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

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."

"Oh." He feels a sudden, impotent desire to provide his sympathies; if he'd realized, he might not have pulled the cards out and gotten his hands all over them. It is obvious, in retrospect. The cards were next to the Super Bowl tape, presumably in a place where important remembrances live.

Scully doesn't seem overly upset by the reminder of her sister being brought out for examination, though, so he reaches forward to pick up the Seven of Rods, then settles back beside her, holding it so they can both see the man and his rods. "Fortunately, I didn't come to them for visions of the future. I've never actually seen any evidence that they have more to say than your average newspaper horoscope."

Tarot cards, naturally, fall in with reiki under the heading of Things Mulder Tentatively Acknowledges Could Be Supernatural (But Doesn't Really Respect).

Having them in plain sight means the cards are bound to be seen, mentioned, occasionally touched. If the prospect of Mulder handling them bothered her she might have tucked them away, or explicitly told him to leave them be. That's not to say she would let just anyone play with them, but she thinks Missy wouldn't mind-- so who would she be to object?

"Be prepared for challenges, opposition to the things you've recently accomplished or gained," she rattles off idly, easily, like the cadence of something memorized by rote. Scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, emperor, hierophant, lovers. "You could make that into an answer to nearly any question."

"Is that what this one means?" The assumption's easy to make, with the look on the guy's face. He's ready to take on whatever challenge comes at him, whether he wants to be or not. "Maybe I should be careful after all. Everything I've gained lately has been pretty great."

Mulder gives her a meaningful squeeze, and then he sets the card back on the table. It's teasing - if he somehow loses this feeling between them, it'll be because he loses everyone eventually, not because he drew the wrong card at the wrong time.

"Broadly, yes. Sometimes position or combinations with other cards change the meaning of things." She shrugs against him, snuggling in as he gives her a squeeze, a reflex action. He's warm and also, though she doesn't have the wherewithal to say it, she's in love with him.

"I think it's worth the fight."

"Seven of Rods down there seems to think so, too." Just look at that determination on his face - or don't, because Mulder's turning his head to kiss Scully's hairline. They could stay like this all day, and he wouldn't get enough of it; as soon as he got restless and needed to get up, some part of him would mourn the loss. "So, how many tarot cards did your sister make you memorize?"

He still doesn't quite believe Scully had any choice in the activity. It just seems so un-Scully.

Her plans don't go much further than lazing around like this all day. Eventually, food, and eventually dragging him back to bed, when they need more space for their pursuits. They've always been comfortable in each other's presence, even when they're not doing much. This is just a nicer version of companionable report writing in whoever's hotel room is less gross.

"Mulder, I was a teenager once, you know. Missy and I learned together."

A beat, like she's not sure to divulge this part. It's just faintly embarrassing, thinking back on that, even if it was all in fun. She looks down at the mug, but coffee offers no pattern for divination.

"Actually, she was always mad that I was better at it."

"I've heard. A cigarette-smoking teenager with rebellion on her mind." None of this is embarrassing to him, mostly because none of his youthful peccadilloes are currently on display for dissection. He's relaxed this morning, ready to waste the whole day just like this: teasing Scully, and maybe in the process, teasing out parts of her he didn't know existed. "I guess I pictured you as a pint-sized scientist at the same time, not a diviner of mystical secrets."

More importantly, the part that now has him on the hook: "So what made you the better psychic reader?"

"Like most teenagers, I contained multitudes."

It's strange to think back on that time-- not unpleasant, exactly, but it feels so distant even if in many ways it's surprisingly like the life she's ended up in, surrounded by strange and often gruesome occurrences.

"Oh, who can say. Maybe I just did a better job of memorizing, so I could focus on telling a story instead of lookin up meanings? Or maybe she was too invested in trying to really feel it. It used to be a good party trick."

She leans forward and sets the mug on the table, taking the deck instead, fanning the cards slightly and running her thumbnail over the edges.

"It's not magic; it's just a way of distracting your conscious mind. Add in some cold reading and nearly anyone can do it."

The explanation makes everything make more sense, fits tarot reading more neatly into the Dana Scully he knows and loves. This is the same woman who learned sleight-of-hand from an uncle, only to pull it out in service of pretending to eat a bug. Treating fortune-telling as an interesting trick, rather than anything worth believing in, is right in line with the rest of her.

Maybe she believed it more as a kid, of course, but if so, something clearly changed.

"Think you still got it?" he asks, giving her an I-double-dog-dare-you kind of smile. "I want to see a tarot master at work."

It's not quite the whole story. To Scully, the notion that tarot cards have usefulness is not wholly at odds with the scientific fact that they're simply printed paper; it's just a matter of trusting intuition, considering your knowledge and beliefs and best guesses within a framework slightly more esoteric than the scientific method. But it's hard to explain that; as hard as it was to really convey what happened to her in the temple and why it mattered so terribly much.

She gives him a long, considering look, mulling it over. Enough to maybe make it seem less along the lines of sleight of hand.

"I can try," she says finally, glancing down again as she squares the deck in her hands. "But not with these. In the bedroom," she says decisively. "You can bring coffee but get a coaster."

Mulder watches her watch him and finds himself, not for the first time, wishing he could see everything inside her head. Wheels turning within wheels, every brilliant little thought that passes through her mind but doesn't reach her mouth - she's full of tiny secrets, even after working with her for years.

"Oooh, kinky," he teases, taking the mug from her hands as he leans in to peck her on the mouth. "I'll meet you there."

With fresh brew in the cup and a coaster in hand, he walks into Scully's bedroom like he owns the place. That stops right about when he gently sets coaster down on the bedside table and the coffee atop it, but he's starting to find a place for himself within her inner sanctum.

She's taken the time to straighten up a little bit-- making the bed, mostly so there's an even surface to lay the cards on, and throwing her own discarded things into the hamper. His clothes, aside from the shirt, are heaped on a chair.

Now, she's stretched on tip-toes to pull a box off a shelf in her closet-- a wooden one about the size of a book, clearly old enough to be another teenage relic. She brings it over and sits on her side of the bed, opening it to reveal a dark blue drawstring bag, faded satin printed with silver stars and moons.

She draws out the deck and sets the box aside, and gives the cards a quick shuffle.

"You need to think of a question-- not something about the future. Maybe-- think about a memory, some story you've never told me. Focus, and shuffle these until they feel right."

She offers him the deck.

Edited (forgot my link) 2023-11-28 01:39 (UTC)

Mulder sits down cross-legged to watch her find what she needs. It's an appealing show, Scully stretching up enough that the hem of his shirt reveals a glimpse of her ass, and because of that, he's not lifting a finger to help.

Besides, she doesn't actually need him. In a moment, she's bringing over a box and pulling out a satin-wrapped deck that looks painfully high school. It's nostalgic the way a Bay City Rollers t-shirt pulled out of his mother's basement would be, the product of time and tastes so long past that they might as well belong to a different person.

The cards fit comfortably in his hands. Before he starts shuffling them, he turns them over, looking at the old-fashioned illustrations of a few cards. Eventually, he sets them down on the bedspread between them. "All right, G-woman, I have something in mind. And you'll never guess what."

It's impossible not to feel a little self-conscious, putting the stranger parts of her youth on display. Mulder, she reflects, really has no idea how deep that goes. Eventually she's probably going to have to tell him. But the strangest part of this, really, is giving it an earnest try for anyone other than herself or her sister. As a party trick it was just that-- a trick-- but with Mulder, while she doesn't believe in magic, she'll try harder.

"All right," she says decisively, looking at the deck before raising her gaze back to him.

"This isn't exactly the right way, just what Missy and I came up with. We used to stack them, actually-- easier to shove away if Mom came in." The memory makes her smile, as she starts to lay the cards out, face down, in the space between them in four neat rows of three.

"First, a big-picture answer; the next rows are past, present, future, though that's not exactly right if this has all happened. Maybe more like-- before, during, after? We'll have to see."

While she's still warm and easy with him, it's clear there's a little shift; she's taking this as seriously as an autopsy, like there might be real information to be gleaned from the faded cardstock.

"Ready?"

Past, present, and future might work, too, he thinks, as he looks at the arrangement of cards. What was, what is, what will be - he only knows one of those things, as far as everyone involved is concerned. He lost track of everyone involved with the incident years ago; anything Scully says is at least possible.

She's talking to him the way she might talk to a witness or a patient, guiding him through the task she's set before them. If he comments on it, he'll break the spell, so all he says is, "And raring."

She nods, unconsciously squaring her shoulders as she turns her attention back to the spread, trying to recapture whatever aptitude she used to have for this. It's been a few years since she tried, though perhaps not so long as he might be imagining.

With a deep breath, she turns over the top row. On the left, the Emperor; on the right, the Hermit, and between them, a single sword, turned to face Mulder.

Her brow pinches as she considers the cards, though she throws a quick glance his way. Of course Mulder couldn't pick a light and fluffy story.

"Okay," she breathes, and taps the first card.

"The Emperor is a patriarch-- he can symbolize authority, law and order; but sometimes it's just literal. He's usually Ahab when I'm reading," she says with a small smile. "In this case I think maybe it's both figurative and literal-- there's a balance between order, authority... and the Hermit. A seeker of truth, a source of inner guidance. Someone else who offered a different perspective. There's a conflict-- not between the two men directly. But.... maybe their world views. One--" His father, though she's skirting around the idea a little-- "wanting obedience and structure, the other seeking answers in less traditional places."

She looks at him again, and taps the ace of swords.

"And then... chaos."

The art on the cards is charmingly old-timey to his eye, but the explanations that come with it are anything but dusty. Order, authority, chaos, truth seeking, all of it in conflict - maybe that's always been the shape of his life. It's not hard to draw connections to the present moment of their lives, but it's even easier to see how it all aligns with the single most eventful spring break he'd ever had.

"Chaos, huh? In the form of a sword." He leans in a little, his gaze shifting down to the spread, and then up slowly again to her. "So that's the overall. What else've you got for me?"

Really, she thinks this is pretty straightforward. Bill Mulder as an embodiment of authority and structure is easy, and it's natural-- knowing Mulder-- that he would have gone in the other direction. The Hermit isn't a bad card for him, down in their office, surrounded by mysteries and secrets.

"Well-- like I said, the chaos isn't specifically between your father and the other man. I think that's more-- the directions you felt drawn in as you were dealing with whatever happened. It could just be confusion and miscommunication, but..." Maybe she's typecasting him as looking for trouble, meddling in things he shouldn't. Pot, kettle, Dana. She chews her lower lip.

"The sword doesn't have to be literal, but I'm reading this as some sort of actual violence."

Curiosity piqued, she turns over the next set of cards-- the Knight of Wands on his charging horse elicits a little smile, like finding an old photograph. Then the three of cups, and finally the Hierophant, reversed, like a muddy reflection beneath the Hermit.

"Here you are." Tapping on the knight, she looks up at him. "Running headlong into trouble."

It is straightforward, if not quite in the way she might imagine. Mulder's getting drawn in, the way he'd like to think he wouldn't be for anyone but her; as easy as it is to fit imagery to memory, Scully's half the appeal here. Her carefully chosen words, the flick of her slender fingers as she turns each card over, the knowledge that all of this is happening while she's wearing one of his oxfords - how's he supposed to resist any of that?

"I'd tell you if it's a literal sword," he says, warmth suffusing his voice, "but I'm not helping you cold-read me."

Besides, it's not hard to read in what he needs to here. Three allies drinking together is easy to fit into his memories, not least because he would have been ecstatic back then if they could score anything better to drink than a jug of Carlo Rossi. The Hierophant, he understands as a priest of sacred mysteries, which could be something, or it could be nothing. And then the knight - but she explains that one.

When she looks up at him, he can't help but smile. "There I am. This -" tapping on the three of cups - "doesn't look like trouble, though."

"No," she agrees. She can dismiss this as cold-reading and chance all she wants, but it's impossible not to look at this row of cards and tell a simple story; one that makes her feel impossibly fond of her partner. There's no clear reason for it, but it makes her picture him as a gangly teenager trying to take on the world.

"Think of this row as before, or maybe-- what you had at hand. If this were the present I might read that as representing the Gunmen-- three friends. But with your father, and the Knight-- I think this is an older story." She shifts so she can watch him, which is maybe cheating; Mulder has a magnificent poker face but she's better than most at reading him.

"Reversed, the Hierophant indicates some sort of rebellion-- the way it's positioned makes me think it's linked to the conflicting viewpoints, so I'm going to guess you were a teenager, maybe. With-- three friends? No-- two friends, and you're the third. Fearless, a little reckless. You shouldn't have been involved-- the Emperor wouldn't have wanted you diving into chaos-- but you couldn't be dissuaded. You wanted to seek the truth, in... perhaps unorthodox ways."

It's not magic, after all. It's just Mulder. Anyone who knew him could come up with that.

She has a lot of it right, right down to imagining some lanky teen lashing out at anything that makes sense to him in that moment. It's incredibly charming - though at the moment, she could tell him that the next card represented a sea monster he vanquished, and he'd be charmed.

"You think that's my father?" he asks, keeping his voice as neutral as possible. Back in the 80s, James Randi asked the psychic fraudster Inga Pachanko to demonstrate her ability to do a reading on a group of photos he brought to her, all of them featuring a handsome man with brown hair. What he hadn't mentioned, of course, was the man's name - Ted Bundy - and Pachanko's purported ESP hadn't allowed her to pick up the reason he became a household name. This feels like a kinder version than that, letting her spin a tale without letting her know what he thinks of when he hears order and chaos put head to head.

(Besides, there's no denying that the Emperor makes an excellent card to stand in for his father. Just like a teenaged Dana Scully, maybe this reading contains multitudes.)

"I'm not telling you one way or the other," he adds. "No commentary from the peanut gallery at all over here. So the three of us went recklessly out on our faithful steeds - and if you guess the car, I'll make sure I tip you more than ten percent for this. What kind of truth were we looking for?"

She tips her head to the side, regarding the cards now.

"He's your father, but maybe not only your father. Some of it is the philosophical level-- though I think your father's presence is relevant. The other man-- the hermit-- maybe a teacher? Another adult; not a relative. Someone who offered you another explanation for the things that bothered you. But they're in the background, not part of the action."

She offers a wry smile.

"Some of it's easy to guess, admittedly. Of course your father didn't want you getting involved in... whatever this is. Who would? Some of it-- I think you must have been staying with your father at the time, because most of the spread has been so patriarchal." She looks at the cards again, considering. "Your friends could have been girls; Three of Cups often is, though not exclusively. But it's not exact."

With a shrug, she turns over the next row. Eight wands against a blue sky on the left; a woman weeping beneath nine swords on the right. In the center, a joyous child rides a white horse beneath a brilliant sun.

Scully peers at this trio of cards with the sort of intensity usually reserved for unidentifiable substances at crime scenes, her brow furrowed.

He's so tempted to interrupt, to build the story with her - but it'll be more fun to hear her tell it. A little close, a little further off, but so far, it's not bad. For the first time in years (decades?), he thinks of the Major, and he wonders if the guy's still out there, still watching the same UFO videos over and over.

The next row of cards gets a weird look out of her, a hiccup in what's so far been a smoothly delivered reading, and Mulder can't help but seize upon it. "What's wrong?"

"This should be the meat of the story-- it's just... disjointed."

For all her breeziness before, she's focused now; Scully reads tarot the same way she does anything, with a ferocious need to fit it into a comprehensible framework. When they'd started this with a more casual air, she could have brushed it off-- see, it's just random-- but even without his confirmations this is starting to feel too coherent to simply abandon.

"Here--" she indicates the wands-- "action, motion, snap decisions. It follows naturally from the last row-- you felt you needed to act, so you did." Easy enough.

She skips over the center card. "The nine of swords, you can almost just see it. Grief, trauma, fear. I think-- something happened and you ended up separated and vulnerable." Her brow furrows again. "Or-- a woman? A girl, alone and frightened. Not one of your friends."

Slowly, blinking like she's trying to clear her mind, she picks up her head to consider him.

"I... don't have a lot of justification for what I'm about to say," she says carefully. This is rarely-trodden territory for Scully-- fully unscientific speculation.

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

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