Subj: Poconos (1/7) by Jess
Date: 8/10/99 6:06:32 PM Central Daylight Time
From: jessica@amazon.com (Jessica Mabe)
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TITLE: Poconos (1/7)
AUTHOR: Jess
EMAIL ADDRESS: jessica@amazon.com
DISCLAIMER: If anyone is under the impression that these characters are
mine, they are seriously stupid.
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere, just let me know.
SPOILER WARNING: Oh, hell, up through season 6?
RATING: NC-17
CONTENT WARNING: Well, there's sex at the end, but I like to think
there's more content than that... but maybe not!
CLASSIFICATION: X-File, UST, MSR
SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully looking into a series of mysterious deaths
(do they ever do anything ELSE?) in that honeymoon capital of the world,
the Poconos.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: No, I have never been there. No, I have no idea how
those giant champagne glass things work, so don't berate me if I got it
wrong. And no, I don't hate Baptists. My mom was one. The song Mulder
hums is an old Appalachian folk song. I don't own it either.
After the awful "skeptic/septic" debacle, I just want to stress that I
love emails, but be gentle with me. I know not what I spell-check.
Stepping out of the shower at six-fifteen on a cloudy Wednesday morning,
Dana Scully was only mildly surprised to hear her doorbell ringing
frantically.
Give Mulder two more minutes, she thought, wrapping her towel around her
body tightly, and he'll use his key. She pictured his face when he
entered her apartment, gun drawn and trench coat flapping, to find her
wandering around in her undies with the towel curled turban-like around
her head.
It was almost worth it.
Sighing, she opened the door. Mulder paused mid-knock, his eyes widening
slightly.
"Nice suit, Scully. That new?"
He sauntered past her, not waiting for a reply. She was half-tempted to
drop the towel, just to get the reaction.
"What are you doing here, Mulder?"
"I came to fill you in on our latest case."
"At six a.m.? This couldn't wait another hour till I arrived at the
office?"
He smirked, giving the towel an appreciative glance.
"Clearly I ought to show up early more often."
"I wouldn't make it a habit, if I were you."
Leaving him standing at her living room window, she dressed in the
bedroom.
"What was so important that you had to come over, Mulder?"
"When I tell you, you'll be glad for my foresight."
"Right."
She slipped her shirt over her shoulders and emerged buttoning it.
Mulder grinned and stepped forward.
"Let me do that."
She batted his hand away and tucked the shirt in.
"Cut to the chase, Mulder."
"I came to help you pack appropriately, Scully."
Moving past him to the kitchen, she poured them each a glass of orange
juice. Mulder gulped his down in one long drink. For some reason she
could not explain, it was extremely annoying. She snatched the glass
back.
"Appropriately for what?"
He handed her a brochure. Glancing at it, she groaned. A bright red
title screamed: "The Poconos! Honeymoon Capital of the World!" while a
very Seventies couple toasted each other from seats in a candy-red
heart-shaped hot tub, clearly naked.
"Don't tell me, we're posing as a young married couple. You've already
picked the names, Mike and Carol Brady."
"Actually, Scully. We're posing as sex-mad swingers lookin' for a couple
'close friends'…" he began, leering.
"Why would that not surprise me?" she answered and pushed him away. "So
what was it so vital for me to pack, Mulder?"
"Your bathing suit, of course. We've got a cabin with a hot tub."
"Heart-shaped?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't ask. But it does have a revolving
bed."
"God, you're kidding." When it was clear he wasn't, she sighed. "So you
came all the way over here to tell me to pack my bikini?"
"You have a bikini? Things are… eh hem… looking UP."
"You could have just called, you know."
"I know," he smiled. "But then I wouldn't have seen you half-naked and
very wet."
She sighed and whacked him with the brochure.
Things were going well, Mulder thought. Very well. First there was the
unexpected pleasure of catching Scully just out of the shower and now,
in the plane, he had an entire row of seats to stretch out in with her
lap as his pillow. She hadn't even mentioned the fact that he'd only
booked one cabin. No lectures about Bureau regulations regarding agents
of the opposite sex, nothing. He contemplated rolling over and burrowing
into her like a ground squirrel, but decided it was much too early to
risk death. It was a short flight, and he wanted to make the most of it.
"Mulder," she said, stroking the hair back from his face. "Stop shifting
around."
He closed his eyes and relaxed. This was what he'd dreamed of when he
first made the reservations for this trip. Ok, so maybe there was an
x-file, maybe there wasn't. He didn't really care. All he wanted was a
little time with his partner, a chance to make amends for the last year,
for all his screw-ups with Diana and… well, with Diana. He turned his
head slightly and nuzzled her jeans just above the button. She slapped
at him.
"Stop that," she hissed.
"My nose itched."
"Right."
She had the tray down and was reading through the case file.
"Mulder," she said. "Have you actually looked at this?"
He opened his eyes, feeling her lean over slightly. He was looking
directly at the curve of her breasts.
"Not as much as I'd like to."
The answer clearly puzzled her, and she glanced down.
"Mulder, damn it…"
She pushed him up and away.
"You are completely impossible to work with sometimes," she said, but he
could tell she wasn't really angry. "I'm talking about the case file."
"I know," he said, stretching in the seat. "And yes, I have."
"So what exactly is the case we're investigating here, Mulder? I
expected slashing deaths of innocent young newlyweds or something
exciting and instead I'm getting… what?"
He leaned over the case file with her. "Gee Scully, you don't find it
odd that in a town of three hundred and twenty-four people, over eighty
have died in the last two years?"
"Yes, that is odd. But Mulder, these people died of every conceivable
thing… drowning, electrocution, heart attacks, even dog bites. How could
that possibly be related?"
He pointed to a note in the first page of the file.
"Look there, that's your key."
She read it and then rolled her eyes.
"So they're all members of the same church, Mulder, so what? So is
everyone in town, probably."
"So what, Scully? Doesn't that mean something?"
"Mulder, it's the First Baptist Church of Clement, Pennsylvania, not an
Elks lodge for the devil."
He smiled and leaned back in his seat.
"A nice Baptist church set up right in the middle of one of the greatest
zones of magnetic convergence known to humankind, Scully. Ripe with
possibilities for the paranormal, for mass suicides and burnings and…
things."
"Oh come on, Mulder. No one believes that the Earth's magnetic lines
have any real power over humans except whacked-out Los Angeles New
Agers. Bet you didn't even consider this, great profiler… over sixty
percent of this town is unemployed. Seems the tourism industry doesn't
have the need for rotating waterbeds that it once had. With all that
time on their hands, maybe the local townspeople have turned to religion
as a means of filling the void in their lives. And without jobs, people
are able to get into a lot more trouble."
"Ok, Scully, maybe you're right. So we go out there and there's no
connection. We hang out in a nice little cabin, do some hiking," he
leaned close to her, pretending to look down her sweater, and nearly
ruining the illusion when he actually got an eyeful, "skinny dip in the
local lakes… and come back to Washington rested and happy. Or there is a
connection, they're all rabid satanists, one of them captures you and
tries to cut off your head, I rescue you, we hang out in the cabin, do
some hiking, skinny dip and come back to Washington as heroes."
She raised that eyebrow he was so fond of.
"What's this about getting my head cut off, Mulder? I stopped listening
after you said 'skinny dipping.'"
The drive was pleasant in the early afternoon sunshine. Leaning back
into her seat, Scully watched the gently rolling countryside with a
sense of satisfaction. It was almost like being on vacation, she
thought. Except that she couldn't imagine ever going on vacation with
Mulder. He was humming in the seat next to her, tuneless and happy,
sucking on an ever-present sunflower seed.
Please God, she thought, if you love me even a little teeny bit, let
this be nothing at all. Let me have this one week to be with him without
weird liver-eating mutants or crazed cannibals.
"Penny for your thoughts," Mulder said suddenly.
Scully sighed. "I was just pondering the case. It's so… fascinating."
"Right," he said and she knew he didn't believe her, but wasn't going to
press. She wished briefly that he would.
They passed a sign reading "Welcome to Clement, the Happiest Place on
Earth" and Mulder crowed with delight.
"Do you think Walt knows about that?" he asked.
"Apparently not," she answered.
The town was tiny, barely a town at all, with a short main street
(appropriately named "Main Street", a fact Mulder took great happiness
in) and a few scattered turn-of-the-century houses giving way to farms.
They passed through, noted the Dairy Queen and The Country Bumpkin
Buffet and Lounge, and kept going toward the only large civic building:
The First Baptist Church of Clement.
Cars filled the parking lot, with people in black streaming solemnly
inside.
"Looks like a funeral, doesn't it, Scully?"
The entire town had to be there. She looked at Mulder and shrugged.
Just past the church, they found their turn-off and followed it along a
sweetly meandering brook to The Sleepy Hollow Inn. It looked safe enough
as they parked in front of the main office.
Stretching luxuriously, Mulder unfolded from the car and groaned with
what Scully knew was actually pleasure. Birds sang in the trees and she
could hear the gentle sound of the brook nearby. Maybe, she thought,
this is paradise. Maybe we're still stuck in that giant mushroom and now
we've actually died and this is my version of heaven. She turned to
Mulder to find him grinning at her. Yes, she thought, I might just be
that lucky.
Inside, the hotel proprietor seemed happy enough to see them. Mulder
leaned forward to read the man's name tag.
"Hey, Bill, how's it going?"
"It's all right," Bill drawled. "How're you 'n' the missus today?"
Mulder draped an arm around her shoulder, much to her annoyance. She
shrugged it off.
"Oh Bill," he said. "We're not married."
Bill's eyebrows rose a notch, then lowered again.
Scully pulled out her badge and flashed it.
"Agents Mulder and Scully with the FBI. Do you know what's going on
today at the First Baptist Church?"
"Y'all are FBI agents? That's not what I have down here. It says 'Mr.
and Mrs. Richard Head.'"
Scully turned to Mulder, glaring. Dick Head. How appropriate.
"We're undercover," Mulder said, leaning forward conspiritally. "You
understand."
"Wish I did," Scully murmured.
"Ah," Bill said, "sure y'are. But won't you be needing two cabins,
then?"
Mulder shook his head.
"Bill, it's all part of a complex centralized cost-cutting scheme
implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in order to conserve
resources. All male/female agent teams pose as husband and wife so they
can share a room. Saves millions per annum."
Bill nodded. "Damn Democrats, if you ask me."
"Bill," Scully said. "The church?"
"Oh yeah. Right. It's a funeral, for Bob Cratched. His little scotty dog
fell into his septic tank. Bob followed him in, if you can picture it,
and they both drowned."
"My God," Mulder whispered. "The horror."
Scully sighed. This was going to be a long week.
"Smacks to me of satanic ritual sacrifice, don't you think so, Mulder?"
She crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow.
Both men stared. Mulder smiled slowly.
"I think my partner and I are ready to check in, Bob, if you'll point
the way…"
The cabin was everything he could have hoped. Appropriately cozy and
secluded, on the banks of the kind of little stream where the trout
practically leapt into your arms and begged to be beaten over the head
and grilled with lemon pepper. Scully seemed satisfied, dropping her
bags on the circular – God help him, it was circular! – bed and
stretching out on the velvet coverlet like a cat. He checked the
condition of the fold-out sleeper couch and was pleasantly surprised to
find it was already made up with crisp white sheets and a soft wool
Indian-stripe blanket.
Mulder was cautious. Things never went this well for him. Something
awful must be just around the corner.
He opened the bathroom door, half expecting to see cockroaches feasting
on a dead rat or something equally repulsive. Instead, he practically
knelt in supplication to what he beheld.
From the bedroom, Scully called out lazily.
"So Mulder, where's the hot tub?"
He swallowed and poked his head around the door.
"Scully, I think you better see this…"
Her answer held the tone she always used when he alarmed her:
half-worried, half-annoyed.
"What is it? Is there too much mold or something?"
She rounded the door and stopped, her jaw literally hanging open.
"My God, Mulder…" she said in a whisper. "What the hell is that?"
"That," he said, gesturing to the six foot tall acrylic champagne glass
in front of him, "is the hot tub."
"I've heard about them…" she said reverentially. "But I never thought
I'd actually see one. How do you get up there?"
"I don't know," he admitted, just before he tripped over the ladder. He
climbed up. Molded acrylic seats ringed the "cup" of the tub. He could
see jets for the bubbles and tubes and heating elements and a little
baggie of "Pink Champagne Bubble Bath" resting on the side… he could
hardly believe it.
"We must try this out tonight."
She was still looking up at it in awe. "People pay to do this?"
"Sure Scully, this was the Pokonos' claim to fame for years."
Shaking her head, she moved back into the bedroom.
"I think you must have planned this, Mulder. Admit it, there is no
x-file."
If only that were the complete truth.
"No really, Scully. I'm concerned for the good folks of Clement."
He found her lounging on the bed, thrown out across it. She was stroking
the velvet and practically purring.
"Having a good time, Agent?" he said, pleased as punch.
She looked up at him, her hair a little tousled and her eyeliner
slightly smudged.
"All it would take to complete this picture, Scully, is you in a
leopard-skin catsuit and a bottle of Champale."
For once, she actually giggled. "Sorry, Mulder, I left the catsuit at
home."
End part 1 of 7
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Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 15:56:56 -0700
From: Jessica Mabe
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