"7-Eleven Nightmares at 3 a.m."
By Viridian5
5/6/99

RATING: PG
SPOILERS: the alien oil episodes, "Travelers"
SUMMARY: Insomnia as an altered state of consciousness.
DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com.
DISCLAIMERS: All things X-Files belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions, and 20th Century Fox. Briefly mentions "I Wanna Be Sedated" by the Ramones. No infringement intended. Suing me would be a waste of time.
NOTES: I hallucinate when I'm overtired.
Another story inspired by a line from "Nutopia" by Pigface.
Thanks to Amanda and Small Woodinat Creature for advice and encouragement.

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"7-Eleven Nightmares at 3 a.m."
By Viridian5
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Mulder was surprised his whole head didn't get devoured in his last yawn, which felt like it had split his face. //If I were a cartoon character...//

Towns like this seemed to have been designed to make people realize that city life wasn't so bad after all. You knew you were in for it when signs for the exit on the highway warned that it had no facilities: no gas stations or restaurants. It certainly didn't have anything so civilized as a 24-hour diner or even a Denny's. Through sheer luck and desperation, Mulder had found a 7-Eleven forty miles away. Not much distance at all, as natives reckoned it.

It didn't surprise Mulder that a serial killer could live here. It surprised him that more citizens here didn't get driven to it.

The case could be an X-File or a serial killer on the loose, and the last possibility had made certain people ever so thrilled that he'd agreed to come in to investigate. Being this accommodating and helpful could ruin his rep. If they hoped he'd continue like this, they were going to give him a hell of a lot of entertainment when he told them otherwise.

His body screamed for coffee. He currently had that particular kind of insomnia that made it impossible to sleep but left your body feeling drained and tired. Like hell he was going to be awake but too brain-numbed tired to get anything done. He could work through the case and build further evidence that insomniacs actually touched a different world that everyone else didn't know existed.

He found caffeine, his drug of choice, in its almost pure form in a pot of pitch-black sludge that was probably concentrated enough to run an airplane engine. But what could you expect at 3 a.m. in the middle of nowhere? Chain-smoking and coffee sludge used to get him through nights like this, even if they had made him a profiler cliche. He wasn't sure if he'd quit the more unhealthy one of the two.

Mulder took in the blinding white fluorescent light, Muzak, and beef jerky around him with a smile. No matter how much the rest of the world changed, convenience stores were reassuringly the same across the country. Crappy yes, but comforting in their contemptible familiarity.

The store was empty but for him and the very bored looking cashier. Mulder had briefly considered waking up Scully for company but decided it would have been too cruel, especially since one of his ways to get through was by singing punk rock songs. Well, sort of singing. He thought he sang about as well as the original artists...

//Twenny, twenny, twenny-four hours agoooooo, I wanna be sedated...//

Scalding heat on his hand brought Mulder's mind back, and he dropped the cup. As he sucked on his thumb, wryly pondering lawsuits, he watched the sludge slowly congeal together and start to flow toward him. The black fluid shone dully under the white fluorescent lights as it moved with a kind of intelligence...

"Jesus, mister, it's just coffee!" the cashier shouted, with a note of panic. That was when Mulder realized he was crouching on top of the counter parallel with his gun drawn, for all the good it would have done if the sludge really had been the oil.

His heart still pounding, Mulder watched the coffee drip down the other counter just the way thick coffee would and said, "Yeah, it is." He put his gun away, wondering whether it would make the situation better or worse if he revealed that he was armed because he was an FBI agent, then decided that could only make the cashier more likely to join a militia in this case. "I'm thinking that maybe I don't need the caffeine after all."

**********************THE END***********************