rockinlibrarian | In Which This Week's Video Prompts Me to Share Some Rare X-Files Fanfiction. Also, Pens.

So, this week's vlog topic is "Some of Your Favorite Things," which brings up the topic of Bic Velocity Easy-Glide Ballpoints.*

See, a couple years back, when I was trying to make a habit of writing to prompts every morning, I got the prompt, "Your favorite possession has climbed to the top of the Empire State Building and is threatening to jump." (I can't remember if there was a "What would you do?" or "Write what happens" after that. That sentence was all I wrote down of it). Well, I'd only just started using my very first Bic Velocity Easy-Glide Ballpoint, a lovely purple one (black ink--it was purple on the outside), and I was using it just then and was entirely too excited about it, so THAT, I decided, would be the possession in question. But why on earth would a pen be threatening to jump off the Empire State Building? It seemed vaguely X-Files-ish. In a silly way. But then, immediately, I knew what to write.

I'm not a big fanfiction writer-- I have some bits here and there I do, but it's not a major hobby-in-and-of itself. But ever since we had our massive X-Files marathon right after Sammy was born, I've wanted to write fic for Mulder and Scully. Not ABOUT anything specifically. It was just that I could see them, showing up at the scene of a bizarre crime, bantering over the clues. I just didn't have a mystery for them to investigate.

UNTIL NOW. I decided to turn the mystery of a pen threatening to jump into an X-File. It was silly. It was by no means high-quality. But it was fun.

So now that the topic has come up in the video, I'm going to share that little fanfic right here:

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"So. We are here to talk a purple pen down from the Empire State Building." Special Agent Dr. Dana Scully glanced to the top of the building with a look of intense bemusement.

"I fail to see why you don't find this exciting," her partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder, told her, grinning and throwing his hands in the air. "WHAT could cause something like this? What terrifying force could drive office supplies to their dooms?"

"Mulder, office supplies aren't sentient. They can't commit suicide."

"That's what makes this so fascinating!" He gave her shoulders a squeeze and strolled toward the elevators.

Scully sighed and followed. "So what do you intend to do, actually? Did they teach you much about pen psychology in college? Because frankly my pen anatomy is sketchy at best--"

"Hah hah."

"The pun wasn't intended."

"It was still good." Mulder grinned at the floor counter above the door as it went up. "We just have to go up and have a look around. Then it will be obvious."

"Or, we'll just look like idiots."

"When DON'T we look like idiots? You should be used to this by now." They switched elevators to continue to the top, then stepped out on the platform.

"Oh for god's sa--" Scully had been snapping at him, but she trailed off at the sudden presence of Wrongness about them.

They had been in the presence of Wrongness often enough to recognize it. For one thing, the background music became more ominous. For another, it was strangely dark for 2:30 in the afternoon. Third, all the tourists were standing stock still, as if mesmerized.

The wind roared around and battered about their hair. Scully took in the mesmerized tourists and the unusual darkness, then noticed, here and there inside the building, pencils and crayons and pens tremoring as if the whole building was a pencil cup being shaken. Except that nothing else in the building was moving.

Mulder focused right on the small, slender figure poised on the edge of the railing. "Hi," he told it. "What's the problem? Is there any way I can help you?"

Scully dragged her eyes away from the eerie surroundings long enough to say, "Mulder, really. It's a pen."

"Pens are people, too, Scully. Don't be a hater." He looked back at the pen on the ledge and said, "Right, buddy? That's all you want, right? A little respect?"

"Well it looks like every writing implement in this building is suffering from this same need for validation." One by one the pencils and pens broke free of gravity and drifted toward the edge of the balcony.

"You do not need to do this!" Mulder spoke in a loud, clear voice, hands raised. "People LOVE you, and NEED you, no matter how many electronic gadgets come out! I love and need you! Do you KNOW how many pencils I go through in a year?"

"They're all in your ceiling tiles," Scully muttered.

"Shhh, you're not helping!" Mulder waved at her frantically.

Before he could turn back to his inspiring speech-making, an electronic sizzle hummed through the air, and all the pens and pencils rose several inches above the railings, where they hovered for a moment before winking out of existence.

Immediately, the air cleared, and the tourists came back to life. Mulder remained frozen, hands still raised. Then he raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. "WELL," he said finally.

Scully nodded and replied, "WELL."

"What do you make of THAT?"

"Well, either this is all a nefarious plot by some shadowy organization to keep people from writing things manually; there is some extra-natural being with a very large pen collection; or we have just borne witness to the Rapture of Writing Implements and will soon perish in the Apocalypse of the Written Word. Or," said Scully, "it was a mass hallucination. It wouldn't be the first time."

Mulder gazed at her for a moment, then tsked. "Scully, why do I get the feeling you are not taking this seriously enough?"

"I am SURE the pens are in a better place now, Mulder, MEANWHILE, let's call the electric company to see if they noted any power surges or unusual electromagnetic activity and we'll move on from there." She spun away and paced to the elevator.

"Admit it, this is a more interesting case than you thought it was," he called after her, then followed.

"I'll let you know once we've solved it."

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*DEAR BIC: I'm serious. Keep making them or I'll... act on a very vague threat that probably doesn't actually exist. I'm saying, though.