Title: In the usual way (inches a year)
Author: Sarken (sarken@gmail.com)
Rating: G
Disclaimer: No infringement intended, copyright violation subject to interpretation, see murky laws for details. (It's all yours, CC. Except for what's Fox's.)
Author's note: Post-"The Truth."
---
They stand under the drugstore's fluorescent lights, Mulder staring at her as she studies boxes of hair color. He never knew there were so many choices, that it was more complicated than red, blonde, brown, or black. He picks up a shade of blonde that the box insists is the color of starlight, and Scully shakes her head.
"Fourteen," she says. "I had carrot orange hair for a week. My father was furious."
He returns the box to the shelf and tries to imagine her at fourteen, hiding freckles with her big sister's make-up, trying to be someone else.
She keeps staring at the locks of hair that are pinned to the shelf, and, occasionally, she reaches out to touch one and examine it closer. The samples, beautiful and lifeless, remind him of dead butterflies, and Mulder starts to feel uncomfortable, impatient, as Scully fingers a strand of dark brown hair. He wants a reason to walk away, to occupy himself in another aisle, but he knows this is the last item on their shopping list. He's already holding the contents of an entire medicine cabinet in a little red shopping basket. There are razors and Band-Aids, Q-Tips and contact lens cleaner, condoms and toothbrushes. Everything had required discussion: what brand do you usually buy; I'll compromise here if you'll compromise there.
He hears the rattle as she takes a box from the shelf, and then a rustle as she sets it in the basket. He wonders what's in the box that makes it so noisy, but she's leading him to the checkout before he can ask.
-
He takes the box from the wastebasket while she's in the bathroom. Dark Ash Blonde 10, it says in the upper left corner. The panel on the left side contrasts current color with predicted results, but it only covers from medium blonde to light brown. There's no red or black, and Mulder wonders how he knows more about hair color than Clairol.
Stay within one or two shades of your natural color, the instructions advise. Not recommended for use on red hair or hair that's more than fifty percent grey.
Hair color wasn't made with the fugitive in mind, Mulder realizes, and he vows not to tease her if her hair comes out orange.
He drops the box back into the trash just as he hears Scully's hand touch the bathroom doorknob. The knob jingles when it turns, and Mulder breathes in sharply. When the door opens, he can smell the heavy fragrance of flowers and spices that doesn't quite cover the chemical scent of peroxide and ammonia.
Slowly, he exhales and looks up at her.
A hint of her natural red warms the cool ash he saw on the box, but it's disorienting to see her this way. Her skin looks darker and her eyes warmer, and he can't believe this is Scully. Carrot orange would have been less startling.
She says nothing to him, no what do you think or how do you like it, and he doesn't know if he should say anything, or if he's supposed to pretend not to notice.
"How's the water pressure in this joint?" he asks instead.
-
He wakes up with his face buried in blonde hair, and he has a moment of panic before he remembers drugstore lights and Natural Instincts. The clock radio's display says it's just after six, so he slides out of bed and dresses for a morning jog.
He gets halfway out the door before turning back, walking quietly to her side of the bed. He can't see her face beneath all that dark ash blonde, so he tucks her hair behind her ear, smiling when he sees her drooling on the pillow. Satisfied that this is Scully, that this is really happening, he heads out the door, the room key tucked inside his pocket.
-
"It rained last night," he says, letting himself inside. He can hear Scully moving around in the bathroom, brushing her teeth with the Colgate toothpaste she hates. She fought him over it for ten minutes and finally told him to do whatever he wanted. He thought it was a victory until they made it to the hair care aisle, where she picked a pink shampoo that with a flowery scent, and told him it was good for chemically treated hair.
"Here?" she says around her toothbrush. "In New Mexico?"
"Why not?" he says, sitting on the bed and kicking off his waterlogged shoes. For the last half mile, they squished and squeaked with every step, and he felt like that character from Rugrats, the one with Saturn on his shirt. "It does rain here, you know. The annual rainfall is almost fourteen inches."
He hears her spit out the toothpaste and turn on the water, both with more force than necessary. "I'm not going to ask how you know that," she says.
He grins to himself. "I stopped to get us breakfast, and some old duffer at the diner insisted on telling me all about New Mexico. La Tierra del Encanto, they call it."
He expects some sort of admonishment about needing to have respect for his elders, but Scully turns off the tap and steps out of the bathroom. Leaning against the doorjamb, she says, "You brought food?"
"Sí," he says, holding up a rumpled paper bag. He knows that breakfast is the way to her heart, even on the days when breakfast is just a cup of scalded black coffee.
When she joins him on the bed, he kisses the corner of her mouth and pulls back, smiling.
"What?" she asks, reaching for the paper bag.
"Toothpaste," he answers.
:end: