Title: War Stories

Author: mimic117

Email: mimic1172@gmail.com

Rating: PG-13 for salty language

Setting: Season 7-ish, oblique references to past episodes

Summary: Sometimes it's hard to make a living.

Beta Thanks: To Jake, for her ever-sharp beta shredder and 
special insight into the dry cleaning business. Thanks, Twinsy!

Special thanks: To Lisa, for the great idea. It just took a 
while for the words to show up.

Archive: Wherever you like. I'll do Gossamer and Ephemeral 
myself, thanks.

Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.

Feedback is printed out, fawned over and stroked to tatters at 
mimic1172@gmail.com

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War Stories
by mimic117


I should be able to clean up in this business.

Old laundromat and dry cleaning joke. It's not as funny as it 
used to be, though. Not since Fox Mulder started bringing his 
clothes here. Man, the stories I could tell about *him*.

I mean, take that bundle he brought in not long after I opened 
this place.

One of his shirts was a total loss. Covered in greenish-yellow, 
sticky stuff that had a whiff of acid, ground into the chest and 
stomach. And the pants were just as bad. It looked like he'd 
been commando-crawling across concrete. I never did figure 
out what the hell that goop was. The way it reacted with the 
dry cleaning chemicals made a couple of the girls sick to their 
stomachs. So I had to tell him that we couldn't save those 
pieces. Funny thing was, he didn't seem the least bit surprised 
or upset. Just said it was okay, and asked how much he owed.

He's always like that. Never complains if we can't get 
something clean, just asks for his total and doesn't whine about 
how much he's paying. 

And I really should be charging him more, considering how long 
we have to work on some of his stuff. Especially that one suit. 
Nice piece of clothing, probably looked really good on him 
before he jumped into a sewer. That's exactly what it smelled 
like -- sewage water! Took us forever to get the stink out, but 
we did. 

Or how about the suit covered in gasoline? That one we didn't 
even try to save. Just tossed it straight into the trash, then 
took the trash outside. We could have blown the place sky high 
from the fumes alone. I can understand how you'd splash 
some gas on a coat sleeve or spill a bit on your pants leg. But 
the whole suit? It was like he'd poured the stuff all over 
himself. He never should have even brought that one in and I 
charged him for disposing of it. Didn't hear a peep of protest 
out of him, though.

He always wants a detailed receipt, too. I usually just give my 
customers a general bill with the total, but the first time he 
came in, he told me to make sure I specify any special cleaning 
that was done. Said he needed it to get reimbursed for clothing 
damage on the job.

Some of his receipts are as long as a week's grocery bill. Cost 
almost as much, too.

What the hell kind of job does he have? Smoke and soot, dirt 
ground into the knees, grass stains everywhere, more blood 
than I want to think about -- 

Like the jacket with one shoulder shredded. There wasn't as 
much blood as I would have expected with that kind of damage, 
but we couldn't patch it. Looked like he'd been attacked by a 
bear or something. When I asked what happened, he just 
shrugged and told me that I didn't want to know.

I'd like to know about the shirt with the scorched cuffs, though. 
How do you burn a ring inside a shirt cuff? He just smirked 
when I asked about that one.

He does that a lot. Never really explains anything, just shrugs 
or smirks. Like the time I thought someone had mislabeled his 
order. I'd never seen clothes like that coming from him! Pink 
and peach golf shirts, khaki dress pants -- same boxer briefs, 
though. They were the only thing that kept me from tearing 
someone's head off when I saw the label. That and the smell 
of garbage coming from the dirty clothes bag. No one else 
brings in garments that smell *that* weird, so I figured I'd ask 
to make sure when he picked them up. He just nodded, said they 
were his and tossed off some joke about trying out a new look. 

The worst was the parka and ski pants, though. They were 
pretty dirty, but it wasn't the dirt itself that got me so much 
as what it was and where it was located. Slime! *Inside* both 
pieces! Besides the fact that it was totally the wrong season 
for heavy clothes in DC, how in the name of Jesus do you get 
slime on the inside of outerwear? It wasn't hard to clean, but 
it creeped me out. I didn't bother to ask what that was all 
about. I don't really want to know. 

Didn't ask about the *next* batch of slime, either. That time it 
was all over his jeans and Henley, with moldy, black dirt stuck 
to it. Looked like he'd been rolling around in compost. Smelled 
like it, too. 

I'm starting to think that I might lose my strangest customer, 
though. A few times lately, I've found women's underwear in 
his laundry bag. I suspect they ended up there by accident, 
because it's usually just one or two pieces that don't match. 
The first was a really nice pair of silk panties. Deep blue, not 
lacy or anything, but you could just tell they were good quality. 
I didn't bother to ask if they were his. Wrong size, for one 
thing. Unless he was *really* trying on a new look. 

Either way, I figured it was his business, not mine.

Then this morning, a little redhead came in and asked for his 
order. Wasn't a whole lot to give her, and not much in the way 
of weird cleaning this time. Just a few blood stains and some 
ground in dirt. I had to tell her I couldn't repair the drag 
marks on the suit jacket. Looked like he'd been towed behind a 
bus. When I commented on it, she said, "It was an RV, actually." 

You coulda knocked me down with a hankie. But what she 
said next shocked me even more.

"Do you always charge him this much?"

She sounded a bit peeved. I told her that I did, but I also told 
her how hard it is to get some of his stuff clean enough to wear 
again. She shoved the receipt into her pocket and nodded, like 
she understood what I meant. But she also said, "I need to talk 
to Mulder. That's an awful lot of money for dry cleaning."

Tell me about it, lady. And you don't even know the half of it. 
I never charge him much more than the cost of trying to get the 
garments clean, but what else am I supposed to do? 

I would have been cleaning up all these years except for Fox 
Mulder. I'm just too nice for my own good.

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THE END 

Author's Note: Well, that was a fun little departure from the 
monster I'm currently working on! Cyber smoochies to anyone 
who can name all the referenced episodes. 

Feedback: mimic1172@gmail.com