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

She's not so bad herself. Any time he gets to see the slender line of her stretched out like this, his shirt drooping just open enough at the top to reveal some nice décolletage, he's torn between basking in it and making a pass at her. Now's not the time for the latter, though; he'll just take some private comfort from the sight of her, a next-level-up version of what he's done for years now.

"The Major." It occurs to him that he could probably look up what happened to the guy, but if it involved institutionalization or death, he's not sure he'd want to know. "One of my only real friends, senior year of high school - his dad was a conspiracy nut. Wouldn't leave his house, treated everything like a black ops mission, made Gimble call him "sir." He was obsessed with alien abductions and this series of fantasy novels. Ever hear of Michael Moorcock?"

Sooner or later she'll stop looking and start touching. There's a difference between the intentional prolonging of anticipation now and their long stretch of poorly-concealed wistful glances, the way her skin tingled beneath his fingers on her lower back. They can talk through this first and he'll still be there after. The luxury of a relationship built on partnership and friendship; sex and conversation aren't either-or.

"Hmn-- I don't think so?" It sounds, maybe, vaguely familiar, like a name she's heard that means nothing. The description, though, fits neatly into what she felt when she'd looked at the hermit. Literally, if the man was housebound. "Who is he?"

"I'm not surprised - his books aren't your usual fare." He gives her a little smile. They weren't really his, either; if he hadn't had to pore over Stormbringer in order to understand what was happening, he probably would have skipped over it at the bookstore. He apparently had been, for close to fifteen years. "He wrote about an albino elf named Elric, who existed to balance law and chaos. He was the Eternal Champion."

If the cards were still out, he'd be prodding them. "He had a sword called Stormbringer - typical stuff. The Major must have had fifty copies of one book stored in his house; he gave me one nearly every time I came over. I used to give them back to Gimble at school the next day, so he could take them back to the stash. But the Major wasn't the only one obsessed with these books. Earl Roy, the murderer - he was trying to appease the Eternal Champion, because every death gave him strength. Something like that. It was heady stuff for a senior in high school."

Jesus, high school. The idea of Mulder diving into danger, chasing serial killers at, what, seventeen?-- well, it checks out, to be fair. But that doesn't mean she has to like it.

So the sword was at least semi-literal; she can't help but be fascinated by the parallels between the story he's telling and the one she wove out of the cards.

"I can't imagine anyone other than you took the Major seriously. Honestly-- how did you even make the connection?"

In retrospect, it was one of the worst things he's ever done; he went in unprepared and only barely survived to tell the tale. But back then - and even now - the fact that he did survive means it was fine, basically. Not his worse experience tracking down serial killers by any means.

"The Major was following deaths of adults - cases that had been ruled accidents and suicides, mostly. There were arrows near them all, and there was reason to believe they might have been the sources of all the hand-carved arrows left with the children." They had fit together in his mind, perhaps inevitably. "We thought there was an occult angle - and so did the cops. Serial killers were everywhere, and ritual murders like these had to have to do with cults, or sacrifices, or Satan."

Mulder laughs a little at the memory. Idly, he reaches over to pull a hanging thread from her collar. "You know what the 80s were like - and we were right on the cusp of them. Preschools were about to be turned upside-down with claims of Satanism. So we found a New Age shop in Maryland - for research purposes - and it turned out our killer had been there, too. He got some of his symbolism from their chaos magic group,and we managed to pull his name and address out of their records. After that, it was a piece of cake - up until he caught me in his living room, anyway."

It's a wild story, the kind she might doubt from anyone else. The kind she might doubt if she wasn't sitting on the tale of Sunlight, even now.

"And you hadn't told anyone where you were going?"

It's the obvious next step, she figures, though it leaves her puzzled as to how he escaped. That part had been left a mystery, or perhaps she just couldn't see it in what they had. (Perhaps, she chides herself, because tarot cards are not actually magic, and magic is not real.)

(She can almost smell the incense. She can still picture the chemical structure of the drug.)

"Who would I tell? My father?" He feels a little pang of guilt, saying it like that, but only a little one - and it dissipates a moment later. "The police? They didn't believe us when we tried."

Not surprising, Mulder suspects. It's a patently unbelievable story, from his cemetery run down to his time spent in a dank basement, struggling to survive.

"I ended up in a dog cage for a few hours, but - actually, we never found out who called the cops. Someone did, and they came out to the house. Turns out they'll believe it when it comes from someone else. The little girl was alive, we both got rescued, and I ended up interviewed by the FBI. I'm pretty sure John Douglas read the transcripts of that."

You can't tell a story like this without some sore spots; she can imagine staying with his father wasn't easy for Mulder, and she's primed herself to see this as a story about not doing what Bill Mulder wanted, anyway.

She can't help wincing at the idea of him in captivity-- but maybe all's well that ends well. Maybe it was a nosy neighbor or something. Whoever called the cops, Scully is grateful to them.

"And here you are, G-man."

"Here I am." He can't resist any longer, putting an arm around her and pulling her over to him. She's right here, touchable and kissable and incredibly attractive, and he doesn't have to spare a thought to what others might think. Of course it means he reaches for her. "Serial killers and UFOs, that's everything."

It is not, but it's not a bad way to tie things up. "I didn't think you were a customer there, too."

It's the most natural thing in the world to slide closer to Mulder, her gaze rising to meet his, her hand set on his bare chest in a way that feels slightly possessive. Surely, it will stop feeling like such a novelty, to be able to touch him, but she intends to enjoy it thoroughly for the moment.

"We moved to Craiger that summer-- some special assignment they needed my father for. Melissa found Beyond Beyond, of course, but we'd go together, practically every day." She smiles at the memory, soft but faintly pained; it's hard not to feel that way when she thinks of her big sister, all the more when she thinks of that time in their lives.

"Carinda-- I think she genuinely believed in that kind of thing, and meant well." It's taken her a long time to come around to feeling that way; it had been easier at the time to brand her a liar, to blame her for some of what happened. "But Sunlight-- Mulder, he was a psychopath. He was using the store to try and build a cult, and killing anyone who had second thoughts."

And look, he's not about to complain about a little possessiveness. Who wouldn't want Dana Scully to claim them as her own? He's utterly smitten, and now that he has no reason to hide it - outside of their professional lives, anyway - he doesn't bother.

That look of lazy adoration evaporates as she tells her story, though. Scully and her sister getting tarot cards at a New Age shop is cute. Scully interacting with a murderous cult leader isn't. Staring openly, the face of someone who believes and doesn't want to, he says, "Sounds like we dodged a bullet. What happened?"

Before agreeing to read the cards she should've thought it through, that all this might come out. It's not quite the lighthearted party trick she promised.

"We'd moved over the summer and since we really didn't know anyone in Craiger, Missy and I spent a lot of time together. We were taking yoga at the store, and-- well. You know Missy; she was listening to Rhiannon on repeat back then, convinced both of us were reincarnated sorceresses." Again, she can't help a small, sad smile, biting at her bottom lip.

"Carinda encouraged that kind of thing-- the idea that any of us might be psychic, or special, you know. I do think she genuinely meant well by it. But we spent a lot of time there-- they had a little cafe, if you remember. It was... nice."

The conversation before makes a huge difference; he doubts he'd adapt quite as well if this really was Doggett's kid waiting to be born. But as it is, how can he look at her and see anything except life and beauty? He probably hasn't wanted this for her as badly as she's wanted it for herself, but that's only because she's wanted this that much. That she can have it - that he can be here to experience even a sliver of it - seems like the miracle he'd told her to believe in.

Tomorrow, things will probably look worse. But tonight, he can believe in just about anything, most of all Scully.

With a little laugh, he dips his head down, kissing her soundly. She tastes like Chinese food, familiarly so, and his arms slide around her so he can unhook her bra. Muscle memory's taking over, a hand sliding down her bare back, giving her ass a little squeeze. They're both still wearing entirely too many layers, but once his mouth is on hers, he's loath to move away again, even just to pull off his shirt.

It's not hard to imagine: Melissa graceful and willowy and aware of it, wanting to be something more exciting than a Navy brat in a new town, and Dana tagging along. What else would there be to do? Craiger was tiny; it must have felt like the middle of nowhere, coming from California.

"You got there after the case was wrapped up," he murmurs, carding his fingers through her hair, "and I was probably out of the country by the time teens started dying. So it's you, your sister, and Carinda. Where does Sunlight come in?"

He's there, of course, lurking in the background. They both encountered him. But he clearly flew under the radar enough that no one looked askance at him, even when the deaths started piling up.

If not for the deaths, it might have been a nice story-- youthful foolishness and a stretch of strange dreams.

"Sunlight lead some of the classes-- more advanced ones, which he'd use to identify victims. People he believed had strong psychic abilities-- he'd invite them to his one-on-one classes and drug them. It was in the incense. He'd tell them the trip was an out-of-body experience and use it draw them into his cult."

She frowns, looking away.

"If they refused, or if he felt threatened, he'd kill them and stage the bodies to look like car accidents. The first I heard about it was one of the seniors-- Melissa knew her a little, I think. I'd never met her."

The mismatch in their height, for once, works to an advantage; he can stoop around the swell of her and it almost feels just like normal. She smiles against his mouth, familiar and long-missed.

She chuckles as he grabs her ass, incorrigible man. God, she missed him. It's hard to feel desirable, as heavily pregnant as she is-- she feels beautiful, when she looks at herself, but it's in a different way; admirable like a powerful creature, a miraculous biological machine, a force of nature. But to be wanted is something else, and to be wanted by Mulder--

That has become a part of her, more integral than she could have guessed, grieved in silence when he was taken.

"I missed you," she murmurs, unnecessarily, because it's almost as good as saying I love you.

"Mm," he agrees, kissing her jaw as his attention shifts to her pants, and specifically toward getting them off of her. There's a lot of elastic in the waistband, which he supposes makes sense, but also a fly - probably so everybody involved retains a little dignity. Undoing it blind is slightly harder than he expects, and as he's fumbling, he comes up with a way to make this easier and maybe (maybe?) sexier.

A little peck to the corner of her mouth, and he pulls away, getting down on his knees before her. Before he gets too far, eyes on her face, he pulls his shirt over his head. Only then does he turn his attention to her slacks, flipping the buttons through their holes and tugging at the zipper. "I missed you, too."

You wouldn't believe how much. But the worst and best thing about it is that she would.

It takes careful engineering to keep those pants up without pressing. Maternity clothes are more complicated than she would've guessed, particularly when she's been largely unwilling to sacrifice her professional style. (At home, it's a different story; she's embracing sweatpants and he'll find quite a few of his T-shirts suspiciously missing.)

She almost complains as he pulls away, but clearly he has better ideas. With a beaming smile she runs her hand through his hair, impossibly fond. It feels so familiar and yet so different, with the way her body has changed.

"I probably shouldn't be letting you exert yourself too much," she murmurs, amused.

"Careful," he warns, a sing-songy note to his voice. Once her clothes have fallen to the floor, he runs his hands back up her thighs, around to her ass again. "I respond badly to limits."

Not that she needs him to tell her that, not that anything besides a sudden apartment fire could possibly stop them.

Leaning in - what little he needs to - he presses a kiss to her belly, then stands. His jeans are proving more and more a hindrance, but before he reaches for them, he bends down to kiss her again. He wants her too much, wants to lose himself in her touch.

"I hadn't forgotten," she sighs. It seems impossible to have him, solid and warm and real at her feet like this. She'd spent so long thinking of him, missing him, trying to acclimate herself to the gaping Mulder-shaped hole in reality-- this is a gift that's almost too much, and she's greedy for more.

Somewhere along the way her eyes fluttered shut as she focused on sensation, but as he stands she opens them again, her smile wide and warm. He kisses her and she touches his cheek to prolong it, keeping him close.

After a long moment, though, her other hand finds his zipper. It's unfair, he's got too many clothes left.

Her hand moves over his groin, and he groans against her mouth. So much of his body is still marked by the things that were done to him - but he can set those aside right now, with her hands on him. She looks at him like nothing's changed, even as she's blossoming into the life she's wanted for so long, and with something of his place in her life secured, he can bask in her reflected glow.

Once she's gotten his fly down, he shoves down the last of his clothes, letting them puddle around his feet. "If you make yourself comfortable on the bed," he murmurs against her mouth, "I'll figure out where to fit myself in."

"Comfortable might be overstating it," she answers with a laugh. She steps away, pausing to give him an appreciative look. If she let herself pause to worry, she would-- all things considered he's remarkably well-healed, but it's not as though the months... away... left no mark at all. But she's just too glad to let herself get mired down fretting, not right now, not when it would spoil the mood.

She settles herself on his bed, her movements deliberate but not tentative; she's had practice figuring this out and, if the way she automatically repositions his pillows the way she wants them is any indication, not all of it has been in her own bed. (His sheets, likewise, are suspiciously clean considering how long the apartment has been vacant, but smell faintly like her lotion and shampoo.)

She lays on her side, faced away from him because otherwise there's no way to get close, and glances up over her shoulder.

(There's a part of her that wants to keep her eyes on him every moment, afraid if she looks away he'll disappear, like it'll break some spell.)

"Come on in," she calls back.

He watches with no small fascination as she maneuvres herself, clearly an expert in this particular practice. If she's been sleeping over here, so be it - after cleaning the place up, she deserves no less. And whatever else might be true, he has to thank his abductors for doing most of their experiments on his face. Everything below the belt has survived untouched, and as he crawls onto the bed, his gratitude briefly outweighs all the anger that comes of waking from months of torture and living death.

"You don't have to tell me twice," he murmurs, burying his face in her neck, sucking a kiss against her pulse. His body aligns easily with hers, chest against her back, hips at her ass, cock pressing hard against her skin. It's not that different, really, until he reaches around in an embrace, pulling her close and cradling her belly all at once. Then, as his hand moves down further, delving between her legs - "Do you want to go slow or fast?"

How much is too much? How does he give her everything they both want without hurting her? She calls the shots here, as both the medical doctor and the one carrying a bowling ball's worth of extra flesh.

Her huff of laughter turns into a low moan as he moves from kissing her to pressing himself against her, and she arches back against him reflexively. There are so many ways she's missed him-- her partner, her closest friend, the father he could be to this baby-- it feels almost silly to put sex up there alongside the deep, emotional things he is to her. But God, she missed being touched terribly; her body has been sensitive and wanting and she's been alone for what feels like forever.

He'll find her already spectacularly wet, the anticipation more than enough. She bites her lip, torn between the sensible answer-- slow-- and what she really wants; she wants all of him at once, wants him to fill her and claim her, as though it weren't already obvious that she's all his. Being this close makes her feel wild; the heat and scent of his body so familiar, so overwhelming.

"Slow," she murmurs, because this is unknown territory. "You feel so good," she adds, gasped as her hips jerk impatiently in spite of her good intentions, desperate for more of him.

"So do you," he groans into her hair, hips pressing hard against her. It shouldn't be a surprise that she wants him; he has plenty of evidence, past and present, that she's a big fan of him, scars notwithstanding. (Those will heal, and he'll still be the man he was before his abduction, the singular creature she fell in love with despite every possible reason not to.) But that doesn't take away from the sticky thrill of his fingers moving easily along her slit. "You're the best part of being alive."

Maybe that's too much, but it's too late; it comes out without thinking as he circles her clit with one finger. His other hand's at her breast, running his thumb over nipple and areola without pressure. The rules have changed slightly, by biological necessity; he's not sure where the line between pleasure and pain lies anymore, having some vague notion that women's breasts get more sensitive while pregnant. "I don't know how slow I can take this, Scully, but I'm trying."

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

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

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