A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/X-Files crossover
CLASSIFICATION: CH. Multiple pairings, including m/m and m/f, including: M/other, M/Phoebe, Ford/Arthur, Zaphod/lots of folks, and Eddie/Marvin/Mulder. Also some UST as Scully and Skinner fight it out over the boy. Yes, it's a "Mulder discovers his sexuality and is quite confused by it and everyone's uncontrollable lust for him" kinda thing.
RATING: NC-17
DISTRIBUTION/FORWARDING: I will send to MSSS and Gossamer.
OTHER LOCATIONS/USES: with author's permission.
DISCLAIMER: All X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions, and FOX; characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy belong to author Douglas Adams. No copyright infringement is intended.
SUMMARY: As a student at Oxford University, Mulder is visited by a towel-toting extraterrestrial and taken on a journey that will determine his future.
If you're not familiar with Hitchhiker and would like to know more before you start, and would be interested in seeing my alternate summary (for whatever reason you might have to want to do that; I guess you have a lot of time on your hands or are avoiding making your way down that never-ending to-do list you never tire making but never get around to completing), which the archivists can just enjoy printing out and shredding up to use as material to make woven drinks coasters, please see end notes here for a more or less (mostly less) quick go-over of what the Guide universe is all about.
Constructive criticism and feedback is always appreciated. Please send to Griffin.
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Chapter 1:
Wherein two Earth humans do what Earth humans like to do most, but neither is having much
fun...
Widdelsham, England
May 9, 1982
10:13 p.m. (Earth British Standard Time)
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The damp chill of the night spring air added atmosphere to the goings-on atop the tomb.
Things were not going well, but the two young people were giving it a go anyhow.
"Mulder, darling, just a little to the left," a female voice of the British persuasion commanded.
"Phoebe, uh...it's not very comfortable up here," a male voice of the Yankee bent replied. "My butt is getting scraped to shreds on this concrete."
"I thought you liked that, darling."
"No, Phoebe, you do."
Fox Mulder was not happy, despite the fact that he was doing what most young men his age spend all their waking and dreaming hours thinking about doing. No, not that their wish is to get their asses rubbed raw, although some might be into that...who knows? No, he was getting laid by a beautiful woman. The fact that he wasn't happy was not entirely due to the physical discomfort one must endure when trying to fuck someone on top of the slab of cement covering the tomb of the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
However, Fox Mulder was not your typical 20-year-old human male, to say the least...which is not easy to do when you're describing Fox Mulder, because even as a young college student, he was one who attracted talk. Regardless, this 20-year-old human male was not driven entirely by sexual needs. Ever since his younger sister had disappeared when he was 12 years old, Fox had instead been driven by the need to find Samantha and to make his family whole again. But he didn't have a clue as to where to begin.
He also didn't have a clue as to what his goal in life should be. Aside from finding his sister, which, as was said before, he didn't have a clue how to begin to do. Here he was, at one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning on the planet - one so prestigious it almost had more ivy covering it than actual stone and mortar underneath - and he did not know why he was there. So he decided to read Psychology. Oxford was not famous for it's Psychology program, but here he was, studying it.
Psychology: also known as The Educational Degree Most Frequently Pursued by Confused, Unfocused, Maybe More Than a Little Neurotic Yet Occasionally Very Bright Young College Students. For those who might be wondering, The Degree Most Frequently Pursued by Confused, Unfocused, Average-to-Extremely Neurotic and Generally Not Particularly Bright College Students was one in Politics. Neither of the young people attempting copulation that night would qualify as Not Particularly Bright, so they had entered different academic pursuits. More the loss to the Queen and Uncle Sam, two individuals who would never think of doing what the young couple here was doing tonight. At least, not together, we should hope.
The woman underneath Mulder at the moment, the aforementioned Phoebe, whose last name, Green, inspired much more peaceful and pleasant images than did her personality, knew where she was going. Her goal was to become an inspector at Scotland Yard. Maybe that was why Mulder was attracted to her - she had the focus he lacked. Plus she has some other things he lacked, or *he* had some other things she lacked that he wanted to...but of course you don't need to be reminded of what these things lacking/not lacking are.
Hopefully not, that is.
Also, the idea that someday she would be putting men in handcuffs held a certain kinky appeal to Mulder.
"Yes, Mulder, I *do* like to see your arse rubbed raw," Phoebe commented in response to Mulder's my-arse-is-being-rubbed-raw comment. Being from Massachusetts, Mulder would have called his arse his "ass", which also means a horse-like Earth creature that drops particularly smelly dung, the incongruity of which is one of many pieces of evidence that the Earth is really a silly place to live.
However, the only person who would have found this linguistic enigma particularly relevant at the moment was Ford Prefect, who was, at the moment, only about a mile away from where Fox and Phoebe were attempting to get to know each other a little better. They had never met Ford before, but soon he would become an important
factor in both of their futures.
That is, if Ford would ever manage to find his way through a certain minefield of manure.
**********
Chapter 2:
You mean I have to go back to that horrid little blue- green planet where no one knows how to make a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?
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A moor outside of Widdelsham
still 10:13 p.m.
(and still in Earth British Standard time)
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The little man from Betelgeuse was furious.
"Yeah, same to you, pal! You come 253 light years to play mind games with some poor rubes on this speck of dust they call a planet, you'd think you could drop me off a couple of miles from here!"
The little man from Betelgeuse was mainly furious because he had just stepped in a huge pile of Earth Creature dung. "Disgusting little place!" he said to his shoe, which was none too happy about the experience, either, and was quite confused about why its owner seemed to be blaming *it* for stepping into the pile. After all, it was the owner's foot's fault for not looking out where it was going.
The owner of both the foot and the shoe, Ford Prefect, hated teasers, but they did give a lot of lifts to hapless galactic hitchhikers. Even hitchhikers who have no money of any kind, which is how Ford usually found himself. He was just glad that his semi-cousin Zaphod had promised to pick him up later that night, so he wouldn't have to rely on finding a hitch with a stranger.
He could never absolutely depend on Zaphod to follow through with his commitments, though. The three-armed rogue of a semi-cousin easily had a head turned by some well-endowed female. He had two heads, after all - one of them was sure to turn at any possible distraction.
At least Ford knew where his towel was: stuffed into the battered leather satchel he carried slung over one shoulder, along with his Electronic Thumb and a copy of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
A field researcher for the Guide, Ford had written the latest entry on teasers. Never one to hide his feelings in his writing, the article gave more than a hint of Ford's attitude toward the snot-nosed breed. It said:
"TEASERS"
"Teasers are generally pimple-faced rich kids with nothing better to do than run all over the universe in the souped-up spaceships their fathers gave them for graduation. Ungrateful brats, they repay their patriarchs by getting blasted out of their skulls and running their ships into meteors, which can do real damage to a custom paint job as well as raise said fathers' spaceship insurance premiums.
"These kids' favorite activity is to visit small backwater planets that have not made official contact with other life forms, land in a farmer's field, make patterns in whatever crop is being grown there, and maybe disembowel some poor farm animals that didn't know enough to get away when they saw the spaceship coming. Earth (see article on this awful little place) is currently the hippest playground of teasers, because many Earth inhabitants believe there is some deep, spiritual significance to the jokes teasers play on them. Some of the poor sods have even formed religious groups centered on the idea that extraterrestrials will someday save their world from its own destruction.
"Which all goes to show that the life on this place they call a planet is none too intelligent."
"END OF ENTRY"
Ford always had to put some kind of editorial comment in his articles. Actually, he put a lot of editorial comment in his articles, so much so that sometimes it was hard to find the point of it all, there was so much editorial comment. The biased opinions that were found throughout the Guide helped increase sales of the book, and it made Ford one of the more popular researchers the Guide had ever hired. Which is why he was back on the terrestrial sphere they call Planet Earth. To keep the Guide from going under.
Ford knew a lot about Earth - at least, the West Country area of England, having been stranded there once for 15 years. He really didn't think that *all* Earthlings were none too intelligent...just most of them. They did have their redeeming qualities, though.
One of the not-so-stupid Earth inhabitants reportedly was the young man Ford had come to back to Earth to see - one Fox Mulder, formerly of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, America, now a student at one of the older (and most ivy-covered) places of learning on the planet. Odd, Ford thought as he trudged through the bog on the way to the university; for some reason, on Earth, the amount of crawling-vine greenery covering the buildings of places of higher education seemed to have a direct correlation with the amount of respect and awe said place of higher learning inspired. As well as how much tuition they could charge and get away with it.
Thinking of this Mulder lad's background, Ford also thought it odd that, not that long ago relatively speaking, people in Massachusetts were tossing their tea into the ocean because they weren't happy with how the people across said ocean, here on this island, were requiring that they pay a fee for getting the tea all the way across the ocean to them. It apparently caused quite a huff, Ford had learned one especially boring day talking with his Earthman friend, Arthur. Now, this Mulder person's parents had sent their son across that ocean to the island with the unappreciated tea to have his brain programmed. Apparently, Ford thought, Earth people cared more about the price of their beverages than the minds of their own children.
Ford decided he would never understand Earth people.
He trudged on through the damp moor, and the damp air, trying to avoid further encounters with the damp and smelly animal droppings, to find a boy called Fox Mulder. He hoped this Mulder person wasn't damp and smelly, too.
"Fox Mulder," Ford muttered to a passing cow. "And people say 'Ford Prefect' is a strange name."
Ford Prefect was not in a good mood.
******
Chapter 3:
My Mother Always Warned Me to Not Talk to Strangers Who Claim They're from a Small Planet in the Vicinity of Betelgeuse.
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Back in the cemetery...
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Phoebe Green was not in a good mood.
Here she was, a particularly attractive young woman, naked and willing and ready for anything, and the young man she had deemed worthy to share this particular graveyard with on this particular night was apparently not finding her particularly attractive at this particular moment. This was particularly annoying Miss Green to no particular end.
She had heard that Mulder had a particular thing for redheads; maybe she should give herself a henna rinse, she considered. But, no; she had always felt that her jet-black bob contrasted nicely with her pale complexion, and she wasn't about to let Mulder's preferences in women influence her appearance. She was determined to teach Mulder who was boss in this relationship.
"Phoebe, have you had enough?" Mulder asked, trying to keep the discomfort out of his voice. "I think we should move this inside, to someplace warm." And to someplace less abusive to a bare behind, he thought, but he wasn't going to say that to Phoebe. He was beginning to think she really *did* like to see his backside scraped bloody. He had a nice, soft blanket on his bed back in his rooms, and at the moment it seemed like it would be heaven.
Phoebe, however, had not had enough. It had been her idea to do it on top of the tomb, and...
Just then, a crashing noise came from somewhere in the hedges surrounding the cemetery. An unfamiliar voice followed soon after, dispelling any sudden suspicions Mulder and Phoebe might have had that they were about to be attacked by a wild animal.
"I swear, bloody prickly plants...leave it to humans to actually put these things in the ground and water them on purpose..." the voice muttered to itself.
Ford Prefect stumbled out of the hedge and into view of the young couple.
"Hello," he said with a strange "I might be a psycho" grin, looking up at the naked couple on top of the tomb, reacting in a non-reactionary way, as if he saw such a sight every day of his life. He ambled up to the tomb and offered a hand in greeting to Mulder, followed closely by offering a toothy grin to Phoebe...well, to her not-so-well-endowed-but-nevertheless-bared chest. Phoebe noticed this immediately and covered herself with one arm. The success with which she did this only confirmed how not-so-well-endowed she was.
"You must be Fox Mulder," Ford said, shaking Mulder's hand. Mulder was so perplexed at the arrival of the odd little man, and at the little man's apparent unconcern with the fact that he was speaking with two naked people in a cemetery, that he could only return the shake with open-mouthed wonder.
"Uh...Uh-huh...I'm Fox Mulder," he managed to reply. "Who are you?" Mulder's only thought at the moment was that this stranger was somehow affiliated with the college, and that he had come to politely inform him that he was to be rebuked for his shenanigans tonight. The thought of getting a dressing-down for having sex in a graveyard when he never actually *did* manage to have sex was especially disconcerting.
"I'm Ford Prefect, and you have to come with me right now," Ford answered, still shaking Mulder's hand and still grinning toothily at Phoebe.
Mulder thought the man didn't look much like a school official, let alone someone who had ever managed to graduate from college himself. Bartender's College, possibly. Still, the generally obedient young man hurriedly grabbed his clothes and hopped off of the tomb.
"You're not going to call my parents,are you?" Mulder asked Ford as he started to get dressed. After all, he thought, he was 20 years old, a legal adult...really, Oxford's only real concern in this matter should be the lack of respect he was showing a national literary figure's final resting place.
"Your parents?" Ford asked in surprise, tearing his gaze away from Phoebe, who had also descended the tomb and was getting dressed while hiding behind the large concrete slab. "No, mate, you don't have to worry about your parents." Ford raised his voice to a near yell to get Phoebe's attention. "Or about your girlfriend, over there." Miss Green, still topless, peeked around the corner of the tomb to see Ford waggle his fingers at her lecherously.
Done flirting for the time being, he continued. "When we get back, we'll make sure no one has even noticed you've gone. We're going to go to 1998, but we'll be back yesterday. Or maybe tomorrow. I keep getting mixed up on the coordinates."
"Huh?" Mulder said, the first of many times.
"I'll explain later," Ford reassured him, not very reassuringly. "First, we need to hit the nearest pub. And quick. Zaphod's coming in -" Ford checked his digital watch, a memento of his days with another Earthman, Arthur "- in about 23 minutes. Now, my dear," he said to Phoebe, who was almost finished dressing on the other side of the tomb, "where can we get a few quick beers?"
Mulder figured that must have been where this strange little fellow had just departed. It was beginning to explain a lot of things. But the man didn't *look* drunk in the least.
"The Sherlock Arms is the closest pub," Phoebe answered, pointing to the general direction of the pub. "It's just down the road." The establishment had been named in honor of the town's most famous resident. Well, that is, the cemetery's most famous resident.
"Oh, fine," Ford said. "But first, I have a little friend here that needs a home," Ford said, taking something out of his pocket and stepping closer to Mulder. He grabbed Mulder's head and put a small, slippery object inside Mulder's ear canal.
"What the...?" was all Mulder could say as he felt the fish slide into his ear, as unpleasantly as a fish can feel when it slides into your ear. At least, that's what Mulder was thinking at the moment.
Along with regretting that he hadn't taken his mother's advice against talking to strangers.
Continued in part 2.
This is a work-in-progress; comments are particularly welcome by this particular author! E-mail with particulars to Griffin.