Date: Sun, 06 Dec 1998 20:57:34 -0600 Subject: Love Stinks Title: Love Stinks! (or The Mutants of Table Nine) Author: Luan D. Lascy Rating: PG, for Adam Sandler's language Classification: CA Spoilers: Aw, hell, every single XF ep that's breeded shipper and/or slasher fanfic. I can't count 'em all. But definitely Triangle. Keywords: The Wedding Singer/XF crossover Summary: Guess who are the "mutants at Table 9" are? Right, noromo X- Philes!!! Disclaimers: Mulder & Co. aren't mine, they're Chris Carter's, yadda- yadda-yadda. Robbie whatsisname is Adam Sandler's, Julia Goolia is Drew Barrymore's, and the X-philes at Table 9 own themselves. Timelines: XF: After whichever most recent 'shipper episode at the time of this fanfic, Triangle Wedding Singer: That first fatal gig after Linda dumps Rob at the altar ouch. Notes: I don't own the movie, I've just seen it a couple of times in the same sitting gives you a rough estimate of how much I liked it and I can't remember the exact words of anything except the songs. That's the twisted way the human mind works, sadly. Sorry. Don't quote me on anything, please. On with the show!! ;-) $%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$% Mary wandered through the halls of the restaurant aimlessly, dragging on her cigarette Marlboros, not Morleys; she'd changes brands after seeing "Musings". She really didn't know why she was here. She hated her second cousin, who wanted to attend a wedding for someone whose guts they abhorred? She wanted her laptop. She wanted her modem. She wanted her fanfic site. She needed to find out what was going on with the site. They hadn't updated for a month now, and she was ready to scream every time she saw the same old shipper stories. "Why don't they give it up already?" she muttered to the air, smoke hanging in the air in question marks as if echoing her bewilderment at the shippers in denial. "It's never going to happen. It will ruin the show, and Carter knows it. He'll never let them kiss. . . oh crap, he just did, didn't he?" She groaned and rested her head against the fake marble wall. "That was a dream. It didn't count." She opened her eyes and saw a fifteen-year-old who bore a remarkable resemblance to Frohike in the hospital room, minus the beard and flowers, of course, and all the wrinkles. He looked just as out-of-place as Mary felt. "What do you mean?" she asked, brain not quite kicking into X-Files drive for a second. "It was a dream. I don't think Mulder really went back in time. It was some delusion brought on by nearly drowning." "Well, why would they make it an X-File if it was a dream?" Mary asked, pushing away from the wall. "Because Chris Carter's getting lazy. He let Gilligan write the episode, and that's the only way the kiss got in there." "Gilligan wrote it?" Mary said in surprise. "Hell, I don't know, my modem;s down, I can't check." "I feel your pain." As they headed back to the ballroom, Mary felt much better about this whole wedding business. She just might make it through the wedding without ripping out the phone jack and plugging in the modem. $%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$% "What's taking him so long?" Chelsea whined. "Calm down, you don't need to get paranoid every time he'd gone for more than five minutes," Teresa said tiredly. "Can I help it if I'm a second Mulder?" Chelsea snapped. "Well, fine, don't bite my head off," Teresa objected. "Relax a little. Your aura's way too stressed," Stella informed Chelsea. "Oh, stop the Melissa drivel. . ." "Hey! I resent that!" Melissa called from across the table. "Sorry, Mel," Chelsea apologized absently. ". . .but that was nothing. She was drunk. *He* was drunk. Hell, 'he' wasn't even Mulder, it was that shapeshifter guy." "How they managed to get all that shipper-fic out of Small Potatoes I will go to the grave wondering," an unidentified female voice agreed. Teresa looked around and saw a red-haired, freckled woman behind her chair, standing with Jack. With a gasp she gripped a sharpened pencil in her fist like a stiletto from Herrenvolk. "Christ, Teresa, you're one to talk about Chelsea being paranoid," Jack grinned. "This is Mary, second cousin of Cindy. Mary, Melissa-" he pointed to a short Asian woman across from Teresa, "Chelsea-" the blonde female version of Langly, "Stella-" the Melissa Scully lookalike, "and of you recognize Teresa." She grinned and put down the pencil. "Sorry. I got a little carried away." "Colony on the brain again, Teresa?" Stella smiled, getting a chair for Mary. "Talitha Cumi. I was wishing for that healing crap the bounty hunter did on Mrs. Mulder." "I wish he'd left well enough alone. She's a bitch," Stella whined. "She's as bad as that Phoebe character." "Ugh, *hate* her," Mary groaned. "Wouldn't want to date her," Jack finished. "Oh, have you seen the amount of slasher fanfic about that episode?" Mary pointed out. "Which one?" "Syzyrgy." "Oh yeah. Sickening." "How about all those NC-17 vignettes on Emily?" Chelsea suggested. "Gag me with a spoon," Stella grimaced. "Can't the shippers get it through their heads? They're not going to be romantically involved. They never will be. Get over it." "Love stinks," Teresa said mournfully. "Love stinks," they agreed. A momentary lull settled over the table of X-philes. In the interim, they faintly heard the wedding singer dispiritedly singing about love and marriage. "What's his problem?" Melissa asked. "I heard he was supposed to get married last week, but his bride jilted him at the altar," Teresa supplied. "Shit. What's he doing back at work?" "Beats me. Must be depressing as hell." $%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$% "So . . . Scott and Cindy are newly-weds." The singer spat out "newly- weds" as though it was a curse. "Yup, it was definitely a mistake to come back to work," Mary said softly. "Some of us are never going to find love. Like this guy over here who's gonna have a heart attack if we don't cut the cake soon. And sideburn lady over there at Table 13, and all the mutants at Table 9. . ." Mary felt her face grow hot as she realized he was referring to their impromptu X-Files Noromo Convention. "We're mutants and proud of it!" Stella said quietly. The wedding singer appeared not to hear, since someone else had shouted "You're the worst wedding singer I've ever heard!" "Sir, one more outburst out of you and I will strangle you with this microphone cord," the singer said curtly in his direction. He began another angst-ridden song. "He loves her, but she loves him. And he loves her, who loves that guy over there. And so it goes 'till the day you die. This thing called love is going to make you cry "I hate you!" I've got the blues, the wedding day blues. . . " "This is sounding like a romance angst vignette from Small Potatoes," Mary heard Jack whisper. "And I've got one thing to say. . ." The singer stuck his microphone in the fat man's face. "Uh, love stinks?" "LOVE STINKS! Yeah, yeah. . ." "Love stinks!" "Sideburn-lady" called out. "Yeah, yeah. . ." "LOVE STINKS!" the noromos called out in unison. The singer looked over in surprise, causing the group to burst out laughing. But before the singer could say anything else, somebody threw a punch at his head, and the wedding broke out in pandemonium. Mary, Jack, Chelsea, Teresa, Melissa, and Stella slipped away before anyone else could see them. $%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$% Since nobody was around to stop them, they escaped into the hall again to discuss their least favorite shipper sites and slasher fanfic. They talked for nearly an hour. When they came back to earth, they realized the wedding had broken up. Scott and Cindy had escaped, as had the guests. Everyone but the singer, now sporting a black eye, and the blonde waitress was gone. "Oh, come on, sing it for me," she pleaded teasingly. "It's no good," the singer protested. "I wrote half of it with Linda and half of it post-wedding." "Pleeeeeeaaaasse," she pleaded. The singer objected for a few more seconds, then finally gave in. After messing around with the electric guitar on the amps, miraculously untouched after the brawl, he began singing something about love and how he was the happiest guy on earth, blah de blah. Then abruptly he switched gears: "But it was all bullshit It was a god-damn joke And when I think of you, Linda, I hope you fucking choke!" "Ouch," Stella murmured. "I pity this Linda." "I lie in bed alone all day Feeling melancholy Tears running down My face constantly Won't somebody kill me, please! Won't somebody kill me, please! I'm on my knees, pretty, pretty please Baby, put a bullet in my head!" Abruptly he put down the guitar and a sob wrenched itself out of his throat. The waitress seemed as uncomfortable as Mary felt. "Definitely a romance angst vignette," Melissa muttered. "Let's get out of here. This is giving me the creeps," Stella suggested. As they walked out, exchanging E-mail addresses, Mary gave a last battle cry of the Mutants of Table Nine: "LOVE STINKS!!!!" $%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$% "You print this stuff, huh?" G-man #1, "You Can't Take It With You" "Denial of the truth never stopped it from being true." Doc Brown (*don't *ask*) Due to circumstances beyond my control, I cannot receive feedback. Please do not send it. Sorry.