Title: LEVEL 4 BOREDOM (1/1) Author: aka "Jake" Rating: G Classification: Post Ep Spoilers: "Firewalker" Summary: "Scully and I are in the third day of a month-long quarantine, undergoing level 4 decon procedures. We are so far without symptoms of fungal contamination." -- Mulder in "Firewalker" Disclaimer: Do these characters really belong to Chris Carter, FOX and 1013 Productions? If so, no copyright infringement intended. Fun, yes. Profit, no. Author's Notes: Oooooo, goody! Another quarantine! Just seven months after being quarantined for exposure to luminescent insects in the Olympic National Forest, our heroes are once again quarantined, this time for exposure to deadly spores at the Cascade Volcano Research Project on Mount Avalon, Washington. We know from conversations in later eps (like "Quagmire" and "Home" and "Small Potatoes" and "Detour") they didn't spend their time talking about anything personal. So how did Mulder and Scully pass thirty looooong days? LEVEL 4 BOREDOM By aka "Jake" ~~~~~~~~ HIGH CONTAINMENT FACILITY WINTHROP, WASHINGTON NOVEMBER 21, 1994 Balanced on his arms, head driven hard into the linoleum, Mulder looks up at his stocking-clad feet and pretends the floor is the ceiling and the ceiling is the floor. Scully sits like a guru on her bed across the room, glasses poised on the tip of her freckled nose, a sheaf of medical notes in hand. She chews her pencil and ignores her upside-down partner. "Scully, look." Blood rushes from his toes to his brain, leaving both ends of his long-limbed body feeling tingly and numb. He enjoys the topsy-turvy sensation. "Big deal. You can stand on your head." "Are you telling me you can stand on your head?" He watches her from between his elbows. She pencils a few notes into the margin of her monograph. "That's exactly what I'm telling you." He lowers his legs to the floor and sits back on his haunches. His hair sprouts from his head like porcupine quills and his T-shirt remains tucked up to his armpits. A curious grin nudges his left cheek. "This may not be Missouri, Scully, but show me anyway." Her eyebrows climb and she peers at him over the frames of her glasses. "Is that a dare?" "It's a double dare." "A double dare?" "Yep. Gonna do it?" He pats the floor and waggles his brows. She removes her glasses, sets aside her monograph. The gauntlet has been tossed and she's not one to back down from a challenge, no matter how ridiculous. After only three days of confinement, boredom has Mulder crawling the walls...and standing on his head, vying with Scully's damn notes for her attention. He resents her monograph, as well as her calm acceptance of their enforced captivity. He's delighted when she scoots off the bed. She stands and wiggles her hips, testing their flexibility after sitting so long in a cross-legged position. "Watch and learn, Mulder," she says, cracking her knuckles. His smile widens. She crouches, places her palms flat on the floor and slowly tilts forward until the crown of her head rests solidly between her arms. Carefully, she lifts first one bare foot, then the other, from the floor. Once she is sure of her balance, she straightens both legs ceiling-ward and waves her toes at the fluorescent light fixture. "Tah-dah," she says to Mulder's feet. He claps like an excited child, tickled pink by her perfect headstand, not to mention the way her T-shirt slides toward her breasts revealing a stripe of ivory skin and her adorable bellybutton. "Very good, Scully. Can you stand on your hands, too?" "You're talking to a pro." She swings her feet back to the floor and, brushing hair from her eyes, tells him to "Observe." Standing ramrod straight, she stretches her arms above her head. She takes a stride forward, bends gracefully at the hips, and in one fluid motion, plants her palms on the floor and lifts her feet into the air. "Not bad, huh?" she asks through a veil of hair. "Flawless form," he praises her. "Okay, G-Man. Now let's see what you can do." She remains balanced on her hands for a few more seconds before lowering her legs to a standing position. "Piece of cake." He scrambles forward and resumes his previous headstand. "Show me something *new*, Mulder." "I'm not finished." One arm at a time, he shifts his weight to his palms. Muscles vibrating, he lifts himself into a full handstand. "Big deal," she says through a feigned yawn. "Any chance you can balance on just one hand?" "Didn't I ever tell you? I ran away and joined the circus as a kid." His face flushes with too much blood and his victory over her monograph. "The Flying Wallendas have nothing on yours truly." Spreading his legs, he tilts to one side, placing all his weight onto his left hand. Veins bulge in his arm and the strain sets his muscles quaking from wrist to shoulder. After a few false starts, he manages to lift his right hand from the floor. Without warning, he tilts too far and comes crashing onto the linoleum. "Mulder, are you okay?" She kneels beside him, pawing through his hair for lumps and bruises. When she finds a swelling at his hairline, she proclaims, "That's it, we're through with gymnastics." "No, no, no. I stood on one hand. Now it's your turn." "Mulder, I can't stand on one hand." "Then there must be something else you can do." "I can go back to work on my mono--" "Nooooooo." He flops to the floor and rolls onto his back. "Talk to me," he whines. "You mean, entertain you." "Whatever you're comfortable with." He somersaults into sitting position. "All right. I know something I can do that you can't." "Something not related to a monograph?" "Yep." "Bring it on." He wraps his arms around his shins and grins into his knees. "Gimmee your socks." "My socks?" She extends one hand and snaps her fingers. He complies by yanking his socks from his feet. He scrunches them into balls and tosses them at her like two fuzzy grenades. She catches them both and surprises him by putting one on each of her own bare feet. The socks sag around her ankles and dangle out past the ends of her toes but she seems unconcerned with her clown-like appearance. Keeping her eyes focused on him, she extends her arms for balance and then begins sliding her right foot forward and her left foot back, inch by inch. A split! he realizes, and wonders if her jeans can take the strain. Hell, he wonders if his can take the strain. Her legs spread impossibly wide as her hips near the floor. Her lips form a luscious red "O" when her thighs finally rest flat on the ground. He whispers, "Tah-dah." "Like it?" she asks. "Mmmmm." "Got any more stunts up your sleeve, Mulder? Can you one-up me?" His head wags. "You don't suppose they'd be willing to send in a game of Twister?" She rolls out of the split, removes his socks and tosses them back at him, bouncing one off his head. "No more games. I've got work to do." "Scully, you have twenty-seven more days to work on that monograph." "Is that all? I better get busy." "Wait. I can rub my stomach and pat my head at the same time." "Don't make me show you my back flip." "Can you touch the tip of your tongue to your nose?" She begins to demonstrate, but pulls her tongue back into her mouth when she sees him lick his lips. "Can you?" "Despite my apparent advantage," -- he taps his long nose with his finger -- "no, I can't. I know! Let's race -- hand- walking." ~~~~~~~~ 30 MINUTES LATER THUNK. THUNK. THUNK. THUNK, THUNK, THWACK. THUD. THUNK. Scully looks up from her monograph to watch Mulder dribble his new basketball past her door...again. The U.S. Army was quite helpful, filling her "emergency" request for the ball. Adjusting her glasses, she settles more comfortably on her bed. She scribbles "prevention and mitigation of microbial contamination" below "phytotoxicity of scandium in solution culture of loblolly pine" before Mulder distracts her by leaning his head around her doorframe. "Wanna play 'horse,' Scully?" He bounces the ball once, twice, three times. "Sure," she says, setting aside her pencil and notes. She slides from the bed to join him at the door. Smiling up at him, she steals the ball and dodges past him into the hall. "As long as we're talking about basketball." "Spoilsport." THE END Author's notes: Can you believe 1013 locked these two up together in Decon twice in seven months? Hot damn!