************************************************************************** This author's e-mail address has changed to: damienma@netroenterprises.com ************************************************************************** From: Jori Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 13:44:03 -0400 Subject: Medium Spiced Auburn Title: Medium Spiced Auburn Author: Jori Email: DamienMom@aol.com Rated: PG Category: H Spoilers: Very few..XFFTF Summary: A light, fluffy piece where Mulder and Scully get personal...sort of. Disclaimer: I have never owned Mulder or Scully and have no hopes of making money off of them. Rather, 1013 and Fox have made plenty of money off of me (those darn videos, movie, game...I need more!). Do not sue me for all I have to give is my two-year old son and you would probably return him to me in under an hour anyway. Archive it anywhere, just e-mail me first *************************************************************************************. November 20, 1998 8:17 p.m. I had just finished putting the last drop of hair color on my head when I heard the knock on the door. "Damn," I muttered, trying to pull the sticky plastic gloves off my hands without making a mess of my bathroom sink. I wasn't expecting anyone. Wasn't expecting to get 'caught' doing this. I had been coloring my hair now for several years, to cover the gray that had started coming in since...since... working with Mulder. Mulder, who was now standing on the other side of my front door, I discovered, after checking through the peephole. Not that there is anything wrong with hair color. Just the process is so...unattractive. Besides that, I am wearing an orange bathrobe I've had since I was a freshman in college. The one I nabbed from some guy I dated and now used just for messy projects. "Mulder, can you come back in an hour?" I asked through the door, realizing too late how suspicious that sounded. "Dana Katherine Scully, do you have a boy in there, because if you do, I'm going to have to tell your mother, young lady..." "No, Mulder, no 'boys' in here. I'm just....busy right now." "Scully, come on. Let me in. I just sat in traffic behind an accident for two hours to get here. I have something I need to show you." "Mulder, I just need an hour. To get showered and dressed. Besides, why don't you ever call first anymore?" "Scully, I don't care if you're dressed for belly dancing. Just open the door please." I opened the door. He just looked at me. No, stared at me. "This is a new look," he said. "Come in and shut up." He was still dressed in a shirt and tie, and I was wearing a 20 year old bathrobe that once belonged to a teaching assistant named Andrew...or was it Kevin??? Anyway, this is not how I liked people to see me. Especially smart-ass Mulder, who was dying to say something. "I didn't even know..." he started to say, pointing at my head. "First of all, my hairdresser is on vacation for a month. Second, I do it to cover the gray, Mulder. The gray hair caused mainly by YOU." "No need to get nasty, Scully. Why didn't you want to let me in?" he asked, looking around my apartment suspiciously. He walked over to my couch and sat down with a file in his hand. It didn't look like I was getting rid of him soon. "Some things are just personal, Mulder," I said pointing up at my head. "Scully, I've seen you bathing naked in a protoplasmic alien slushie..." I put my hand up, not wanting for him to go on. "Well, I have." We never really discussed how I went from my birthday suit to wearing a layer of his clothing, including socks. I had no recollection of Mulder dressing me, and, although I was grateful, I preferred not to think about it. "Mulder, it's not like I haven't been in many a hospital with you totally out of it wearing..." Now he put his hand up. "I'm not responsible for how I looked when I was unconscious, or frozen...or shot. Anyway, why would you care if I saw you like this?" "I don't know, Mulder. It just takes the..." I almost said it takes the romance out of it. What did I mean by that? Instead, I said, "It takes the mystery out of it." "Mystery?" "You don't need to know everything about me." "Is that it? You want to know something about me...personal? Will that make us even?" "I didn't know we were uneven." "Sometimes I get the world's worst case of jock itch," he said, adjusting himself. I shut my eyes, just glad the word hemorrhoid didn't come up. Even being a medical doctor, there were some things I just didn't need to know about this person I spent my days with. "Mulder, it's just that I don't want to know everything about you. Like I don't need to know what kind of deodorant you use..." "Sure," he said. I looked at him. I wasn't able to tell if he was giving me the brand name or agreeing with me. "Or what kind of mouthwash you use." "Listerine. Minty fresh," he said as he popped his lips. "Or what kind of shampoo you use." "I don't know...something green, I think." I didn't say anything for half a minute. "You use green shampoo?" "Let me guess, Scully. You use Secret deoderant...strong enough for a man, but made for a woman. You use that medicine tasting antiseptic mouthwash. And strawberry shampoo." "I do not use strawberry shampoo!" "Yes, you do." "No, I don't." "Are questioning my profiling abilities?" "No, just your ability to smell strawberries." Mulder backed down for a minute. "Did you ever make it a different color besides your natural color? Like, maybe platinum blonde?" "Mulder, I have never changed the color...how do you know THIS is my natural hair color?" The smile on his face told me not to continue on that topic. Not unless I really wanted to know how I ended up fully dressed sitting in Antarctic snow. "Well, actually, I did try to change it once," I said. "Really?" he said, sounding slightly shocked. He leaned back into my couch again, waiting to find out some dirt from my past. "My rebellious period in high school. I tried to make it jet black." "And what happened?' He was watching me closely. I couldn't tell whether he was trying to picture me with jet black hair or as a platinum blonde from one of his videos. "It ended up being sort of eggplant purple. My dad went through the roof. He wanted the companies that sold hair color to restrict its sale from minors.". He was laughing. Obviously he was now picturing me with purple hair. "You know what kids use now, Scully?" "No. What?" "Black Cherry Kool-Aide." "Doesn't it attract insects?" I asked, wanting to touch the back of my neck. "I don't know...but it washes out if you get caught in the rain." "Mulder, how do you know this?" "I read it in 'Seventeen' magazine." My eyebrows went up. "I just subscribe to it for the articles. No, really, it was one of the magazines in the hospital waiting room...the last time I was at a hospital," he said, shaking his head, trying to remember which occasion this might have been. With the two of us, it could have been yesterday. "Scully?" "Hmm?" "I've seen you through the pit of despair and I've seen you through sickness and near-death. I've seen you lying in hospital beds where you didn't even know I was watching, waiting for you. I've seen you angry and frustrated. I have even seen you happy. Why would you care if I saw you like this?" "I don't know. I guess because there are so few boundaries we haven't crossed. So few things we don't know about each other." "I can name some bigger ones than hair color." "I just would like to think I have a life separate from work." "And I'm work?" he asked, looking slightly hurt. "In a sense..." "If your biggest Friday-night secret outside of work is hair color, Scully, I think we need to work on your personal life some more." "Very funny, Mulder. I'm going to go rinse this off now." "Scully?" "Yes?" "When you get back, we will discuss that bathrobe..." "In your dreams," I said, locking the bathroom door behind me. # # #