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

"Oh, I don't know. William Dana Scully? I've heard worse." It has a cheekiness beneath the staid, William F. Buckley feeling to it, all in the knowledge that he'd be named after his mother. Who could ask for a greater namesake than Scully? Stronger and brighter than anyone else he's met, small and terrifying and infuriating even as she's perfect. The movie credits are running on the screen, but he's too lazy to grab the remote. "If we don't find anything in a name book, we can get an encyclopedia of animals. William Rhinoceros will throw them off, if William Fox won't."

"William Wolf, for the alliteration." Pitching bad ideas suits her just fine. They'll figure something out-- eventually, after all, they'll hit a deadline.

(None of the other people who've helped her-- Skinner, of course, and John, much as Mulder doesn't want to hear that-- feel quite right. She's sure they'd be touched, but it would be awkward.)

"We'll need something unimportant to argue about, after all."

"I'm not naming a kid after my great-grandfather," Mulder says, brushing the very thought of it away. No ancestors, no relatives - not if he didn't know them, anyway. William Walter, he'd consider, but naming a kid after your boss is probably asking for a whole new kind of speculation about his father.

But she's right. They'll figure it out eventually, or they won't. "Maybe when we see him, we'll be hit with inspiration."

"Maybe."

The thought fills her again with a swell of giddiness-- that William will have the chance to meet his father after all, even if they're keeping it more or less on the down-low.

"Or we'll call him William P., for Placeholder."

Mulder laughs. "William Perhaps-We'll-Get-Around-To-It Scully. Very Puritan."

But for now, it's all a moot point. He reaches for the remote and flicks off the VCR and TV in quick succession; whatever interest he had in filling the awkward spaces with background noise has evaporated. Things are less awkward now, if still uncertain in places. Everything he needs to know - well, for this very minute, anyway - has been laid out before him, and all of it feels right.

He's left with a Pandora's box worth of emotions: amidst the uncertainty, beside his own concerns with what kind of father he can and will be, there's hope. And that's what he has to hold onto right now. (That, and the fact that he's gotten away without having to explain Great-Grandpa Wolf.) Mulder hefts himself to his feet and holds out a hand to Scully. "On a scale one to ten, how bad is getting off this couch?"

There are bound to be awkward moments, but she feels like she has him back, now, more surely than she did in the hospital, or in those awful moments where he was looking at the apartment like it was a museum display.

(She's putting Great-Grandpa Wolf in a pocket; she doesn't need him to tell her a story right now, but it's curious enough to revisit sometime. Now that they have time for untold stories and unasked questions. Now that they have each other, again.)

"Maybe a five. It's not so bad as long as it's not up and down over and over." No standing ovations in her future. She's glad for his hand, though, letting him help her more than she normally would.

"Are you throwing me out?"

She can only stand to make the joke because she's confident he isn't.

"Damn, I was hoping you'd Jazzercise with me." He was not. They stand there, further apart than they otherwise might be, and it occurs to him that this is about where he would have been back when they first met. The temptation to close every gap between them, to scoop her into his arms and carry her to bed, is making his fingertips itch.

"Actually," he tells her, in just the same tone she asked him, "I was planning on taking you into the other room and ravishing you - but I could show you the door, if you really wanted me to."

"Tough call."

She can't keep her smile under wraps, though. Every time she looks at him-- maybe it's the hormones, or maybe it's having lost and found him again. But she's radiantly, impossibly in love with him.

So she steps closer, though she can't get as close as she used to, sliding her hand into his.

"I think I like your plan, though."

Mulder squeezes her hand, leaning down to press a soft kiss to her mouth before he starts pulling her along to the bedroom. "I thought you might."

Tempting as it is to try sweeping her up into his arms, he doesn't. If he managed to drop her in this state, he'd never forgive himself. Instead, once they're in there, he gives her another long, heated look. "You're going to have to tell me what the rules are here."

More than anything, she's just desperate for a sense of connection; if he wanted to sit on the couch all night she'd do it, basking in his body heat and the steady feel of his pulse. That's not to say she doesn't want more-- but it's hard to go wrong.

"It's going to be some trial and error. It should be safe-- but I'm not sure what's going to be comfortable."

But even that gentle kiss is enough to have her flushed, eyes dark and wide. She starts to unbutton her shirt.

"It doesn't make you uncomfortable?"

It's a fair question, one he wants to give its due. Reaching for her hands, he moves them away from the buttons; if they're going to do this, he wants to be the one undressing her. He wants everything he can have right now, everything Scully's willing and able to give. And as her shirt opens, revealing her breasts and the hard swell of her stomach, it's easy to answer.

"It's a new look," he tells her, sliding the fabric back from her shoulders, "but I have to say, Scully, it works for you."

Even if it didn't, he thinks he'd still want her right now. Any way he can get closer to her, he'll take.

The answering smile is small but bright. It's a good answer; not that she'd be offended if he wasn't all in-- it's a lot of changes since the last time he saw her, after all. It's not necessarily the easiest thing to feel desirable like this, although she doesn't feel any shame, either. This is all evidence of her body, against all odds, working as it should; she's proud of it, even when it's physically awkward or uncomfortable.

God, she loves him.

"I can't lay on my back. On my side might be best," she reasons. "Kiss me again."

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.

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."

Having lived without him, there's nothing that could be too much. No amount of him could be enough. She moans, ragged and certainly too loud, his touch both a relief and a tease.

It's hard to tell how much is genuinely due to sensitivity and how much of how she feels is the weight of anticipation. She can't help a little whine; the only downside of facing away is she can't see his expression.

"Fuck me," she pleads. She can't think of anything else.

There's no such thing as too loud. Damn his neighbors, damn the world, let Scully make all the noise she wants while he's thrusting his fingers into her. She's beautiful, all curves - some soft, some surprisingly firm - and the scent of her hair makes him feel like he's really alive and in this room. This isn't a hallucination on some distant spacecraft or government outpost. This is Scully, here with him, begging for him to give into an overwhelming need for closeness.

This is everything.

"I want you," he murmurs into her neck, reaching down to line up his cock. One smooth push, and he's in her, his breath shuddering against her back.

[ 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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