twelve years old, thin, with dark curling hair   
   and huge dark eyes. He wore a faded Knicks    
      
   jersey and shorts, but no shoes.   
      
   "Why were you following me?" Mulder demanded, perhaps a bit more   
   harshly than circumstances required. He let his    
      
   right hand drop to his side. "Why aren't you home doing your homework   
   or something?"   
      
   "Are you Agent Mulder?" the boy asked. His voice sounded rusty, as   
   though it hadn't been used in a long time.   
      
   "Why do you want to know?"   
      
   "I want asylum," replied the boy.   
      
   "Go home, kid."   
      
   "Wait! I have to show you something."   
      
   Mulder flung himself into the shadows of his building and waited for   
   the inevitable muzzle flash. He felt mildly    
      
   foolish when none was forthcoming, but did not budge from his hiding   
   place.   
      
   "Watch," the boy said, and his face and body softened and blurred   
   until there was no longer a 12 -year-old boy    
      
   facing Mulder, but a small gray humanoid, its slender body and long   
   limbs still encased in the Knicks jersey and    
      
   shorts. Only the dark eyes remained the same in the hairless,   
   dome-shaped head. It had no nostrils to speak of,    
      
   only a pair of openings above the slit of its mouth.   
      
   "Oh, shit!" said Mulder, stepping out of his refuge. He looked around,   
   saw no one else, and prayed that none of his    
      
   neighbors happened to be looking out of their windows.   
      
    "I ran away, Agent Mulder," said the alien. "I want asylum."   
      
   It was definitely a moment for a snap decision. "You'd better come   
   upstairs with me," said Mulder. "Before someone    
      
   sees you and calls the cops."   
      
   He leaned out and grabbed the creature by its wrist, pulling it into   
   the shadows with him. The clinical portion of    
      
   Mulder's brain noted that its skin was smooth, suede-like in texture,   
   and warm, but not at all unpleasant to the    
      
   touch.    
      
   The alien nodded and let himself be hustled indoors, where he trotted   
   along beside his host like some kind of    
      
   mutant Weimeraner. To Mulder's intense relief, no one in the building   
   was seized with the desire to take out the    
      
   trash or walk the dog, and the odd pair made it to Apartment 42   
   without being spotted.   
      
   "This is where you live, Agent Mulder?" inquired the alien as Mulder   
   unlocked the door and gestured for him/it to    
      
   go inside. "It's so small. And dark."   
      
   "Be it ever so humble." Mulder locked the door and slid the dead-beat   
   into place before turning to look at his    
      
   "guest," who was studying his apartment like an Egyptologist   
   confronted with a new and heretofore unknown tomb.    
      
   "And it's Mulder, just Mulder. Now, tell me what's going on."   
      
   "I already told you: I want asylum."   
      
   Only me, thought Mulder as he stared at the being in his living room.   
   This could only happen to me.   
      
    "Oh! Fish!" The creature darted across the room and climbed up on the   
   arm of the couch to gaze wistfully at the    
      
   inhabitants of Mulder's aquarium. "They're so pretty. When can we eat   
   them?"   
      
   Mulder strode forward, ready to defend his pets. "These fish aren't   
   for eating."   
      
   "Then what purpose do they serve?" The EBE dabbled two skinny, gray   
   fingers in the water. Mulder's goldfish swam    
      
   closer, just in case someone felt like giving them a snack.   
      
   "They're company ... sort of." He wasn't about to admit to a total   
   stranger (and an extraterrestrial biological    
      
   entity at that) that occasionally he just liked to sprawl on the couch   
   and watch them swimming aimlessly around the    
      
   tank when he wasn't in the mood to look at one of those videos that   
   weren't his.   
      
   "Do you interact with them?"   
      
   Since there seemed to be no real threat to the fish, Mulder relaxed   
   slightly. "I feed them and I watch them swim    
      
   around in their tank and when they die I flush them down the toilet."   
      
   The alien withdrew his fingers from the tank. "There's no intellectual   
   discourse between you?"   
      
   "They're just fish. All they know how to do is swim and eat and poop   
   and make little fishes."   
      
   The visitor turned his head to look at his host. "That's how many of   
   my people feel about your species."   
      
   Mulder folded his arms over his chest, taking a mildly aggressive   
   stance to conceal the fact that he was trying not    
      
   to shudder. "There are major differences between humans and fish. My   
   species has self-awareness, imagination and    
      
   the ability to change its environment." He held up one hand and   
   waggled his fingers. "Not to mention opposable    
      
   thumbs."	   
      
   "Opposable thumbs are over-rated." The little alien returned his gaze   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)