🅧 Please explain to me the scientific nature of 'the whammy'

[faithfulskeptic]

[ n a m e ; ]	Dana Katherine Scully
[ c a n o n ; ]	The X-Files
[ g a m e ; ]	spicy times in noctiumrp

{ ACTION / NETWORK / VOICE / WHATEVER WELCOME }

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carryover from @ noctium TDM

[faithfulskeptic]

[ continued from here ]

She'll allow it... as long as he behaves himself overall. But you're on notice, mister.

With a soft sigh she sips her own tea, leaning back into the cushions. At least her couch is reasonably comfortable for human anatomy. She hadn't really considered the alternative possibilities-- most of her furnishings had been bought while she was still in disbelief about the transformation issue. It does well enough to drape the long coils of a serpentine tail over. If nothing else Mulder's state is a reminder that they need to be ready for anything.

"I spent most of the week hiding on my couch the first time," she confides.

[bigfootfetish]

He wants to know more. Particularly now, when anything would be better than remembering himself; they can talk about Scully, about whatever she became, and how she's adapted, and his own form will fade into the background. He'll forget the shiver of beach grass whenever he turns his head.

(Will he learn a lesson from this discomfort? Probably not as much of one as Scully'd prefer.)

But he can't bring himself to ask for the details, not when it's so clear she's still uncomfortable with the experience. There's no case here, no pressure to deliver information to anyone - only his best friend and a misery she wants to keep private. Mulder brings the mug back up to his mouth. "Well, if you want company this month..."

[faithfulskeptic]

It gets a smile out of here, though a rather weary one.

"Actually, I find it's easier if you try to act as normally as possible."

Though working with an extra twenty feet gets a little tricky. Mostly she struggles with doors: getting through before they fall shut on her.

She watches him quietly for a moment, before her gaze falls to her cup. Taking a deep breath she leans forward abruptly, setting the tea down; she picks up her futuristic palm pilot and scrolls through things until she hands it over to him, with what looks like an x-ray image of a four-armed snake person on it, a scan she'd managed to take of herself this past month.

[bigfootfetish]

He looks at it, then up at her, and then back down at the image. More than anything else, he's struck by how many vertebrae she has - even more than he is by the extra set of arms. (It's hard to imagine Scully complaining about having an extra set of hands, especially now that she's back to labwork.) She's long and lean, and filled with more ribs than he's ever seen in a person before.

When he hands the palm pilot back to her, something in his face has softened. Part of him really is tempted to ask questions, all the prying details she hasn't shared. What he actually does is reach out and rest a hand on one of her bare feet - the closest part of her in reach. "Pretty impressive."

[faithfulskeptic]

It feels like giving something up, showing him this; but once it's done it doesn't bother her as much as she expected it to. If nothing else, it levels the playing field, a little.

It was only a matter of time. Maybe it's for the best to get it out of the way early.

She manages a glimpse of a smile for him. His palm feels like sun-warm driftwood; unusual but not unpleasant, not even wholly unfamiliar. You get used to picking out the things that are the same. The eyes, the voice, the way he moves.

"Still short, by naga standards."

[faithfulskeptic]

Dana Scully does not particularly want to have this meeting.

She'd taken it in stride when she'd been told an FBI agent had some questions about one of her autopsies-- it's not usual, but you never know when a death is part of something bigger, and it's not that far from Federal stomping grounds. But then she'd heard which body it was, and... it's one of the weird ones.

The thing is: she is very good at her job. That's all. Simple. Years of medical training and an overzealous attention to detail-- plus a streak of workaholism that means she's always on top of new techniques and studies-- have made her an expert. She starts from the evidence at hand, she considers what could have caused the damage, she reports her findings. Simple. It's literally her job; lots of people across the country do it.

It's just that she happens to be very good at it.

And if sometimes, she can almost picture it-- like someone's telling her a story-- that's just her imagination running away with her. Because she is very good at her job.

Simple.

And sometimes simple isn't enough. Tool marks can be inconclusive; and even a six-inch knife with a serrated blade only goes so far, unless there's a weapon to compare it to. She might think it was the boyfriend, she caught him in the kitchen with his side piece, he grabbed the first thing he could find and they ran after while she choked on blood, but that's just a wild guess. She doesn't know, because the dead don't speak. It's a fantasy born of too many case reports and news stories.

And sometimes-- sometimes, you've got wounds that look like they were inflicted by an animal, but no animal she can guess at. Something huge; if the on-scene reports were to be believed, paired with what she can infer from lividity and angle... It was something taller than the victim, chasing him down. And that, really, is all she could say. No plausible theories-- only flights of fancy more informed by late night B-movies and old wives' tales. It's a pity the dead don't really speak, because all her too-vivid imagination could provide for this one was total nonsense.

So she's not looking forward to answering his questions. But this, too, is her job; so she squares her shoulders, looking across her desk (and up) at him, trying to fix a polite smile on her face.

"How can I help you, Agent Mulder?"

[bigfootfetish]

Fox Mulder knows weird. At this point, it's what his brain is wired for: the patterns everyone else misses or discounts or insists can't mean the obvious, because "the obvious" is not only obvious to them but ludicrous. And the death of Glenda Maraniss is a weird one.

Maraniss' coroner, on the other hand, is seated at her desk, seeming normal even if you don't grade on a "well, you're talking to someone who does autopsies all day" curve. She's a pretty woman, possibly a few years his junior, wearing a little smile that looks like it doesn't want to be there on her face but is determined to stick all the same. She could as easily be in a corporate office, or the back of an outpatient clinic, if she wanted to be.

"I saw your report on a Mrs. Glenda Maraniss," he says, offering his hand to shake before he pulls up a chair on the other side of her desk. "It made for some interesting bedtime reading, Ms. Scully - and I was hoping you could tell me a little more about what you think killed her."

[faithfulskeptic]

Not werewolves, she thinks, reflexively. Ridiculous that the thought ever occurred to her-- since of course that's what happened. She thought, what could possibly have done this, and her mental image of the wide-eyed woman lying on the table said a werewolf!. And she'd written inconclusive, because werewolves are no more real than ghosts.

"Blood loss," she says automatically. "And shock didn't help. If you've read the report you already know how extensive the antemortem wounds were; I'd say the damage to the tendons in her left leg left her immobile. Even if her carotid artery hadn't been severed, I suspect she would have bled out in minutes."

But it's not what he means, she knows. Still, it's the correct answer; the best one she can give him.

"The wounds themselves... I'd say some kind of animal attack. I did say, in fact, in my report. And that the type of animal was not possible to determine."

[bigfootfetish]

"You did say that," he agrees, all pleasant demeanour and professional bearing. He remembers the details from the report - his copy's marked up with notes and question marks. "But you must have had a theory, right? Even if you couldn't make it the official story, you had an idea of what did that."

As buttoned-up and professional as she is, Mulder doesn't want to push too hard - not yet. But there's something about prim Ms. Scully that makes him suspect that friendly curiosity might not convince her to spill the details without more prompting.

Only one way to find out.

[faithfulskeptic]

"I'm a coroner, not a detective."

Which is to say: isn't this your job, Mr. Mulder?

Actually, it's a little strange that it's his job; this doesn't seem like it should be a high enough profile to warrant federal involvement. But everything is a little off about this case, isn't it?

"Escaped zoo animal, maybe?"

[faithfulskeptic]

[ after three words, scene iv ]

It's an awkward silence. After everything, that isn't surprising, but it makes something twist in her chest nonetheless. Standing here close enough to touch, feeling like he's still miles away; it isn't right. But, God, getting to see him again-- real and whole and healthy-- she never could have imagined getting this chance. Miracles heaped on miracles.

She should be happy. She is-- happy isn't the word-- she's relieved, she's overjoyed, she's filled to bursting with gratitude. Like a cosmic wrong has been righted, but it's still just slightly out of focus. Half of her wants to shake him until he cheers the fuck up, because how can he not be awestruck and elated?

(But she knows that's irrational. It's a lot to take in. It's-- impossible, even for Mulder, who has always believed the impossible.)

Clearing her throat, she takes a deep breath, trying to center herself.

"I could--" she starts, but she isn't sure what she's about to offer. I could stay. I could leave. Either one, leaving it up to him, carries the terrifying weight that he'll ask her to go. It seems impossible that he would, but today she's not ruling anything out. So she swallows and tries again, tries to stack the deck in her favor.

"I'd like to stay for a while." Gentle, but less neutral. The if that's okay is implied, as is the fact that if he tells her to leave, she's not going to make it to the elevator before she breaks down. Does he understand-- can he guess that she's probably spent more time here than in her own apartment, since she lost him? Feeding his fish, changing his sheets, keeping the untouched clutter on his desk reasonably dust-free?

Trying to bring their son closer to his father?

(Their son. Doesn't that mean anything to him?)

[bigfootfetish]

The abduction, the casket, the hospital, the unnaturally clean - if not entirely tidy - apartment. The weight of surviving the impossible is an overwhelming one, and he's come home to a lot of questions. The biggest question is the baby she's carrying.

It's unbelievable to see her like this: She's glowing, exactly the way people always say pregnant women do. She does that thing where she touches her belly like she's rubbing a crystal ball, trying to see what kind of future the kid's going to have. She has everything she's always wanted, and who from, he can't say. Maybe she headed back to the sperm bank, or she met a guy after he was gone. At this point, she's far enough along that she must have conceived close to his disappearance; did she go out to the bar and do something stupid when he was abducted? Is this child the memory of a rebound?

Of course not, of course it isn't. Maybe she had one more chance with artificial insemination. Maybe she got to work with a turkey baster and it worked out. But that's between her and a stranger, and he hasn't resigned himself to it yet; every time he looks her way, he wants to touch her stomach and demand all the details, like he has any claim on her little family.

It's hard not to sound a little distracted as he answers, "Sure. We should order some dinner," if only because he's trying to decide just how long-term a stay she's thinking about. Is she going to clarify if he's supposed to take that ass I'm sticking around for the evening. "How does Chinese sound?"

[faithfulskeptic]

There's a part of her-- insidious and fueled, no doubt, by the sometimes unstable cocktail of hormones flooding her body-- that wonders if he finds it repulsive, the way she's changed. For him, of course, it's sudden and extreme-- perhaps, in comparison to his recent memories, grotesque. (She doesn't really think that. But the careful, aloof way he's been since-- well, since she stood up and he saw-- it's shaken her confidence, and that's hard to recover when half the time she's on the verge of tears for no reason.)

"Worth a try," she says, with a soft smile that she hopes seems more normal than any of this feels. Half-reflexively she sets her hand on her belly, not that they need the reminder of his extra houseguest. "I-- uh, my appetite can be a little unpredictable. But fried rice sounds good and soup is usually a safe bet."

And if her stomach turns, it's not a bad idea for him to have leftovers on hand. She's not sure how long he'll let her stay and take care of him.

[bigfootfetish]

"Fried rice and egg drop soup for the mother," he says, because he can't stop himself. Ignore the baby while drawing attention to it. Good job, Fox. "I'll call it in. Uh - make yourself at home."

He'll beat it to the kitchen fridge, to take a look at his takeout menus. Except they aren't haphazardly stuck to the freezer door anymore - they're piled up in his now-suspiciously-neat junk drawer. Which must have been Scully, and it's nice of her, he supposes, but it's baffling. Considering her circumstances, she must have had plenty of other items on her to-do list.

"I'd suggest we rent a movie," he tells her, coming over to the couch once the food's on its way, "but I don't know what's new on video anymore."

[faithfulskeptic]

It's not unpleasant to hear it, but it's jarring-- unexpected. Funny, in a way, because it's not like she really adjusted to being without him, but having him here-- having, suddenly, the possibility of a future, is new and strange. (Having, too, the terrifying possibility that he'll want nothing to do with the baby, by choice. The only thing that could be worse than losing him to death.)

If she were brave she'd tease back-- what about dad? But she doesn't think he's ready to confront that so plainly.

She settles into her corner of the couch, almost automatically tucking the blanket over her shoulder-- though that's always been as much a half-futile effort to find some trace of his scent still on it as a guard against the cold. Of course she's at ease, here. Other than the suspicious level of cleanliness and organization there's little trace of her presence-- she doesn't keep clothing in his drawers, she packs her paperbacks up when she leaves-- but his apartment still feels like a second home.

"We can find a rerun of something, and worry about catching up some other time." All she wants is to be with him. Which, admittedly, might be asking too much-- but she'll settle for being in the same place if that's all he can handle right now. Even if it's desperately, terribly not enough; not when she wants to bury her face against his chest and cry until she's empty, when she never wants to wake up in an empty bed again.

"What are you in the mood for?"

[faithfulskeptic]

It doesn't bother her to wake up alone, though she didn't go to sleep that way. This thing between them is new-- and admittedly, she did run out on him, that first night-- but they know each other. Even if he's actually gone it wouldn't matter-- he'll turn up like the best bad penny, and besides, she knows where he works. But more likely it's the simple fact that Mulder has never been good at getting a full night of sleep, and he wouldn't have wanted to wake her.

Sitting up with a yawn confirms the theory, a few things of his still strewn about her room. She slides out of the bed, loose-limbed and well-rested, and fishes his shirt off the chair. The fabric is soft and smells like him, and Mulder is tall enough that she's almost decent in it, after a fashion. (She doesn't feel the least bit decent; she feels satisfied and debauched and seductive.)

She slips into the bathroom to brush her teeth and run her fingers through her hair before heading into the living room to look for her partner. Probably he's on the couch, she figures, or if he's angling for sainthood, putting on a pot of coffee...

[bigfootfetish]

He's been out of bed for at least an hour now, possibly longer, making a nuisance of himself in Scully's apartment. It's not real snooping, as far as he's concerned - there's no digging for secrets in her medicine cabinet or opening up the drawers of her nightstand, after all, just staring at everything she owns with new fascination. Every book on the shelf, all the dishes in the kitchen, they take on a different shape now. The stories they tell about Scully mean something new to him.

(That, and the novelty of lying in bed with her, listening to her breath and admiring the smooth fall of her hair, has worn off for a few hours. It'll be back as soon as she falls asleep in his arms again, he's sure. But even a besotted Fox Mulder eventually needs to get up and move around, or he'll end up like the woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper.")

He's most taken with a set of tarot cards, deliciously incongruous with Scully's overall sense of skepticism, and brings them over to the couch to take a look at. They have a decidedly vintage flair - their teenage years are now fall into that category, according to a morning-show puff piece he caught at a motel a few weeks ago - and they look well-loved when he slides them out of their battered box. Mulder sets them down on Scully's coffee table and shuffles them idly, cutting them and then piling them up together. When he draws a card off the top, it's a man in a vaguely medieval outfit brandishing a stick like he's expecting a fight. The Seven of Rods is the caption beneath the artwork.

Tarot's one piece of the paranormal he's never had much time for, though; he knows the basics, enough that he can identify the major arcana pretty easily, but the minor arcana doesn't mean much of anything to him. He sets the card down, letting the Seven of Rods guy face off with the ceiling, and doesn't think to put the cards away before he gets up to figure out some coffee for them.

When Scully comes out of the bedroom, he's ready for her, walking back into the living room with a mug in hand. He hasn't bothered to put on anything besides his boxers, he's not expecting her to wear much more, and his breath still catches a moment when he sees her. Dana Scully in one of his shirts, the sleeves bunched up so she doesn't drown in them, is the kind of image he didn't quite believe would exist outside the more embarrassing corners of his imagination.

And yet here she is, a little rumpled and utterly beautiful. He holds the mug out to her. "Want some coffee?"

[faithfulskeptic]

He doesn't need to know that this is a go-to move for her. In part because she knows the effect it has-- how flattering a man's shirt is on her slight frame, hanging at the length of a good story (long enough to cover what's necessary, short enough to be interesting.) But she'd have done it anyway even if he wasn't here to see; it's the closest echo to skin on skin, a tangible way to wrap herself up in him.

But she likes the appreciative way his breath hitches all the same. She can't help but smile, small and pleased and warm.

"I do," she says eagerly, reaching for the mug and not waiting to take a sip. It's an excellent additional benefit to having an overnight guest. She'll kiss him once she's slightly more caffeinated. It's the weekend, they can linger.

She notices the cards, tilting a little to get a better view of the card. A little hmph of consideration, and she looks back to him. God, he looks good. She may never give the shirt back.

"Work or pleasure?" she asks, nodding at the cards on the table, heading for the couch with a little tug on his wrist. Though she won't fault him if he needs replacement coffee first.

[bigfootfetish]

He was thinking of going back for a cup of his own, but there are certain incontrovertible rules in his life. High up there - today at least - is that when a beautiful woman wearing your shirt tries to pull you someplace, you follow.

(It's followed with an asterisk, of course, the caveat of Unless you were doing something more important, but that applies to UFOs sightings and Sasquatch tracks, not caffeine. Especially not when he might be able to steal a sip or two from the cup Scully's holding.)

"Pleasure." Mulder sits down on the couch, sliding an arm around Scully's waist. "You might be surprised to hear this, but I haven't really thought about work until right now. I was too busy pondering how the world's greatest skeptic ended up with a deck of fortune-telling cards."

[faithfulskeptic]

She'll probably let him get away with it. After all, she can't really complain about sharing germs considering where both of their mouths have been-- and getting away with things makes Mulder light up.

She leans in against him, easy and cozy. They fit like puzzle-pieces, which is not a surprise, but she finds it deeply satisfying. Her fingers are curled around the mug as she considers the card.

"This deck is Melissa's." Really, that's probably obvious. "Though I don't think it has anything to tell you that you don't already know. Nothing we're up against is a surprise."

teenies au.

[bigfootfetish]

Fox Mulder's life hasn't settled into normalcy in the weeks and months after his brush with death, but he's not actively in danger of being murdered, and that's close enough to normal for him. He's survived being grounded - unfairly, incredibly unfairly - finished out the school year, and mostly convinced his mother that he's not about to be lost forever. (She's been weird about the whole thing, hot and cold in her moods. But so has Dad, so maybe it's just an inevitability within the Mulder family.)

It's late summer now, sweltering in D.C. and probably gorgeous back on the Vineyard. Mulder's taken more and more to driving the hell away whenever he feels like it; after the first time he slept in his AMC Gremlin and caught hell from his father, he's only been more enamored of the notion. It's awkward, given just how tall he is, but it pisses his dad off, and the freedom of knowing he doesn't have to answer to anyone is as intoxicating as any liquor.

Today, he finds himself drawn back to the little New Age shop he, Gimble, and Phoebe visited months ago. The reasons hasn't quite formed, but he'd like to say it has something to do with Samantha. There are secrets that Beyond Beyond hasn't given up, he suspects, and he wants to know what they are.

Once he gets there, the shop owner - Carinda? Carinda - is nowhere in sight, though. It might be harder to delve deeper into Beyond Beyond's beyond.

"Hi," he says to the girl at the tea counter. She's small, with a snub nose and brilliant red hair. (If he profiled her the way Agent Douglas does, what conclusions could he draw? Religious, judging by the necklace. A little younger than him, maybe a local? He can't decide.) "Do you work here?"

[faithfulskeptic]

Normally, you wouldn't find a redhead at the tea bar-- you'd find two. It's rare for Dana to be here without Missy, but this afternoon, Melissa had found other trouble to get into, and so the younger Scully is drinking alone. (Drinking tea, that is.) She's idly reading through a mimeographed pamphlet on something called Reiki, but she glances up as the stranger's shadow falls over her.

She can't help glancing around reflexively, as though he might be talking to someone else, and immediately feels sheepish for doing so. She doesn't recognize the boy-- he might be her age, maybe older; he's tall, but who isn't tall from her perspective? But that doesn't mean much, as she doesn't know most of the kids in Craiger.

"Me? No-- ah, I'm not sure where Carinda went but I'm sure she'll be back soon..."

She offers a little smile, feeling a bit shy.

[bigfootfetish]

"Huh." He picks up a...actually, he doesn't know what this is, is it a string of Hare Krishna prayer beads or something? A bracelet or a necklace or something, rolling the beads through his fingers idly. "Do you come here often? Maybe you could help me."

He's technically on a timetable here, if only because he'd like to act on anything he learns now, rather than waiting until tomorrow or (don't even think it) some unmarked future point. Impatience, thy name is Fox. And so is loneliness, maybe - after driving here alone, he's not in the mood to keep his own counsel.

[faithfulskeptic]

Especially here, in this new town, she's not exactly used to being treated as an expert. But, well, she does come here more often than she strictly wants to admit to-- blame Melissa for that-- and she likes Beyond Beyond. If this boy is looking for something, and it helps Carinda, shouldn't she help him?

"Maybe," she hedges. "What do you need?"

[bigfootfetish]

"Remote viewing." He'd done a little extra reading on New Age ideas before he came back, in hopes of sounding like he knew what he was talking about. Having to explain everything first and risk no, that's not possible in response sounded like hell to him. "Seeing something that's far away - or lost."