  Home/QuickSearch + Categories + Schedule Rules + FAQ + Submit + Links/Lists + Contact |
|
Home/QuickSearch + Categories + Schedule Rules + FAQ + Submit + Links/Lists + Contact |
|
"Garcon!" I pound a fist on the dark wood. "'Nother round here for me and my /petite croissant/." The guy at the other end of the bar rolls his eyes at the sound of my slightlydrunken command. In no rush, he lopes over to pull a couple of fresh drafts. He sets them down in front of us along with the tab, leaning in to meet me eye-to-eye.
"That's it for tonight, son - get your girlfriend here to pour you into a cab, huh?" he says gesturing to Lori. Then to her he stage whispers, "I'd make sure to keep the windows down on the ride home, know what I mean?"
She nods. Been there, done that. Just once, actually, after the Army-Navy game. And, I swear to God, if she brings that up, I'll start telling stories about her 21st birthday party a few years back, most of which she doesn't even remember.
"Hey -" I call after the barkeep, who doesn't bother to turn around, "she's not my /girlfriend/." People make that mistake all the time 'cause Lori and I have been best friends for the last, oh, I dunno. Five years or so. Her mom keeps trying to get us together, and we keep telling her we're just buddies. Classmates. There's no romantic spark between us. At all.
Not even a blip on the radar screen-o-love. I swear.
/Nada/. Or rather, /rien/.
Lori looks at me evenly, just a twinge of something in her eye which says, 'Take the nice man's advice. Finish your beer and go home.'
She's right, and I will, but not before asserting my right to pound a few. I raise my glass. "Grades in, first draft of the dissertation done, data crunched for my research team...all in all, an excellent semester. One more, baby, and I am outta here." Lori tips her glass in salute and takes another swallow, betraying only a hint of a sad smile. She's jealous 'cause she's got two more years in her program before anybody will be calling her 'Dr. Joh.'
"Oh, come on, Raul, you make it sound like you're getting paroled in six months rather than graduating," she mutters.
"Hey," I counter wobbily, "if I could serve the next six months in some nice minimum-security lock-up, instead of working as Captain Kirk's cabin boy, I'd seriously consider it." I'm exaggerating heavily, and Lori knows it. The truth is, I admire the guy. He's kinda grown on me. Helluva a lot cooler than I ever expected a former Fed could be. He must have something going for him; you should see his wife. Hot little redheaded minxy.
"All right," Lori asserts, "Time for lights out, Cabin Boy." She tugs on my sleeve, which in my condition nearly throws me off balance and into her arms. Not that that's a bad thing.
"I love it when you're bossy," I slur. "Can we play prison matron and naughty inmate?" She doesn't take kindly to this particular remark. Can't expect a six-footer like her to respond well to butch jokes. And whatever you do, don't ask her if she plays basketball. She slips an arm around my waist as I gingerly slide a toe off the footrest to touch the floor. "Okay, we're gonna take a nice little ride now and then you can sleep for the next eighteen hours or so," she says, as if to a toddler.
"Can't, Mom. Field trip tomorrow."
We reach the door, and the stinging December air nudges me toward sobriety.
"What do you mean, field trip?" she asks distractedly, waving her arms around to attract a cab.
"With Doc," I answer.
I just can't call him 'Mulder.' I respect his request to avoid using his first name, but since I heard his wife purring it into his ear that time, in a tone so intimate it made me blush, I started calling him 'Doc.'
I've fantasized about Lori murmuring my name that way. But not even such a raven-haired, almond-eyed Amazon as she could make 'Strughold' sound sexy. And anyway, we're not likely to ever end up in the position I found Doc and the minx in just a few weeks after the term started. Before I'd learned to always knock when the office door was closed.
She was in his lap and they were necking like high-school seniors in the cafeteria at lunchtime, the forgotten remains of egg salad on sourdough and an iced tea on the desk. She saw me first and froze up.
"Mulder," his name an alarm this time. She tried to get to her feet, but he held her fast, assuring her with a subtle nod of his head.
"Raul, this is my wife, Dr. Dana Scully." He gestured toward me with a death-ray look in his eyes. "Scully, this is my teaching assistant, Raul Strughold."
"Pleased to meet you," she offered her hand politely. She gave it a firm shake. "I've heard so much about you."
"Same here, though I can't say I've had the pleasure of hearing much about you." A split-second of wariness shot through her eyes, making me nervous all of a sudden. For such a petite flower, she had a hell of a grip and a manner that said she didn't take shit from anybody. Way too much going on and not enough being said there, for sure. So I scraped up all the boyish charm I could muster, made an excuse about leaving something in my library carrel, and beat it the hell out of there.
Lori manages to flag a taxi. We pile in and ride a little while in soothing silence.
"So where's you're field trip to?" she asks belatedly.
"Cumberland Penitentiary, down in West Virginia." I answer. "Doc wants me to meet some guy he put away for serial rape a few years back. Says he'd make an interesting case study."
"Serial rapist," she snorts, "what fun. You criminal psych specialists really get to mix with the creme de la creme."
"Says the poli-sci major," I retort. "Besides, this guy isn't just any serial rapist. Apparently, he pretty much targeted only married women, and got them to sleep with him willingly." Lori's forehead creases, like I'm just making this shit up. "Seriously. Doc said the guy impersonated the women's husbands."
"Yeah, right, like they couldn't tell the difference," she dismisses me.
"That's not even the half of it. The loser also impersonated Doc."
"No way," she chuffs again.
"/Way/," I insist. "And that doesn't even come close to some of the stories floating around the department."
"Get out," she waves me off, but I can tell she's getting interested. I only have to wait a minute or so before she adds, "What kind of stories?"
Smiling smugly, I begin, "You wouldn't believe the shit on his Google rap sheet. 14 pages of citations: Transcripts of Congressional testimony, degrees from Oxford, speeches he's given to UFO conferences, obscure journal articles, UseNet postings, you name it."
"So that's what you've been up to this semester, instead of say...working?"
"Believe me, I've gotten quite an education. And another thing - I heard they used to be partners."
"Who?"
"Doc and Mrs...well, she's a doctor, too...Doc and the Docette. They started out as partners in the FBI..."
"/Doc-ette/?" says Lori, offended. "Don't ever dream of trying that shit on me."
"Whatever," I sigh. "Can I go on now?"
"Continue."
I lean in. "They used to run an esoteric investigative division called the 'X-Files.' Officially, it was where the Bureau sent unsolvable cases - missing persons, unexplained phenomena, like that."
"So? Somebody's got to."
"Yeah, but...I think it goes way beyond that. There's old newspaper coverage of Dr. Scully's abduction and unexplained re-appearance. Coverage of a trial where Doc insisted that the suspect /willed/ people to do harm to themselves and others. There was also the little piece in an Auckland newspaper - like a year before they 'retired' from the FBI - about some freaky sinkhole the size of a small country opening up in Antarctica. Guess who was rescued from the site?"
"Shhhit." Lori gapes, grinning.
"/And/," I add the piece-de-resistance: "Rumor has it they /are/ Diana Lesky and Reynard Muldrake - from Jose Chung's book."
"Get out!" she snorts. "And Al and Tipper Gore were the models for 'Love Story.'"
"Hey," I snap back, "I'm not having that argument with you again. Segal himself said -"
"Blah blah blah...more dish, please?" She snuggles into my shoulder and I am powerless to refuse.
For weeks before the term started, my stomach was in knots. Ralph Harman, the criminologist I'd come to the university to study with in the first place had resigned his post at the end of the spring semester under a cloud of sexual harassment allegations. Except nobody actually brought any formal charges, and the woman in question - another of Ralphie's doctoral candidates - disappeared the week after she graduated. Ralphie did likewise, leaving a note for his wife about starting a new life and eating breadfruit with the natives or some such shit. No surprise, then, when the alumni magazine ran an item about the chick accepting a tenure-track post at the University of Hawaii.
Anyway, once the furor over his departure died down, new buzz started about a replacement. Now, understand that the mentor/mentee relationship is a delicate thing. Ralph's leaving me in the lurch with just a year to go was unforgivable. If the new prof and I didn't along, or if he wasn't willing or qualified to guide my dissertation, I would be seriously hosed. It could mean a setback of a year or more. And I was already looking at some pretty horrifying student loan payments.
About a week before classes started, word came down from the dean that somebody had been found to take over Ralphie's post, at least for a year until the college could conduct a proper search. A former FBI profiler. Shit, this was never gonna work. He was probably some uptight, arrogant asshole who'd completely overturn all the research I'd done so far.
With that excellent attitude, one afternoon at the end of August, I was sifting through a pile of final papers that some UGlies had neglected to collect last spring - not that most of them were works to show off at home - stuffing them into the recycling bins, when a skinny, middle-aged guy poked his head into the office.
"Excuse me, is this number 113?" he asked.
"That's the number on the door," I replied. This was my office, too, part-time, anyway, and I may as well assert my rights to it.
"So I see." He approached me with his hand held out. "Fox Mulder. Call me Mulder. I'm replacing Professor Harman -"
"Yeah, been expecting you," I answered, extending one hand and dumping the load of old blue books with the other. I wasn't about to waste any time getting chummy this early, only to have the effort wasted. "Just trying to get some stuff cleared away so you can settle in."
"Thanks. I don't have a lot of baggage, anyway," he said, indicating a briefcase, a few books and a rolled up poster tucked under one arm. "Sorry, I didn't get your name?"
"Raul Strughold. Don't call me Strughold."
He leaned his head in at the second mention of my last name, as if he hadn't heard right, but didn't ask me to spell it or anything. I get that a lot. My grandfather endowed the university's Department of Mineralogy, and one of the lecture halls was named in his honor. Usually, I get a sneer and some sort of comment about how nice it must be to have family connections. Like I didn't bust my ass for six years at Northwestern before coming back east.
Not from Doc, though. Without further comment, he set about nesting, and I knew immediately that, former Fed or no, this guy was gonna be full of surprises. Because the first thing he did was to tape the poster up to the side of the filing cabinet next to his desk, so that you could see it from inside the office, but not from the door. 'I Want To Believe,' it proclaimed, over the grainy image of a flying saucer.
"'I want to believe.' What the hell does that mean?" asks Lori as we step out of the cab. I dig around in my pockets for an extra couple of ones for a tip. The cabbie looks disappointed that I only come up with two. 'Hey,' I want to tell him, 'just be glad a paltry tip is all I'm leaving you with.'
"So, Raul," he asked me that first day, "why criminal psych?"
He was probably expecting some idealized rant about the justice system and the workings of the mind and society's impact on criminal behavior and wanting to figure out ways to cure society's ills - all of which factor into my reasons, of course. But I figured, what the hell. Give him the real 411. "When I was 15, my cousin Brian - he was 10 - was kidnapped and murdered. Well, the sick asshole who confessed to it said he hacked the body up, which he had done to several others. But for some reason, in Brian's case, the guy was really high or something and couldn't remember what he'd done with the pieces, so they never found an actual body."
Shit, I get chills thinking about those days. Oma cried nonstop for a year, it seemed like, but Opa just carried on like always, hardly ever home, jetting all over the world to oversee his various business interests. Doc's eyes widened a little, and I worried for a second that I shouldn't have gotten so personal when we were just getting to know each other. But then he nodded a little, like he understood. "My sister was abducted when she was eight and I was twelve. She...it took me years to learn what happened to her."
Nosy asshole that I am, I was itching to ask about his sister, but something in his tone of voice told me to put the personal inquisition off for another time. "So that's why you became a profiler?" I asked instead. "To try to make sense of it, maybe keep it from happening to somebody else?" I realized that I was asking this of myself as much as I was of him.
"No - I just always wanted to work for the Federal government, but I failed the Postal Service psych profile," he deadpanned and swallowed the rest of his coffee.
"I half-way believe him about failing a psych exam," Lori pronounces.
"Yeah, well, his questionable mental stability doesn't keep you and every other female that comes within thirty feet from giving him that 'Oh, Professor Jones' face," I smirk at her. "Get over yourself."
"He has a nice ass." She shrugs. "Lock me up and throw away the key...You call his wife 'the minx' but I'm not supposed to notice /his/ attractiveness? Nice, Raul, real nice." She shakes her head at my adolescent hypocrisy.
See, that's the thing I don't particularly like about being Lori's buddy. I really don't want to hear about her checking out anybody's ass but mine.
And then there was the incident just a couple of weeks ago. The Monday right after Thanksgiving break. My fingers were a blur as I entered strings of numbers and letters into my database program. I was supposed to have had it all done before the previous Wednesday, but figured I'd use three of my four days off to really cram and still be finished by Monday.
Except...Lori had been pining away for her family in California, so I invited her to Thanksgiving dinner, and instead of coming back on Thursday night, we ended up staying at my folks' house in Fairfax for the whole weekend. The sacrifices I make for our friendship. Yeah, such a chore: three unfettered, well-fed days in suburban Virginia with a smart-mouthed goddess to keep me company.
The upshot, of course, was that I was at least three days behind on a team research project and without the data samples I was entering like a madman - and I can only hope I didn't make enough mistakes to skew it all to hell - our project would be a total wipeout, and the four of us on the team would have to take incompletes for the semester. Lori, grind that she is, had already finished her major term projects /before/ Thanksgiving so she'd just have finals to worry about for those last two weeks. Fortunately, she's a tender-hearted grind, and was helping me take up the slack. Still, I had a good six-inch stack of survey forms to go, so when the call came, I had things on my mind. Like the image of Lori in the thermals and flannel robe she wore around the house most of Sunday morning.
"Muh- who's this?" a macho voice demanded when I picked up the office extension. I gave him my name and asked if he was looking for Doc.
"I was told I could reach him at this number," the voice said.
"Normally that's true." I tucked the phone under my chin to keep my hands free for the keyboard. "But I haven't seen him yet today. He's probably still in his 9:30 lecture. Can I take a message?"
"Fine," the man sighed. "Please make sure he gets it immediately. It is of the utmost importance that I speak with him as soon as possible."
I left a note for Doc on his chair and went out in search of nourishment. Caffeine. Same thing. When I got back an hour or so later, Doc was leaning back in his chair, feet up on the desk, a small pile of sunflower seed shells accruing on a corner of his desk.
"Hey Raul," he said in greeting," how was your Turkey Day?"
"Eh, you know, football, giant balloons on TV, tryptophan nightmares. You and yours?"
"Ditto. Plus, we spent Friday scrubbing cranberries and yams off of the ceiling."
My chuckle was only slightly tinged with horror. "Sounds like Will's got a hell of an arm already."
"Yeah, we've got a NCAA scout coming by next week."
The phone rang and Doc groaned as he reached for it. "Ivory Tower, how may I connect your call?" he smirked into the receiver.
As I chained myself again to the computer, Doc swiveled to face the wall, his voice dropping to a barely audible level.
"What can I do for you, sir?...No, I'm sorry, I didn't get the message." His words rose in volume and intensity, even though he didn't turn around.
Shit. A pit-of-the-stomach moment ensued.
"Yes," he continued. "Yes, I understand...I'm on my way now." The phone slammed into its cradle, and before any lame-ass apology could make it out of my mouth, Doc jumped out of his chair and wheeled on me.
"From now on, when somebody calls for me, you tell me the /minute/ you see me, got it?"
I nodded like a dork. "Jeez, I - I'm sorry..."
Not giving me a chance to mention the note I'd left on his chair, Doc grabbed his jacket and steamed out of the office without answering or looking back. I wondered how long it would take him to discover the pink post-it flapping from his ass.
"Drink this," Lori prescribes, shoving a steaming mug of some mysterious liquid under my nose.
I roll her a suspicious look.
"Guaranteed hang-over prevention," she assures me.
Late that same afternoon, pie-eyed from staring at the monitor for six hours straight, I reached one stiff arm over to relieve the interminable jangling of the phone in its cradle. It was the missus.
"Raul, this is Dana Scully. May I speak with Mulder, please?"
"I suppose you could if he was here," I answered, even minimal manners drained away like my life's blood.
"Do you know what time he left for home?"
My sense of fraternal protection started to kick in. "Uh...I...think it was....um...," I checked my watch, though she obviously couldn't see the gesture. Unfortunately for me, her FBI investigator mode kicked in right back. Hard.
"How long ago did he leave and where was he going?"
I felt sorry for their kid just then, imagining the grilling he'd be in for the first time he broke curfew. I expelled my breath. I'm so fucking easy. "He left about noon, but didn't deign to tip me off to his destination," I said, feeling like I was weirdly in the middle of something.
"Been there, done that," she sighed. "Did he give you any indication of when he might be back?"
"Nah, he just winged it like a bat outta hell."
"I see," was her only comment.
"Does he always react like that when his buddy Skinner calls?" I asked, as much to practice my own interviewing skills as out of unadulterated nosiness.
"Like /what/? Who did you say called?" It sounded like she was choking.
Back to the stammering, yammering fool's pose. "Uh...there was a...guy? Named...Walter Skinner? Who left a message for Doc to call him ASAP? But...I left a note and went out and Doc didn't get it right away, and he got really pissed..."
"Did Mulder call Skinner back? What did he say?" she demanded.
"I...I didn't really hear much conversation. Is Mr. Skinner a salesman, or something? In his message, he mentioned something about 'new merchandise.'" My skin began to crawl with a case of the sub-cognitive willies.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. "Raul," she spoke slowly, and over enunciated each word. "Listen carefully to me and do exactly as I say." She gave me a telephone number and specific instructions, the last of which was to mention the conversation to no one, under any circumstances.
I clicked down the receiver button and tried to breathe. I imagined Lori standing behind me, hands on my shoulders, chanting, 'In through the nose, out through the mouth...' I opened the line and dialed.
"John Doggett speaking."
"Mr. Doggett, my name is Raul Strughold."
A short, concentrated pause and a woman's voice in the background. "Yes. I'm here," he prompted.
My voice shook slightly. "The merchandise will arrive in the showroom tonight."
"How will it get there?" he asked.
My mouth was dry. "By boxcar."
"Thanks for calling, son."
Doc canceled his morning lecture the next day, but sailed in that afternoon carrying a fresh bag of seeds and bitching about the Knicks' free-throw stats.
I finish my tale-telling for tonight and look out the window to see a deep blue sky tinged with gray. Nearly dawn. We've been up talking all night - I've been doing most of the talking, actually. Nothing new here. And all-nighters are hardly unusual for us. Except this time, instead of hunched over our computers or nursing bad coffee in the diner around the corner, punchy and laughing only because everything is funny after 3 a.m., we're half-reclined on my futon. The one she teases me about sleeping on in its folded-up position. Sue me, it's more comfortable this way. And besides, right now, she's not teasing. She's hardly even awake, her head resting heavily on my shoulder. I reach over and flick a lock of shiny black hair out of her eyes, careful not to wake her, hoping she might be dreaming of me.
I stare out the window awhile longer, feeling my own lids grow heavy. My thoughts wander in that crazy patchwork way that comes down just before sleep. I see Brian just before he went missing, outfitted in his hockey gear, proud of the gaping hole where his front tooth used to be. And then I remember him as a baby. Opa liked to bounce Brian on his knee, telling him how he was the most special of all his grandchildren, that someday he'd be big and strong and a hero to the world. An Uebermensch. Superman.
Author's Epilogue: If this story has left you scratching your head and muttering, "WTF?" then I've done my job. I began writing "Cabin Boy" early in my honeymoon phase with TXF. Having come to the series in the middle of season 5, "WTF?" was my typical reaction to many an episode - especially those that revealed new aspects of the myth arc. I wanted to create a character whose unsuspecting proximity to the conspiracy and encounters with the FBI agents battling it left him in a similar state of bafflement, and Raul became my very own Marty Sue. Thank you for reading!
If you enjoyed this story, please feed the author.
Title: Tale of Captain Kirk's Cabin Boy, The
Author: Audrey Roget
Details: 22k · PG · Standalone · 01/14/06 · Email/Website
Gossamer Category(Keywords): Story
Characters: Mulder, Scully, OMC, OFC
Pairings: Mulder/Scully, OMC/OFC
SPOILERS: Through S7
SUMMARY: Some tales can only be told after midnight.
[top of page]
| ||
|
Home/QuickSearch + Categories + Schedule + Rules + FAQ + Submit + Links/Lists + Contact |
|
| ||
