TITLE: Hair Of The Dog
AUTHORS: Brynna (ingos_grrl@hotmail.com) and Magdeleine 
(playwrtr@surfmail.net)
DISTRIBUTION: Just leave our names/email addresses on it and don't exchange 
money.
FEEDBACK: Yes please. We like feedback. Feedback is our friend. Won't you be 
our friend
too?
SPOILERS: teeny, tiny one for the movie.
RATING: PG-13-to-R (depends on your language sensitivity)
CLASSIFICATION: S/H/MSR
SUMMARY: Mulder has a bad hair day.
DISCLAIMER: *Brynna looks at Magdeleine* Nope, don't see it. *Magdeleine 
looks at
Brynna* Don't see it either. *Both look out at you* We just don't see the 
resembalance
to the folks at 1013. Do you?
THANKS: to BFM & the creators of Volume Boosting Spray Foam (it'll make 
sense later, we
promise)

AUTHORS NOTES: At the end.

~~~~~

"Mulder!!!"

It's a long scramble toward consciousness and the first thing I'm
aware of is my nose.  It's pressed into something rough-textured, yet
yielding... whatever it is, it's hard to breathe through.

The next thing I'm aware of is my shoulder, because Scully is shaking
me by it.  Although why Scully would be in my apartment, shaking me
awake, is something I'm not currently equipped to understand.

"Mulder, get up.  We're going to be late if you don't move your ass."

I crack an eye open and suddenly it makes sense that Scully's here,
because this isn't my apartment after all.  It's hers.  Staring at the
pillow under my head, I open the other eye, allowing time for my
vision to clear. "I'm 'wake," I mumble into the material, if for
nothing else than to get her to stop shaking me.

She does, and I sort of register the sound of her taking a few steps
away from me.  "There's coffee brewing, should be done by the time
you're up," she tells me, and I try to count her steps to determine
where she goes as she leaves my side.  Fewer than to the bathroom,
more than to the kitchen.  Bedroom.

A dull throb radiates through my head as I slowly force it up from its
comfortable, albeit not =resting=, place. Yep, I'm in Scully's
apartment.  Blinking, my eyes fall on my jacket and shirt, draped over
the chair next to the couch.  The jacket still appears to be damp.

And last night comes back in a rush; one I have to fight to keep up
with.

I remember the waitress.  As I'd taken a seat at the bar, she'd told
me not to bother trying to top my old record.  Despite that, she'd
still served me drink after drink.  I think I stopped at 13, but I
wasn't counting too well by that point.  And I didn't care.

Drunk off my ass, I'd decided I'd been wasting far too much time with
Scully, not being =with= her, and was going to rectify the situation.
Somehow, I'd ended up here.  I don't remember getting from point A to
point B, but there had to be some form of a vehicle involved.  I hope.

She met me at the door, eyebrow raised, hand on hip, and my nerve, my
bravado, everything left me.  I just started babbling.  I don't
remember what all I'd said-- I don't  =want= to remember what I said--
but I know that by the end of it, I was terribly shaken, and totally
embarrassed.  Due, in a large part, to the fact that she didn't said a
word while I was babbling, nor even let me into her apartment.  So I
just... bolted, straight outside, into a downpour.  How I got back in
here, I can't even begin to remember.

Sitting up, I run a hand through my hair.  I can feel it flattened in
the wrong direction on one side of my head, and, reaching back, my
fingertips brush over a few locks that appear to be standing on end at
the top of my skull.

It can't possibly be that bad.  Surely I'm imagining things.

Being vertical isn't all it's cracked up to be; my head feels like
it's about to fall off and at this point I don't think I'd have the
coordination to catch it before it hit the floor.  I balance my
forehead on my palms, bracing my elbows on my knees, and try to
think.  I'm reasonably certain I didn't say anything incriminating
last night.  I think.  I hope.

Oh hell, I'm screwed.

I know I'm not a brilliant drunk-- I doubt there's any such thing--
but I had no idea that I could plummet to such incredible depths of
stupidity just from a few shots of... of... oh hell, I don't even
remember what I was drinking anymore.  On second thought, I doubt that
it really matters; whatever it was, the verdict is in and it's time to
pay.

Stupid.  Shit.

What did I =tell= her?  I know what I'd =intended= to tell her when I
showed up last night, but surely I chickened out... oh man, do I hope
I chickened out.  It had seemed like such a brilliant plan; just walk
up to her door, knock, and tell her that I was going crazy from not
touching her, that I couldn't live like this anymore, that I lov...
that I loved... well, that was the general plan.  Door, knock, blurt.
By the light of day, though, this is the =stupidest= plan I'd ever
come up with, and I've come up with my share of fucked-up plans in my
career.

Whatever I said, her reaction was pretty obvious.  Nothing.  Stone
silence, and that eyebrow.  I remember the eyebrow.  The 'Mulder,
you're crazy' eyebrow.  If I told her what I'm afraid I told her and
she gave me the eyebrow for it, I think I'm going to have to throw
myself out the window.

I can hear Scully moving around in her bedroom.  The door's half-shut
but the sound effects might as well be in Dolby Surround-Sound this
morning, and some little bastard in the back of my mind is providing
the visuals to go along with them.  She doesn't have her shoes on
yet.  I can hear her padding around, her little feet bare... which
brings up the question of what else is bare.  I think she's in her
robe-- I can hear those silky rustling sounds-- and in a sudden rush
of sensory memory I place the faintly humid vanilla scent still
lingering in the apartment.

Scully just took a shower.

Oh Christ.  She's naked under that robe, I just know it... she's
walking around her room in just a robe and pretty soon she's gonna
have to change into her work clothes...

My heart is pounding, my head hurts like hell, but despite my
hangover, I'm already starting to get a hard-on from sheer
anticipation when I finally hear the unmistakable... slithery... sound
of that robe... coming off.

Oh, have mercy.

I can't stand it anymore.  Despite my lack of coordination I manage to
scramble off the couch and stagger to the kitchen.  Coffee will help.
At the bare minimum, it's a distraction; at best, it might take the
curse off this hangover.

The coffee is still perking, making the little bubbly sound that, on a
normal day, is simply a pleasant background noise.  But this hangover
has turned my whole skull into a giant eardrum, and every perk of the
coffee feels like a small rock bouncing off my head.  I stare at the
coffeepot and wonder blindly if this is what it feels like when
Superman invokes his Super Hearing.  If so, that would go a long way
toward explaining the pained expression he always gets when he
concentrates.

Thankfully, Scully must have started the coffee a long time before she
managed to wake me up; it sputters and burbles a few last times and
seems to relax into a steamy sigh.  Much easier on the old eardrums.
I'm gearing up for the search for a coffee mug when I notice that
Scully has already left a couple of mugs out; considering how tidy she
is, this is a tacit command clearly spelling Use This Mug, Do Not Go
Through Cupboards.  Not a good sign.  The last few times I was here,
she trusted me to find a mug on my own.  Looks like I've been demoted
to 'houseguest'.

Gee, I wonder why.

I pour myself some coffee and try to develop some kind of plan,
something to fall back on in case the nightmare is about to come
true.  Because while Scully hates to talk about her emotions, she's
never been too shy about dissecting =mine=, a problematic tendency
that leads me to believe that the shit is really going to hit the fan,
here.

If I said what I'm afraid I said, and Scully decides that We Need To
Talk, then it's not going to be a discussion, it's going to be Fox
Mulder On Trial.  She'll be calm.  She'll be reasonable.  She'll take
me apart piece by piece and remain coolly above the whole process.  At
the end, she'll have every one of my inner demons will be pinned down,
squirming, like bugs in a display case, and I still won't have a clue
what she's feeling.

Shit.

I find myself face to face with my reflection in the microwave door,
and realize for the first time just how fucked up my hair really is.
I had no idea.  There are two separate patches that stand straight up,
like asymmetrical horns, and what I can see of the left side is
flattened, pointing diagonally toward my eyebrow.  I look like
=hell=.  It must have really been raining.  Perfect.  To top it off,
the world's best solution-- a shower-- is out of the question, seeing
as I wore home my 'emergency suit' a week ago, and never brought
another one back.  That's just fucking great.

I look like the little evil boss from Dilbert, my head feels like a
troll was running around inside all night, and any second now,
Scully's going to come out here and laugh at me.  She might not mean
to, but she won't be able to control it.  And I know that I made a big
enough fool of myself last night that I don't need to repeat it in any
form.

Taking a sip of the strong coffee, I realize I don't have much
choice:  I can stay here, and face Scully looking like... whatever it
is that I look like, or I can try and deal, and face her like my
normal self.

Neither is a great option, but I think that in the grand scheme of
'lesser evils' I'm going to have to do something.  I grab the coffee
cup she left out for me.  It actually =is= the same one that I've used
the last few times I've been here.  Maybe... no.  Instead of allowing
myself to think about that, I head toward her bathroom.

Forcing myself not to pause at her bedroom door, not to listen to what
she's doing, I make my way into the bathroom, shutting and locking the
door.

As I set the mug on the small shelf next to the sink, I take in my
reflection in a real mirror.  Good god.  It should be against the law
for hair to look this bad.

And, being a guy, I shouldn't care.

But being a guy, a guy who probably told my partner way too much
emotional information last night before passing out on her couch, I
can't help but feel that I should at least do my best not to look like
some mutant the next time I see her.

I can't help checking out the small collection of hair styling
products she has assembled around the sink.  Mousse, I'm familiar
with.  Hairspray, too.  She has these, and more.  Something called
volume boosting spray foam... and what the hell is glossifier?  Not to
mention a couple of other small bottles that I don't even bother to
pick up.

Do women really use all this junk?  More to the point, I wonder as I
stare at my reflection again, does it work?

I don't even know where to start.  All my years at the bureau, and
this has to be the biggest X-File yet. The 'women's hair-styling
phenomenon.'  "Filed next to the 'wig that ate Jimmy Hoffa', Scully,"
I mumble, vocalizing the thoughts of the sarcastic little voice in my
head.

As my eyes are drifting between the mirror and the bottles of stuff
next to me, there's a knock at the door. "What are you doing in there,
Mulder?"

She sounds annoyed.

Shit.

Nothing, I want to say.  My mouth still isn't working; the word comes
out mangled.  "Nuhcgh..."

"Mulder?"

I work my jaw for a second and try again.  "Nothing."

There's a long pause.  Finally her voice comes again, with a little
more of an edge to it.  "All right, if you say so.  Just make sure
that 'nothing' doesn't take more than five minutes, because we really
have to get to that meeting."

I hear her footsteps recede and I stare at the mirror again.  I can't
even remember what the hell meeting it is that we're supposed to be
going to.  I can't imagine having to spend time in someone's office,
listening to bureaucratic bullshit with Scully next to me and knowing
that the minute we get out of the damn meeting that she'll turn to me
with that business-like look on her face and say, 'Mulder, we have to
talk...'

Maybe I should just stick my head under the faucet.
Wet-and-neatly-combed is the Old Yeller of the hairstyle department,
the universal Sunday morning treatment that every mother uses on every
son.  It's not real stylish, but it's nice to know you can always fall
back on it.  I have no idea what the female equivalent is.  Some sort
of clippie thing, maybe.  Rubber bands, or whatever the hell it is
they use to make ponytails.  I don't frankly give a shit.

I turn the water on, test the temperature, and duck my head, aiming
for the faucet as best I can.

THUNK.

"OW, SHIT!" I yell, clapping my hand to the top of my head.  The
fucking faucet is too fucking =low=.  Fucking jackass sonovabitch
piece of shit.  I can already feel the bump forming where I clobbered
myself.  As if my head didn't hurt enough already.  Perfect.

"Mulder?"  Scully again, and this time she sounds really concerned.  I
don't blame her.  I'm pretty damn concerned, myself.

"I'm okay," I yelp, clutching the edge of the counter to keep from
falling sideways.

"Are you sure?  What was that noise?"

"Nothing," I yell.  Oh, that was brilliant.  Say something even more
intelligent.  "I'm fine.  I stubbed my toe."

"All right..." She sounds doubtful, but she leaves anyway.  I check
the mirror.  The bump is tender, and turning a light shade of red, but
it's not too noticeable unless you're looking for it.  I briefly
consider leaving my hair like this, just to distract from the bump,
but I remember Scully giving me the eyebrow last night and I remember
what it felt like, the last time she laughed at me.  If my heart is
scheduled to be broken this morning, the last thing I want is for her
to be *laughing* at me throughout the process.

Water.  Comb.  Fix hair.

I edge toward the still-running faucet again, but my head is throbbing
from the hangover-- not to mention the blunt instrument trauma-- and I
lose my nerve.  No more of that, thank you very much.  Another
technique, maybe... I hover over the sink and experimentally scoop a
handful of water toward my head.  It all dribbles out before it gets
anywhere near my hair.  I try again, applying more force; the water
splats against my forehead and dribbles down my face.

I guess I'm awake now, at least.

~~~~

Con't in part 2