From: Lyle Bontrager Send reply to: lbontger@wmcstations.com Hey! It's the One-Sipper! All my thanx to Nessie, for coming up with that game. Very mug. And thanx to Melissa, for actually liking the idea, and the challenge. I'm looking forward to yours, Meliss! Title: One-Sipper (1/1) Author: RocketMan Oh forget it. Consider it disclaimed. O'Riley's 11:54 p.m. "Miss? Miss? You're gonna have to leave now. It's closing time." the bartender said, looking at her strangely. "Yeah, I know. I'm waiting for my brother. He's driving and he went to the bathroom a minute ago." Special Agent Dana Scully said. The man shook his head. "No, ma'am, no one's in there. I just checked to make sure no one was barfing in my toilets." Scully frowned. "No. He's in there, you must not have checked very well." The bartender knew how to do his job and he didn't need some woman with a high society air about her telling him that he was wrong. "Ma'am, you can go check if you like, but no one's there." Scully did just that and found an empty bathroom. And also found that her brother's car was gone and she had no way of getting home. Bill had all the money and the car and she was just a little drunk, so that her mind was kind of spinning and she couldn't think too clearly and why was the room shaking just a little? "Miss? You wanna use the phone to call your brother? Sometimes people forget things." "People? You can forget people?" she said, feeling her tongue slide awkwardly over the roof of her mouth. No, she wasn't calling Bill. That would be weakness. He had probably left her on purpose, to remind her how much she needed her family and not Mulder, and she couldn't call him now, like a lost little girl, sounding stupid because she was a little bit tipsy.... Mulder. Mulder could come get her. He never slept anyway. And if he even tried joking about it come Monday, she would ram his ugly tie down his throat. Mulder's apartment 12:00 a.m. Through the light filtering in from the street lamps Mulder's form looked alien in his bed, a rare change of habit for him. Because his nightmares had grown to include one of his couch eating him alive, he had been forced to relocate for the duration; the fear when he woke up on his couch after such a dream was enough to outwiegh even the best comfort derived from the green leather couch. His bedroom consisted of dirty clothes, washed clothes, old case files that had led to nowhere, posters similiar to the ones in his office and newspaper clippings of sightings across the globe. He also had hung a grey alien head he had gotten as a Christmas present from Frohike on his bedpost. It was propped right next to the flavorless chewing gum that had managed to devolop life of its own on the bedpost. His fish, dead about three months, gave the room an odd smell, one matching the odor in the living room near his other fish tank. The phone rang shrilly and Mulder jumped in his bed, disoriented for a moment, and grabbed it before it could throb in his eardrum again. "Uhh...Mulder." "It's me. Were you asleep?" "Depends on how you define sleep." Scully frowned over the phoneline and Mulder could almost feel it. "Oh...Um, I was wondering if you could pick me up?" she said, and wondered if her words had come out the right way. "Pick up line, or pick up from a place?" "Place...Uh...O'Riley's" "Are you drunk!?" he asked increduously. "NO!" She groaned and he smiled. "Oh yeah you are!" "Mulder...just come pick me up." "Scully, what happened to designated drivers?" "That's now become you, Mulder, so get over here." "Yes, ma'am." She hung up and he laughed in the silence of his room, seeing for the first time that his fish had died. The fish's name was Nora, and it was bright green and one of his favorites. He frowned and tapped the top. Maybe she was just sleeping? Nope, definitely dead. He'd have to get a replacement. O'Riley's 12:02 a.m. "Here you go, miss, just drink this and I'm sure you'll feel better." came the bartender's voice, gentle now that he could see her so weak and helpless. She sipped the scalding coffee in gratitude and smiled at him, glad of the wake-up to her system. The bartender then placed a bowl of sunflower seeds in front of her. "Eat a few of these. They're supposed to cure hangovers, or at least not make them so bad." Scully laughed out loud and thought of all the times she'd seen Mulder with those seeds. Had he been hung over the entire time? She ate a few and then rushed to the bathroom, despite the bartender pleading for her not to throw up in his clean toilets. She did anyway and made an enemy for life. She went back to the bar and laid her head down on the smooth wood, wiped clean by the almost obssessive-compulsive bartender. She closed her eyes while waiting for Mulder and felt her mind begin to drift. Too much alcohol always made her sleepy...so sleepy.... Then the door banged open and light poured through, intense bright white light that pried at her eyelids. The bartender screamed something about not getting his freshly polished floor dirty and she couldn't hear past that. Then a woman came to her, dressed Amishly, in a long black, homespun dress, the collar looking as if it were choking her, and her feet not even showing. Dana tried to move, to get away because for some reason the woman was bad and the light was bad, but her fuzzy brain couldn't process quickly enough. She realized the woman was Marita, Mulder's contact at the ....the....whatever the hell that place was called, and that she was pulling her to the light. She was under the light and trapped in it and she looked up and saw metal, glowing and shiny and seamless, with lights and windows interspersed between the birghtness and she realized that it was a U.F.O. and holy..... There was a little man, smaller than her, and grey with the same odd head shape that the people in the leper colony'd had and she was talking with him, asking him to let her go back and get some more things before she left, namely Mulder because he would never believe this, never.... Mulder jerked her awake and she screamed. He immediatley pulled her into his arms, unthinkingly, only knowing that she was frightened and had screamed for Pete's sake.... and he was holding her, hugging her to his chest to dispel the bad images and she was about to cry in his arms because it felt so good to be safe for once.... "Thanks for coming Mulder," she said, her voice a bit muffled. She pulled back and he gave her a small smile. "No problem. Nothing I wouldn't do for a beautiful woman." he said and she had the funny feeling he was drop dead serious. "So, hot date leave you?" She slapped him. He looked at her in utter surprise and said, "What was that for?" She was drunk, oh she definitely knew it know. "You complimented me one instant and ... and...and teased me the next. Why should you care why I'm here?" Yeah, Mulder thought, she's definitely drunk. "Maybe because I'm picking you up, that's why I care. I do care about you Scully." He switches unconsciously to puppy dog face and she melts, even through the haze of alcohol. "Sorry......I just.....I don't feel too good." she said and wanted to fall back in his arms. "Scully, why don't I just take you back to my place and you can explain if you want on the way there, okay?" She nodded, too incredibly sleepy to offer much in the way of protest. They made it back to his apartment, since it was close to O'Riley's anyway and he carried her in to his living room, gently depositing her on the couch. She was fighting sleep and he wasn't helping. So she told him what had happened, how Bill had left her and she kind of went off on him for awhile before getting back to her story and when she finished she was all confused again. It took way too much energy to speak she realized, but she had to make sure she wasn't inconvienancing him. "Mulder, I know you sleep on the couch, so I don't want to impose. I'll just sit in the chair until I can drive again-" "Nope, unh-uh. You sleep in my bed and I'll sleep on the couch and I'll drive you to your house tomorrow morning and we can get your stuff." She was confused again and he could see it, so he picked her up and settled her in his bed. "I didn't realize you had a bedroom, Mulder."she mumbled. He gave her a quirky look and tucked her in. Skinner's house 12:23 a.m. A.D. Skinner felt bad for spying on his agents, but sometimes they did things he needed to know about and check up on. And Fox Mulder was a prime example of someone who needed checking up on. So when he heard the phone ring and then later, Mulder come in with Scully, he had listened intently, thinking he was finally, horribly, going to catch Mr. and Mrs. Spooky in the act. He let out a huge grin of relief when Mulder really did go back to the couch, leaving Scully alone. Skinner went back to bed and slept soundly. Mulder's apartment 1:35 a.m. Mulder screamed and jerked awake only to realize he wasn't awake, his couch was slowly sucking hm down, eating him alive and he couldn't get away, he couldn't escape it. No. No. It was only a dream. His couch was there and being friendly and.....was that a slight ripple in the green leather? A bit of laughter at his foolishness? Here he was back on the couch, where it could stick to him once again, trap him and suck him into its hungry belly..... Mulder dashed for his bedroom and the comfort of Scully. She was sitting up, staring at him wild-eyed, as if he was nuts. He sank to his knees beside her and explained his dream, his limbs still quaking with the realness it had been to him. Scully thought he looked like a little boy telling momma all about the monsters living under his bed. Scully took pity on him and scooted over to allow him in the bed, his warmth eagerly accepted. "Mulder," she said, her thinking still screwed by the alcohol. "Maybe your couch is possessed by demons or something and that's why you're dreaming about the couch eating you alive." Mulder looked at her for a moment and then felt her forehead. She had a fever alright. He sighed and realized it was only the drunkeness talking. But he snuggled closer to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Thanks, Scully." he whispered. She was already asleep again. Wasn't that great? And totally out of character? Here's the qualifications in order of appearance. (I'm stretching some things a bit to fit. Please consider the grey alien as a person smaller than Scully.=-) 1. Scully gets drunk 2.We see Mulder asleep. 3. We see Mulder's bedroom. 4. We see Mulder's fish. (Nora!) 5. Scully eats sunflower seeds. 6. Scully laughs out loud. (Actually you may have to switch 5&6) 7. Uniblonder wears something completely conservative. 8. Scully sees a U.F.O. 9. Scully speaks to adult shorter than her. (Alien was an adult.) 10. Scully screams. 11. Mulder hugs Scully in a public place. 12. Mulder comments on Scully's appearance. 13. Scully slaps Mulder. 14. Mulder shows good taste in women. (He got Scully didn't he?) 15. Skinner smiles. 16. Scully had paranormal theory. 17. Mulder and Scully sleep together. (Totally platonic, I know, but all my XF instincts were screaming at me already for writing humor, and I couldn't ignore them when it came to that. Sorry.) Adios RocketMan So who's doing Two-Sipper?