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

He hesitates a moment. "We tried some stuff between point A and point B. But the long and short is that he caught me there. So technically a serial killer caught me before I caught a serial killer."

That makes it sound like it wasn't a big deal, and like he doesn't have nightmares about it still. Telling a girl about walking up gasping, feeling like your chest's compressed, isn't going to impress her. "But my friends got the police. And we got the guy before he could kill again."

"I guess that's the important part," she says softly. Of course she's curious-- how could you not be?-- but not enough to make her ask for details. It's the kind of thing you want and don't want to know at once. Dana wouldn't be surprised to hear it left him with nightmares. (At least his have some explanation. Hers just have the Devil to blame.)

"I can't believe I've never heard any of this," she adds, the slightest frown creasing her face. "Did Carinda know him?"

"It was a couple months ago," he says, shrugging. Privately, he's a little surprised she hasn't heard of it, either - if Craiger's anything like Chilmark, people probably talk about it in veiled terms now, but you'd think she'd have heard about the incident or something similarly euphemistic. Maybe Craiger's part in the whole thing was disguised well enough that it hasn't made an impact. And it'd probably be terrible business for Carinda and Sunlight to tell people about the serial killer who used to hang out there, so maybe that has something to do with it. "It's old news now, I guess. I don't know if Carinda knew him. She must have seen him, but that doesn't mean they were friendly."

It probably doesn't help matters that as of now, Dana has basically no friends here. There are the kids she sort of knows in the neighborhood, enough to maybe wave when they're walking by, but it's hard to ease into the summer lawlessness of a small town. Beyond Beyond is probably her social hub right now, and even then she's got her nose stuck in a book half the time, and the rest of it she's shyly people-watching, if she's not talking to Carinda.

"She must have been devastated," she murmurs seriously. She can't imagine it's the kind of thing anyone would take in stride, but especially not someone so deeply invested in helping people better themselves.

"I can't believe it."

"Yeah." She let someone into her store - into her life, considering how things seem to run at Beyond Beyond - only to find out that they were the worst kind of person living. Willing to do evil for the sake of incomprehensible beliefs. Taking advantage of Beyond Beyond's community and destroying lives.

If it were him, they'd have to hold him back from the murderer - he knows that much. If he'd taken Samantha, Mulder would have found a way to get back at him. He's not sure if he should be scared of that part of him, the part thirsting for the most brutal kind of justice available, but he's not about to figure it out at a diner table.

"If you go to the library, they can probably look it up for you." Believe it, Dana. "I even talked to the FBI about it."

"Obviously I'm going to the library about it." Probably later today, but she's not going to tell him that-- partly because the eagerness feels unseemly, mostly because she's well aware that she lied about being picked up and doesn't want to acknowledge that isn't true.

"And now you're back here," she adds, musing. Not quite asking the question about why-- what he's so interested in now, when presumably he's not hot on the trail-- but leaving space if he wants to tell her.

"Yeah." They got through the whole thing without mentioning cages, which Fox is going to count as a win. Nobody wants to hear about how you were locked up like a dog, especially not when they're eating. "I'm interested in remote viewing. And I got lucky last time."

QED, here he is, shrugging through a sip of coffee.

"Okay," she says, and steals another fry. Some part of her feels like she shouldn't-- or more accurately that she shouldn't be sitting here sharing fries with a strange boy rattling on about serial killers and chaos magic. She desperately wants Melissa's opinion on it and also isn't sure she has it in her to try to explain it.

"But what is it? I mean-- why are you interested in remote viewing?"

He can't be chasing another killer, can he?

He's quiet for a moment, watching her intently. Every time you tell someone your sister disappeared, you have to watch the other person experience it for the first time. And then you have to be the one who tells them that it's okay, even though it isn't, and you have to act like everything's normal all over again.

The only good part of being The Missing Sister Guy on the Vineyard was that people already knew. Leaving has meant having to decide whether to explain Samantha to others every single day.

"There's someone I need to find," he says. If she wants more details, she can ask; so far, she hasn't wanted more details about most of what he's talked about. "If I could see something - a location, anything - it might help."

Most of what he's been talking about is inherently gruesome; she's not sure she has the stomach for it. Dead bodies and serial killers. Scary stuff. She doesn't want to be the girl who makes a fool of herself, getting green around the gills in a diner. Imagining the possibilities is bad enough.

But his long pause piques her curiosity. It's something that means a lot to him, no doubt, so maybe she shouldn't be prying. She knows better-- but.

"What are you looking for?"

The question is quiet, gentle. Dana is more than ready to be told it's none of her business-- though she thinks, he'll have to tell Carinda. He should. Carinda, she thinks, can help with whatever it might be-- so maybe it's not the worst thing to ask, to get him used to the idea of talking about it.

There's something in the way she asks, something kind. She wants to know - obviously, or she wouldn't ask - but she doesn't sound like she thinks she's entitled to know. So many people want the details just so they can repeat them to other people. He's pretty sure she does because she actually wants to know.

So he tells her, and he feels his chest clench the way it always does. "My sister. She disappeared five years ago."

It'll be six in November - but rounding up means assuming she won't come back. He doesn't want to assume all those days are lost, just because this one is.

(In fairness, she hardly knows him, and no one else here knows him at all. Who's she going to tell?)

"Oh," she says, and doesn't have the presence of mind to follow it up with all the things you're supposed to say in response to something like that. I'm so sorry, how awful. Not because it's not awful, but because she's busy fitting it together. No wonder he'd risk everything to save someone else's little sister.

"I'm sure Carinda will try to help you, if she can," is what she says eventually, after a moment. Determined, more than reassuring. If Carinda doesn't want to he's got Dana on his side to convince her.

"We'll see." It's a relief not to have to do all of the parts of this conversation he hates. Dana's quiet, and she doesn't ask stupid questions. She just thinks - he feels like he can see that part, the gears turning in her head - and she offers what she can. "Maybe she'll have better luck with her library than I did."

She probably will. Probably there's something about astral projection or finding lost things - if a child counts as a thing to lose. And then they can figure out if it works, and whether it works the way he needs it to.

---He can figure that out, he corrects himself. Dana's going to leave with her sister, not at all missing, sometime soon.

Empathy is the easy part. She considers it, absentmindedly reaching up to straighten her necklace. If something happened to Melissa she'd probably go crazy trying to fix it, too. Or Charlie. Or Bill, though the idea of Bill going missing feels somehow absurd.

"Even if she doesn't have a book she probably knows something," she says decisively. Because she has to, right? There has to be something to help.

For a moment she's quiet, and then-- a little hesitant--

"What's her name?"

"Samantha." Like the witch. He has all the details ready at hand, all the things to watch out for: hair color, eye color, height, clothing. All of it is years out of date, though. "She's fourteen now."

If you see her -

But will she? How likely is it that she exists somewhere just out of sight on the East Coast? Fox would like to believe they'd scoured the whole Eastern Seaboard, but his parents don't even talk about her anymore.

Nodding, she takes a slow sip of tea, considering that. She doesn't ask for any of that--somehow it doesn't feel as important. Dana has always thought it sounds a little gauche to offer to pray for someone, so she doesn't say it, but that doesn't mean she won't add it to her silent list of things to talk to God about. Samantha Mulder and her big brother Fox, who's so desperate to find her that he's chasing killers.

Almost my age, she thinks, a little absurdly. It must be terrifying. She doesn't let herself think if she's still alive because it would be a betrayal to even imagine it, sitting here face to face with Fox.

"I really hope Carinda can help you find her," she says, because she has to say something. But at least, even if it's not much, she's earnest.

"Yeah." The eternal gnawing hunger that is teenage boyhood has taken a brief break; he's not going to be able to finish these fries. There's something else that happens every time he tells someone about Samantha, even when they're not weird about it. Every doubt enters his mind all over again: What if she's dead? What if there's no one left to find? What if his parents already know that and haven't told him out of some kind of misguided belief that knowing would destroy him, too?

He can push all those thoughts away for now, but they're going to haunt him once he's trying to sleep.

But Dana's being cool about everything, at least, and he can't really ask for more than that right now. "Me, too. Uh - want some more fries?"

Realistically, four years missing is long enough to assume the worst. But fortunately, Dana has no desire to be realistic and she'll take her cues from him. If he thinks she's out there waiting to be found, then that's what she thinks, too.

"Sure," she says, and this time grabs three at a time. Unladylike, maybe. She's fifteen.

"Have you ever seen the library here, actually? It's enormous." It's the only thing so far that gives Beyond Beyond a run for its money as the best of this no-horse town.

Even if the realistic answer is Samantha's dead, she's gone, she's never coming back, Fox wants to find her body. And if there's no body to find, he wants to find whoever made her disappear that completely. It isn't fair that a person can steal a child away from the world; whoever did it, he needs to face some kind of justice.

But ideally - and in his heart, he truly wants to believe - Samantha will come home. So it's probably for the best that Dana doesn't argue the possibilities with him.

"Nope." He couldn't care less about ladylike behavior, but he does like books. "Maybe I'll check it out, though - if it's that good."

"It's really nice," she says, feeling inexplicably shy and oddly something close to proud-- which makes very little sense since she's barely less of a stranger here than he is.

"Craiger doesn't have a lot going on. If you go to the library you'll have seen all of it."

He doesn't have to worry about leftover fries, really.

"Maybe I should go," he says, running a hand through his shaggy hair. This could probably start to take the shape of something more than mere talk, if he had any mind for it. Right now, he's genuinely intrigued by the promise of the library - even if he suspects that it might only be impressive to someone living in Craiger. "Want to come with? If you think your sister won't miss you."

Oh, she should definitely say no to that. She has the excuse of chewing a frankly unflattering mouthful of fries to think about it. But she takes a little longer, chewing her lip in thought.

"There's a phone on the corner," she says. "I could call my mother and let her know."

Or pretend to. She's committed to the fiction of Melisa coming to get her, after all.

"Sure." He smiles, despite the fact that it's one more day without Samantha and he's gotten no closer to finding her. It's a broad, easy grin that lights up his whole face at the prospect. "I'm guessing it's close enough to walk."

This town feels like it's about three feet square. Fox doesn't mind it, exactly - it's not like Chilmark was a raging metropolis - but he's not sure he could be happy if he spent every day here. Maybe if he were old.

The fact that he seems pleased at the prospect settles her nerves. She likes to be appreciated, okay. It's not personal. (Not much. Give it a couple of decades.) And it's an excuse to go to the library. Win-win. The cute boy is completely incidental and unimportant. God, she hopes no one sees them. She hopes everyone sees them. She doesn't know everyone enough to know what to hope.

(She really, really hopes Ahab doesn't see them.)

"There isn't really anywhere to park, anyway. You'll see."

But, prudently, she helps herself to another handful of fries (or two) first.

This far from school, home, and his parents, Fox has given absolutely no thought to what any of this might look like from the outside. He's entirely focused on the moment, and especially on the fact that it's soothing some of the guilt that always wakes up when he thinks of his sister. The library might hold more information that could help him, after all. Somehow, some way, it might be useful despite its small-towniness.

He gets up, fishing a couple bucks out of his pocket and dropping them next to the empty fry basket. "Lead the way."

[ 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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