Author: Ann Rivers e mail ann.rivers@virgin.net
Summary: Christmas with Mulder, Scully and The Lone Gunmen. And too much egg nog…
Rating: ES for extremely silly.
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions.
No infringement of copyright is intended. Don’t worry, Mr C, you’ll get them back after Christmas, complete with fresh batteries…!!
Feedback; always welcome… but please guys, no more mince pies…and definitely no egg nog…



GOD REST YE MERRY GUNMEN

This was too surreal, even for him. UFO’s, out of body experiences, all the instances of the paranormal that he’d ever investigated, couldn’t hold a candle to this… He was in a Nativity play. He, Special Agent Fox Mulder of the FBI, was lying on a bale of hay, taking centre stage in a Nativity scene amidst a crowd of incredibly life like wax figures. And, needless to say, no Nativity scene involving Fox Mulder could be classed as normal, could it…? Oh, no…

For a start, a distinctly familiar King Herod had somehow managed to sneak into the proceedings.

Standing on his own in the furthest, darkest corner of the stable, smoking a cigarette of all things…

Jeez, the idiot was smoking ! In a barn full of hay and wax figures ! What, was he crazy…? Trying to recall where he’d seen that face before, not to mention work out how he could be seeing something a clear five hundred years ahead of its time, Mulder shifted his gaze to his other side – and found five more familiar yet annoyingly difficult to place faces staring curiously down at him. A red haired Virgin Mary, radiating concern. A tall, stern faced Joseph in round, wire rimmed glasses. And as for the Three Wise Men… well, they had to be the geekiest, freakiest Wise Men he’d ever seen. One was in combat trousers, the second in a ratty T shirt… and the third was in a three piece SUIT…!

Still, at least he had the traditional Wise Men beard…

“Oh, boy…” Mulder groaned, screwing up his eyes. “What the hell was in that egg nog…?”

Not that he was expecting any reply from the waxen figures around him. But reply there came. “Mulder…?” It was the red haired Virgin Mary who had spoken. Now she was shaking him with a most unvirgin like firmness. “Mulder, can you hear me…? Mulder ! Come on, snap out of it !”

“Yeah, that ought to do it…” Now Joseph was getting in on the act as well, rolling his eyes in what appeared to be much practised disapproval.

The red haired Virgin Mary glared up at him before casting an equally glacial look towards to where two of the wise Men had broken out in vainly stifled laughter. The third, truly wise as he was, maintained a serious, sensible silence.

“Okay, you two supposedly wise men… how about helping me to get him into a chair…?” Chair…? Mulder thought, feeling somewhat peeved as he felt himself being gently lifted and carried away from what had admittedly been a surprisingly hard manger. Feeling himself being lowered down onto a far more comfortable couch, he grinned in drowsy approval, his previous objections forgotten. Oh yes, this was more like it… much more snug and comfy. Now, if the Virgin Mary and two of the three Wise Men could just stop arguing long enough to let him go back to sleep…

What were they arguing about now…? Icy steps and egg nog…?

Intrigued, Mulder eased his eyes open again, trying to make sense of the continuing argument. A new puzzle now joined the mystery of icy steps and egg nog. Where had Joseph disappeared off to…?

And what was he doing lying here with a bag of crushed ice on his head…?

In fact it was coming back to him now – albeit painfully and slowly. Following the office Christmas do, he and Scully had gone on to the Lone Gunmen offices to give Byers, Langly and Frohike their presents. It was then that Fox Mulder had learned two painful lessons.

Firstly, egg nog was pretty potent stuff. And secondly, icy steps and egg nog did not mix… The last thing he remembered was his foot hitting a patch of hidden ice. Then steps. Lots of steps… And the discovery that bouncing down steps tended to hurt, regardless of pain numbing egg nog. And now his egg nog addled subconscious had Scully as the Virgin Mary. Skinner as Joseph. Cancer Man as Herod. And instead of the three Wise Men…

Mulder groaned and closed his eyes – as though this would somehow bring his rioting imagination back into at least some realm of reality.

No such luck. They were still there when he opened his eyes again, studying him in curious concern - resplendent in all their tea towel headed glory.

Well, Byers at least looked resplendent. Damn it, even his imaginary tea towel head dress was an exact match for his suit and tie.

Frohike and Langly, meanwhile, were now happily depleting what had once been a full bowl of egg nog.

They were arguing too. As usual.

“You know the best cure for an egg nog hangover…?” Frohike was saying, well on the way to needing one himself as he drained his glass in one long swallow – his gnome like face enhanced still more by a rather fetching egg nog moustache. “Hair of the dog…” he went on, happily refilling his glass while Byers stared at him in wide eyed disbelief. “Yep, works every time…”

Having seen what it had done to Mulder, not to mention what it was now doing to Frohike and Langly, Byers was now studying his brimming glass of potently alcoholic egg nog with deep suspicion. “Yeah, I… er… think I’ll just take your word for it…” he murmured, surreptitiously emptying his as yet untouched glass back into the bowl before exchanging it for another straight and sensible glass of milk – meeting Scully’s approving wink with a shyly appreciative smile.

Langly was also expressing doubt over Frohike’s claim.

As far as Scully, Byers and Frohike were concerned, he was simply shaking his head in disagreement.

In the eyes of a still dazed Mulder, though, this action caused several locks of straggly blond hair to fall free of his tea towel head dress.

Somewhere through the haze of semi awareness, Mulder heard himself giggle. True, he was still aching and shaken by the fall he’d taken, but this was undoubtedly the best thing he’d see this Christmas.

Even so, Langly’s theory for curing his hangover left a lot to be desired…

“No, what he needs is a quick blast of the Ramones on my personal stereo…” Langly was saying, grinning confidently back at two decidedly sceptical companions. “Hey, trust me, guys, there’s no better way to clear those morning after cobwebs…”

In the true spirit of Christmas, Langly removed the stereo’s headphones from around his neck and offered the somewhat battered unit to a wide eyed Mulder with a final piece of Langly-esque advice. “Go wild, man… let your hair down…”

With a timing that stand up comics would have killed for, Mulder watched the rest of Langly’s hair fall down from its tea towel prison and promptly dissolved into hysterics of helpless laughter – totally oblivious to the concerned, puzzled looks which this outburst of giggles brought from the others. “Sounds like he’s coming out of it…” Frohike said, tiddly enough himself now to start giggling too.

“Not if he knows what’s good for him, he won’t…” Scully growled from where she now sat at Mulder’s shoulder, foraging through the hair on the back of his head for sign of injury while casting her blissfully out of it partner a glare of long suffering disapproval.

“Actually, the best thing for Mulder when he’s recovered enough would be a glass of milk…” Byers chipped in – blushing to pretty much the same redness as his beard as Frohike and Langly stopped laughing and stared at him in mute disbelief.

“Milk…?” they echoed, exchanging deeply sceptical glances.

Even Mulder was staring up at him in bleary eyed curiosity, wondering where on Earth – or off it – a carton of milk figured in the story of the Three Wise Men.

Regardless of such obvious cynicism, Byers nodded earnestly – finding refuge where he always did when faced with scorning doubters. Safe behind the fullest, most detailed answer he could think of.

“Oh, yes. Milk is an alkaline substance, you see. And any substance that is alkaline based not only lines and protects the stomach, it also encourages the dispersal of excess alcohol… in fact, it’s often been suggested that anyone who, er… well, enjoys a drink or two at a party or wedding or whatever should drink up to a pint of milk beforehand to… er… well, to avoid this sort of situation from happening…” he finished somewhat absently, pausing to study the happily orbiting Mulder with an odd combination of amusement, awkwardness and concern before gazing reflectively into his glass as though seeking further inspiration.

Judging by the looks which were now being exchanged, Frohike and Langly were clearly unconvinced. Byers frowned while still contemplating. Maybe he needed to read up a bit more on human biology…

In the eyes of Fox Mulder, however, the story of the Three Wise Men and their respective gifts now took another sublimely surreal twist as Frohike prodded the carton of milk which Byers was holding.

Or, as Mulder now saw it, a box filled to the brim with glinting gold nuggets.

“You sure it’s just milk in there, Byers…?” Frohike asked, a grin ridding the tease of any offence.

“Sure you haven’t got a medical dictionary tucked in there as well…?”

“I thought he was bringing the gold…” Langly chimed in – left visibly stunned, as was Mulder, to find that his bottle of frankincense had somehow turned into a brimming glass of egg nog.

“Cool…!” he enthused, all further protests forgotten as he promptly and happily drained the glass.

“No dictionary, just a sprig of mistletoe stuck to the carton…” a somewhat distracted Byers replied, wondering how best to check this unexpected gift of Christmas goodwill from Vale Farm Dairies for unexpected modifications. Twenty dollar bills were a doddle, of course, but sprigs of mistletoe…?

This needed serious thought. Carton of mind refreshing milk in one hand and magnifier in the other, Byers curled himself up in his favourite armchair and set to work – aided and aggravated in equal measure by his two mischievously grinning colleagues.

This was too much, even for Mulder. The Government had now resorted to bugging mistletoe ?

Hell, not even he was that paranoid….

Fervently vowing that he would never, ever touch egg nog again, he closed his eyes with a plaintive groan and prayed for salvation.

“Oh God, if this is a nightmare, then will someone please wake me up…?”

If he was hoping for sympathy from Scully then those hopes were fruitless. That sympathy was destined for someone else.

Byers was still happily engrossed in his task, and so was seemingly oblivious to the bunny ears which Frohike and Langly were now practising behind his head.

Trying hard not to smile at such shenanigans, Scully still felt that two against one was just a tad unfair and now jumped to Byers’ rescue.

“Actually, Frohike, Byers’ suggestion has more truth in it than you think…” she said, hard pressed to contain her laughter as Byers glanced up from his work and grinned at her before mouthing a heartfelt ‘Thank you. I was on the verge of committing milkicide on them…’

Although death by milk had been averted, Byers wasn’t about to let his tormentors entirely off the hook.

Winking at Scully, he rose from his chair and, making a greatly exaggerated show of flexing his fingers, walked round it until he stood behind and between the now decidedly wary Langly and Frohike.

Smiling benignly, he then placed a hand on each nearest shoulder, and…

Now it was Scully’s turn to dissolve into helpless laughter. John Fitzgerald Byers, it seemed, not only had eyes in the back of his head, he was also rather good at playing bunny ears as well. Still enjoying Frohike and Langly’s slightly chagrined grins of chastisement, she eventually went on, “Oh yes, it has been medically recommended that drinking a pint of milk before you hit the egg nog can actually reduce the hangover afterwards… sometimes it prevents the hangover completely…” While she’d been speaking, she had been upending a bottle of iodine onto a pad of cotton wool while studying the now blissfully dozing Mulder with a very mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Of course…” she continued, beaming sweetly at each Gunman in turn before casting her partner another devilish grin of anticipation, “I’ve often found that a liberal hit of undiluted, good old iodine does the job just as well…”

Byers, Langly and Frohike traded slightly startled glances before turning back to regard the unsuspecting Mulder with varying degrees of sympathy.

Mulder didn’t know what was about to hit him.

The Gunmen did, though – all three stepping smartly backwards in readiness for the coming explosion.

Still grinning, Scully made her move.

So did Mulder – a clear three feet towards the ceiling.

“Yeeow…!”

“We have lift off…” Frohike observed, watching Mulder’s return to the land of the reasonably cognizant with unrestrained, sadistic glee while Langly almost collapsed in hysterics of laughter.

Even Byers was finding it impossible to keep his face entirely straight – the expression of total shock on Mulder’s face soon proving too much for him as well.

“Ooh, that had to smart…!” he muttered, his apparent show of sympathy not exactly helped by the fact that he too was now bent double with laughter.

Slowly recovering, Mulder glared back at three now totally insensible Gunmen before turning somewhat plaintive eyes towards a still somehow more or less straight faced Scully.

“Jeez, Scully, what did you do that for…?” he asked with what was, to him at least, fully justified indignation.

For once immune to that melting little boy look (only just, though) Scully just folded her arms and regarded her partner with as stern an expression as her own amusement would allow.

“Well, Mulder, you were muttering something about having this awful nightmare and could someone please wake you from it…” she replied, all highly dubious innocence. Unable to contain it any longer, she then grinned broadly back at him while shrugging her shoulders. “So I did…”

For a full ten seconds, Mulder stared up at his sweetly smiling partner in dumbstruck astonishment.

Then he shook his head, ruefully wondering how anyone so petite and delicately lovely could harbour such outright sadism. And a medical doctor at that. Jeez, so much for bedside manners… He was just about to voice this point to Scully. But then he saw that she was still holding that wretched bottle of iodine and wisely changed his mind.

“So, Mulder, what was this terrifying nightmare about…?” Frohike asked at last, still laughing at the priceless expression on Mulder’s face.

Before he could reply, though, Langly chipped in with his own highly suspect theory. “Let me guess, Mulder… Santa Claus stepped out of a UFO and told you he was an alien…”

Recovered enough now to give back as good as he got, Mulder grinned wickedly back at him. “Aw, gee, Langly, I’m crushed… you mean to tell me that he isn’t…?” he asked, plaintive to perfection. Enjoying the ruefully sarcastic face which Langly pulled in response, he then carefully sat up – all further thoughts of retaliation lost in amused curiosity as he watched Byers settle back into his chair. Just what was it that he found so fascinating about a piece of mistletoe…?

“Okay, Byers, I’ll bite…” he said at last after several quizzically prompting glances had failed to catch Byers’ attention. “Just what are you doing with that piece of mistletoe…?”

“Yeah, come on, Byers… you’re starting to worry us…” Langly agreed, always happy to join in with some good natured leg pulling.

”Here, I’ll show you how you should be using it…” Frohike chipped in, grinning hopefully at Scully – that hope then wilting under the weight of a look which could have halted a grizzly bear in its tracks, let alone a five foot four inch tall Gunman.

Realising there was no other way to avoid further leg pulling at his expense than to do some of his own, Byers looked up at his three tormentors with wide, guileless eyes.

“Just checking it for bugs… you know, aphids and greenfly, that sort of thing…” he replied innocently, affecting great surprise that none of them had thought of this themselves. As they continued to stare, Byers caught sight of Scully fighting to keep her face straight and grinned back at her before, mission accomplished, he returned to his task unpestered and unchallenged.

Mulder, however, had other ideas.

“Jeez, Byers, what kind of Christmas Eve game is that…?” he asked, rummaging through a variety of boxed games on the floor beside him – finally holding one of them up with a suitably dramatic flourish and a triumphant if slightly spaced out grin. “I mean, come on ! Debugging mistletoe against the incomparable and irresistible Twister…?”

“Yay, Twister…!” Langly enthused, exchanging what was a truly high spirited high five with Mulder while Frohike added his own vote of approval as he and Langly hauled the startled Byers out of his chair.

“Yeah, way to go, Mulder… no better way to break the ice than a nice and intimate game of Twister…” he agreed, chancing another hopeful grin toward a distinctly unenthusiastic Scully.

Watching them fumble over each other to set the game up, Scully just sighed and shook her head.

Then she looked across at Byers. Byers looked back at her with the same resigned expression on his face.

Both then raised their eyes heavenward.

“I think I preferred it when he was unconscious…” Byers muttered, resignedly removing his suit jacket and folding it neatly across the back of his chair. Under Scully’s amused, quietly admiring gaze, his waistcoat and tie followed, both folded in the same meticulous manner. And never had the top button of an immaculately tailored shirt been unfastened with such deliberating reluctance. Scully grinned up at him in amused sympathy – only to then roll her eyes once more as she caught sight of Frohike’s playfully lustful wink.

“I think that could still be arranged…” she murmured, more than happy though to take Byers’ arm as they stepped bravely into the breach.

Not that she would ever admit to it, of course, but Scully had to agree that collapsing on top of three hysterically giggling Gunmen wasn’t so bad after all – especially when Frohike was safely at the bottom of the pile, no doubt wishing he could trade places with the far more fortunate Byers.

Byers was still blushing as he carefully extricated himself from the tangle of arms and legs below him – pointedly ignoring Frohike’s envious glare as he switched places with Mulder to take his turn on the next all important spin and call.

“Okay, Mulder, you’ve got left foot yellow…” he said a short time later, smiling his thanks as Scully returned from the fridge with a reviving glass of milk.

Until now, each move had been met with varyingly polite responses of “You must be kidding, right…?” or “I’m an FBI agent, guys, not the Rubber Man out of the circus…” as well as the occasional warning of “Move that hand, Frohike, or lose it…”

Now, though, silence and stillness reigned on the Twister mat – causing Byers and Scully to exchange slightly alarmed glances as they took in this surreally peaceful scene.

Then realisation dawned on them, causing both to break out in helpless, hastily stifled laughter. Twister and egg nog had proved to be a heady combination for those unwise enough to combine the two. So much so that Mulder, Langly and Frohike were now lying in a tangled heap on the Twister mat, all three totally out for the count.

“Oh, Scully…” Byers said at last, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes before glancing across at the still helplessly chuckling Scully. “How on Earth do we put up with them…?”

“Probably because no one else could…” Scully retorted, smiling up at him to show that he was excluded from this somewhat dubious honour. Glancing back at Mulder, she then sighed and shook her head.

“Still, as my father always told me, always let sleeping dogs, FBI agents and conspiracy theorists lie…”

Shaking her head again, Scully moved away towards the fridge – a clearly surprised Byers following.

“But Scully… I mean, do you, er, think we should move them so that they’re more comfortable…?” he asked, more serious now as he glanced towards three unnaturally crumpled sleeping bodies. “I mean, come tomorrow morning they’re going to be awfully stiff if they stay down there all night. Maybe we should wake them up and… well, you know, move them into proper beds…”

Scully though was still smiling as she glanced up at him.

“Byers, believe me, they’re fine where they are…” she said gently. “And as for waking them up… well, let’s just say you could have an entire army of invading aliens come crashing through your front door and these three wouldn’t bat an eyelid.” Seeing that Byers still had his doubts, she just grinned. “Besides, with the amount of egg nog they’ve got inside them, I’d imagine they’re so relaxed right now that they could sleep upside down on a trapeze and still be none the worse for it… though of course…” she added impishly, “I imagine that come tomorrow morning…”

“They’ll all fervently vow never to drink egg nog again…” a now wryly smiling Byers finished for her, his expression hovering between concern and smug anticipation for what promised to be a highly entertaining Christmas Day. Leaning against the wall shelf behind him, he spent some moments studying the peaceful if somewhat surreal scene before him, then turned to regard Scully with a regretful smile. “It’s just a shame that none of them will be able to remember this beautiful moment…” he sighed.

“Mm, I imagine tonight will just be a blur…” Scully agreed, nodding her own regretful agreement.

If ever there was a moment in their lives which deserved to be preserved for prosperity, not to mention a chance for Scully to stock up on ammunition for the next fine mess Mulder landed her in, this was it.

And where was her camera ? The same place all cameras seemed to vanish to when they were needed for that once in a lifetime shot. At home.

Never had the phrase ‘Great minds think alike’ been more apt, or more timely thought of, than now as Byers and Scully both turned to study the shelf behind them. In particular, Frohike’s top of the range, always ready for action field camera…

As they turned back to thoughtfully study three perhaps thankfully oblivious friends and colleagues, the same diabolical thought popped into their heads with once more uncanny timing.

Scully looked at Byers.

Byers looked at Scully.

Then both of them grinned…



The End.