Flying Man (1/3)

Nov 09, 2009 00:37


Title: Flying Man (1/3)
Fandom: The X-files/Heroes
Characters: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, Hiro Nakamura, Angela Petrelli, references to Nathan Petrelli (Scully-centric)
Rating/Genre: G (for now… part two; well, who knows…)/gen
Summary: A mysterious bank robbery, and reports of a flying man… that’s enough to make Mulder curious. Scully is grumpy, but goes with him. Via a friendly Japanese guy, they eventually find their way to Mrs. Petrelli. And for some reason, Mulder doesn’t like her…
Word count: 3 418
Notes: 1. Yes, I know that Nathan met Hiro at the Fly By Night diner in Nevada and not in Texas, and logically, this is where he should have been seen flying… but as none of them stayed there anyway, and I wanted to put Scully in the nice waffle place…;)
2. Long fic, I know!! Next chapter is probably going to be shorter… if that’s a good thing. ;)


”Hey Mulder, what’s up”, Dana Scully asked as she entered her partner’s room, holding a cup of hot black coffee. When she saw the look on his face, she took another sip of the not very tasty but sufficiently strong coffee. She could tell that he was up to something.

“Scully!” he smiled enthusiastically at her. “Listen, you’re not gonna believe this…”

“Probably not”, she said dryly, but he pretended not to notice.

Mulder began to tell her about a bank robbery in Midland, Texas, where the two masked men who did it had mysteriously disappeared.

“So they had a car and a driver, and there were no witnesses to their escape… why is that interesting to us?”

“Usually there would be nothing in it for us”, Mulder agreed, and his eyes began to shine in that way they always did when something evoked his curiosity. “But you see, this is special. Apparently, someone has seen something. There have been reports of a flying man around that area. It is not clear if it is related to that bank robbery, but…”

“But what?” Scully interrupted and stared at him. “I admit, we have seen some pretty amazing, unbelievable stuff, but seriously, Mulder? Are we talking about UFM’s now? Or do you have a name for this guy?”

“No, I don’t know anything more than what I just told you. It’s worth checking out, don’t you think? A flying man, seen by more than one person - that must be something, don’t you think? And as I said, he was last seen in Midland, so that’s where I’m heading.”

Scully let go of a sigh. Mulder sounded like a big child sometimes, but that was, after all, part of his charm. At least sometimes, it was. And he was more stubborn that any kid she had ever met.

“All right”, she said reluctantly, “but if he was flying, what makes you think that he’ll still be there when you get there?”

“Well, I’m sure he’s not there. But we’ve got to start somewhere, right?”

“We?”

“Yes, we, Scully. That means you and me.”

*

Fox Mulder is always chasing shadows, Scully murmured to herself. And sometimes, he really does find them, or something like them, but often enough, he’s just desperately running toward nothing.

And this, Scully thought, clearly looked like nothing. It was just like Mulder to rush off like that, in the hope of finding something or someone, but this time, he seemed to have rushed off without any solid information at all. There were, of course, no flying men around, and there was no one who had information about such people either, except a couple of kids who had been out on their bikes, far away from any grownups.

“We saw a flying man!” said a ten-year-old who was almost jumping up and down with excitement, “and my dad called the authorities.”

He was almost like a smaller Fox Mulder, Scully thought.

“Did your dad see the flying man as well?”, she asked, but the boy said no; not this time, but he had seen other things - the Man In the Moon used to talk to him sometimes, and sometimes, when he was given some particularly important information about the state of the world, he called the authorities.

“You know, Miss”, the boy said, looking a little embarrassed, “just like my mom, I’ve always kind of thought that he… well, imagined those things. But now that I’ve seen something, too… it must mean something, right, Miss?”

“Yes, maybe.” Scully nodded and smiled faintly. “Maybe. Mulder, please..?”

“But there were two reports”, Mulder said, refusing to dismiss the three young boys on their bicycles.

“Annie May said that she had called too”, said the same boy eagerly.

“Who is Annie May?”, Scully asked.

“She is my dad’s aunt. She lives next door. She said she saw the flying man in a dream, and you know, her dreams almost always come true. Once she dreamed that mom cut her finger really bad, and guess what, she did! It was so much blood, you should’ve seen it! But now, Annie May said, this was just too damn creepy. She says that men are not supposed to fly. If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us wings, she says. And if she starts seeing flying people in her dreams, then something must be wrong. She called the authorities because they should know if something’s wrong, you know, if the extra terrestrials are coming or something. Or if the End of the world is near.”

The Texas sun is too strong, Scully thought.

The other two boys were giggling, but the one who was speaking looked so serious that it was hard not to laugh just because of that. Again, he looked just like a small Mulder.

“I see…” Mulder said, and Scully could hear that the doubt was finally catching up with him.

“So, is this enough for you?” she asked. “Can we go and grab some food now?”

*

Scully and Mulder stopped their car outside a place called “Burnt Toast Diner”.

“Sounds promising, don’t you think?” Mulder grinned.

The sun was still shining and not a cloud was in sight. No where to hide for a flying man up in the sky, unless he flew very high. How high could a man fly, Scully wondered, and did he have wings? Would they melt if he went too high and came too close to the sun?

No, stop it, Scully told herself. There are no flying men; Aunt Annie May is right, and Icharos is just a myth, telling people like Mulder not to bite off more than they can chew. Or something. Whatever… I hope they have good ice tea in there…

The place in question looked nice and ordinary enough from the outside. Inside, there were people chatting, waitresses walking neither lazily nor with too much haste, there was a jukebox playing old songs, and thankfully, it did not smell of burnt toast, but of sugar, French fries and cherry pie - in short, it was an ordinary place.

And they did have a good ice tea. Scully sat down at a table and emptied the glass in one draught, while Mulder still wasn’t sure about what to order.

Is he flirting with that waitress? Scully thought, and hid a yawn behind her hand.

“You very thirsty, Miss?”

Scully turned her head and saw a smiling young Japanese man at the side of her table; he was hardly more than a boy, with a round and cheerful face, and small glasses, and he bowed slightly when she looked at him.

“Hello, I am Hiro Nakamura. Miss, you look tired, but is beautiful day. I can recommend the waffles. They are yummy, they will cheer you up!”

“Thank you”, Scully said, “maybe I will have some waffles.”

I shouldn’t, she thought as she ordered, I don’t need to put on any extra weight. If the next case Mulder digs up contains something real, then I might get caught by something really ugly if I’m to fat to run away…

Then she stopped to reflect upon her own thoughts.

I really must stop this negative way of thinking, she told herself. I must have woken up on the wrong side today. The thought of waking up made her feel sleepy, and she yawned again.

“Don’t worry”, said the boy, “your waffles will come soon, and you will feel better, I promise!”

The young Japanese smiled and seemed genuinely eager to promote the waffles, and Scully couldn’t stop herself from smiling at him. It was such a nice change, she thought, to talk to a guy who’s only thoughts seemed to be on waffles and sunshine, not on darker, secret quests that no one but himself could ever fully understand.

When the waffles came, they really looked delicious, and Scully ate them with a good appetite.

When she was almost finished, the young man asked:

“Feel better now? Why you looked so troubled before, miss?”

Scully sighed and shrugged her shoulders, suddenly not caring about what she said or to whom. It was all so absurd anyway; Mulder and the waitress, the sunshine, the Japanese who looked at her as if he cared about how she felt.

“See that guy over there?” Scully nodded toward the counter, “well, that’s my partner. He’s always looking for something. This time, apparently, he’s looking for a flying man. Crazy, I know, tell me about it!”

“Flying man!” the boy exclaimed with a giant smile. “Why is he looking for Flying Man?”

As if Mulder had been waiting for someone to ask - and he probably had, Scully figured - Mulder instantly abandoned the girl at the counter and joined Scully and her new friend.

“Hi, I’m Fox Mulder”, he said, “I’d really like to speak to the Flying Man. Do you know him?”

“I know him”, said the funny little Japanese guy, “he is very good man, very good. His name is Nathan Petrelli. You will vote for him, yes?”

Scully and Mulder looked at one another. Was the man talking about the Nathan Petrelli?

*

To get any useful information from Hiro Nakamura was not easy, because his English was not the best, and Scully didn’t really understand what he was doing there at all, but Mulder chose to believe what he said.

He had barely let her finish her waffles before he dragged her out of there, not listening to her arguments about thinking rationally. After waiting at the airport for almost two hours - Mulder impatiently, Scully half asleep - they took off for New York.

As it was late when they got there, they couldn’t do anything but wait for the morning - but when the morning came, Mulder called to wake Scully up a lot earlier than she liked.

“Why are you taking this so seriously anyway?” she asked. “I don’t understand, Mulder. All you’ve got is a couple of kids, a guy who speaks to the Man In The Moon and his aunt who believes that she’s a psychic because her daughter-in-law once cut her hand… and on top of that, a Japanese who barely speaks English.”

“But you seemed to like him, what was his name, Hiro something?”

“Nakamura. But that’s not the point, Mulder. Where did he direct us - to Nathan Petrelli! Flying man or not, a politician with a very active election campaign going on in New York would hardly rob a bank in Texas. Or anywhere else.”

“I know, Scully. Look, I can’t explain it, I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but I have a feeling about this…”

“You have a feeling”, Scully repeated. “All right, then. Let’s go find Nathan Petrelli and ask him if he’s been up in the air much lately.”

At least I’m not quite as tired as I was yesterday, Scully thought.

*

Thankfully, even Mulder realized that they couldn’t just walk right up to Nathan Petrelli and ask him about flying.

“But think about it”, Mulder said, “the man needs more money for his campaign. If he can fly, then there’s no way he could get caught, and no one would ever suspect him. Unless he was seen, that is.”

They had stopped outside the Petrelli campaign headquarters where people were coming and going, looking busy and important.

“But there were two masked robbers”, Scully reminded.

“Yeah, so what? He must have needed a partner to pull the actually robbery off. Then he took that guy under his wings, so to speak, and flew back to New York.”

“Yeah, after dropping that other guy off somewhere so that he could talk to Hiro Nakamura in private.”

Scully was definitely about to loose all of her patience.

“Fine, Scully. You know what? You don’t have to go in there. You can stay outside, and I’ll talk to the campaign people, if I can’t get hold of Petrelli himself.”

I should probably go with him, Scully thought, but she decided to take his advice and stay outside. It was too absurd, she thought, and she didn’t want to watch him make a fool of himself. FBI agent or not; he had nothing on Petrelli, and they were probably going to throw him out soon enough.

She waited at a busy little coffee shop across the street, and to her surprise, it took Mulder almost an hour to come back outside.

“So what did you find out?” she asked when he joined her and her almost finished large strawberry smoothie - after two cups of coffee, she thought it was better to try something else - and Mulder shrugged his shoulders.

“I got to hear a lot about politics in general, and even more about Nathan Petrelli. In fact, I think I know as much about his campaign as he does himself.”

“Good for you, Mulder. I’m sure he’ll be happy to have your vote.”

“I didn’t say I’ll vote for him. But what I was going to say is this: I overheard two junior secretaries, or volunteers or whatever, and they were talking about how the younger Petrelli had been in there the other day, talking to his brother about flying. And I’m pretty sure they weren’t talking about airplanes.”

Yeah, Scully thought, I’ve read about him - he’s supposed to have some kind of mental health problems…

But she said nothing. Mulder had that look on his face that told her that whatever she said or did, he was going to go his own way.

*

Sometimes, Scully thought, I just can’t understand him. But at least he’ll stop now. He can’t take it any further.

He had somehow managed to arrange a meeting with Angela Petrelli, Nathan Petrelli’s mother. Scully had been to irritated by the whole thing to bother to find out how, but yes, they had both seen the politician’s mother in her own home.

And it had probably been, Scully thought, one of the most embarrassing moments in her life.

Angela Petrelli met them with politeness and just a small hint of ‘what on Earth is this supposed to mean?!’, but she had hardly welcomed them warmly. On the contrary, she made it very clear, just by looking at them, that she did not appreciate having FBI asking questions about her son.

And who could blame her, Scully thought; Mulder had definitely been out of line. Did Mrs Petrelli know if her son had any special talents? Any unusual skills? Perhaps an ability to do things that were a little extraordinary? And Scully didn’t know if she should look apologizing at Mrs Petrelli, or if she should play along with Mulder’s game and act like the unconcerned and a-little-above-everything agent she usually portrayed without hesitation.

The tone of Mrs Petrelli’s voice became colder and colder, and when her eyes met hers, Scully wanted to sink through the ground. Young woman, her eyes seemed to say, how dare you let this insolent man go on like this in front of me? Those were commanding eyes.

Angela Petrelli’s eyes sent a shiver to her heart and a rush of blood to her cheeks.

Her last words to them had been: ‘Agent Scully, agent Mulder - thank you for your visit. If the bureau doesn’t give you anything better to do with your time than to waste it like this, then at least it was an amusing story you entertained me with.’

But her voice made it clear that she found nothing amusing in their visit.

“So what do you say, Scully?” Mulder interrupted her introspection. “What do you say about Angela Petrelli? I’ll tell you what I think; I don’t like that woman.”

“What?” Scully stared at him. “What makes you say that? Because she wasn’t thrilled with joy when you suggested that her son is a criminal freak?”

“No, it’s a mother’s natural instinct to protect her offspring. I’m just saying… that I didn’t like her.”

“So what you’re saying”, Scully replied, “is that you don’t like her because it’s obvious that she’s a strong, confident woman who doesn’t let herself be bullied. She looked at you as if you were something the cat dragged in; she’s a woman who can afford to listen to some mumbo-jumbo because she knows that it can’t affect her. That’s why you don’t like her.”

Mulder just laughed and poked her with his elbow.

“Yeah, and she looked at you in exactly the same way. As if to say that you’re the kind of little girl she eats for breakfast. Did you like that?”

So what, if I did? Scully thought.

“Just let it go, Mulder!” was all she said.

The sound of Mulder’s cell phone put an end to their argument.

“You mean both of them?” he said, “and… Okay. Yes, I see. Great! Thanks for calling.”

Mulder looked at her, looking almost - was it possible? - a little embarrassed.

“They’ve found the robbers”, he said. “Both of them. With all the money.”

“So…” Scully began, but he interrupted her.

“Yes! Case solved. Okay, I know what you’re going to say, but please don’t say it. Yes, I was wrong; Nathan Petrelli is not guilty of the bank robbery in Texas.”

Scully drew a deep breath and let it out again. Finally, she thought, this madness has ended.

They walked together in silence for a while, and Scully thought, or hoped, that Mulder was pondering how his desire to believe had led him way too far astray this time.

“Hey, listen”, he said, “I admit that there was just a coincidence that a seemingly mysterious bank robbery took place shortly before some people saw a flying man, but…”

“No, Mulder!” Scully stopped and stared at him. “There is no such thing as a flying man!”

“But what if there is”, said her relentless partner, “look, all I’m saying is that I have a feeling that there’s something more to this. That Nakamura guy… and you know what, I’m sure that Mother Petrelli is hiding something.”

“Leave that woman alone, Mulder, please…”

“I will leave her alone”, he said. “You, on the other hand - you can go back and talk to her again tomorrow.”

“What?!” Scully stopped again, and this time, she had to brace herself not to do more than to stare angrily at him, like to hit him hard in his thick head.

“Yeah”, he said, “since you like her so much.”

“I never said that I like her!”

I didn’t say that, Scully thought, and I don’t like her. Why would I? And what do I know, Mulder could be right; she could be the cold-hearted dragon he seems to think that she is. And why would I care? I’m not going back to her.

“But you said”, Mulder persisted, “that you don’t dislike her. That’s good enough.”

“Don’t you realize how awkward it was? I just think that there seems to be a… a determination and a force in her that must be admirable.”

And admittedly, Scully added to herself, the lady is beautiful. And yes…vaguely hot, too. In a way that also must be admirable, considering how everyone else is just - vague. Vague and inferior. They’re whiny when they should speak up, submissive when they should put their foot down, pale copies of the next person on the street, desperate imitations of mainstream images. They say yes when they mean no, and no when they’re too afraid to say the yes they want to say… But she’s not like that. I can tell that she is not. She is…

Scully didn’t find words for what she thought that Angela Petrelli was like. But she remembered the unfamiliar trembling she felt under the woman’s gaze, and the sudden blush, like a nervous schoolgirl…

Scully clenched her hands and tried to make her voice not to sound tense as she said:

“All right, Mulder - what do you want me to do?”

“I’m just thinking”, he said, “that she might open up more easily to a woman, and maybe you can drag something out of her. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”

“If there’s something to be dragged out…”

“I think she’s hiding something. I want you to prove it or falsify it.”

He’s wrong, Scully thought. She isn’t hiding anything. And she did look at me as if to say that she eats my kind for breakfast, and that was unnerving.

“Tomorrow”, she said. “I’ll see her one more time, just one. Tomorrow.”

series: flying man, rating: g, *fandom: the x-files, genre: gen, genre: crossover, character: angela petrelli, !fanfic, length: serial, character: fox mulder, character: hiro nakamura, character: dana scully, *fandom: heroes

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