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

"I think this is what Howard Carter felt like," he mutters back, eyes shining. Mulder takes her elbow, leading her back a few steps, and they watch as the casket is closed. Once it's on a truck, about to head to the coroner's office, he adds, "Let's follow that coffin, Scully."

Back to the rental it is.

Under the circumstances, she almost wants to go in the truck-- the glimpse they had at the corpse was strange enough that she's reluctant to let it out of her sight, like it's going to vanish. Or it's some kind of prank.

It's a while before she speaks.

"That can't have been a human body, Mulder."

"Nope." He feels like an ambulance chaser, tailgating the truck on its way back to the morgue - except ambulance chasers are usually speeding, and he's stuck a couple miles below the speed limit. All the energy vibrating through him has to go somewhere, and it ends up in his face and mouth, eyes alight as he glances over at Scully. "Even you see it."

Her new partner is, objectively, way too excited about this. Part of her wants to disapprove but the truth is she understands it all too well-- it's impossible not to be on the edge of her seat, faced with a mystery like this.

(Maybe there's something wrong with the both of them, she reminds herself. They both fell into dangerous mysteries far too early.)

"Then where is Ray Soames?"

"We'll find out." At a moment like this, anything's possible. They're going to crack this wide open. "Right after you get us a little more information about the imposter."

Normally, they could divide up the work. Mulder should be offering to visit local funeral homes and talk to Soames' family and friends. But there's no way in hell he's abandoning this casket until he can pick Scully's brain about what they just found. This is so much bigger than a matter of mistaken identities. It's bigger even than unexplained deaths in the Oregon countryside.

Fortunately, it's a short drive, and then he sends Scully in while he fishes a flashbulb camera out of his luggage. He comes into the autopsy room a few minutes later, ready to get close-ups.

It feels a little less surreal once they're at the morgue. The body is like nothing she's ever dealt with but the process is almost comforting in its familiarity; the body's on an autopsy table, the casket left... wherever they put it after taking it off the truck, and all she has to do is scrub in, slip her mask on, and prep her tools. It's not the fanciest facility she's seen, but it seems like they've got the basics covered.

No excuse, she thinks, for Nemman to have missed the mark so badly. He still seems the likeliest suspect.

She's just noted the weight and height of the body when Mulder comes in.

"You're sure you want to be here for this?"

It's almost rhetorical. In his place, she wouldn't miss it for the world-- not when this is so unexpected-- but this is likely to be a particularly unpleasant version of a process most people don't have the stomach for.

"Positive." Sure, the smell is nothing to write home about, but the creature stretched out on the table makes up for it. If it's disgusting, who cares? Mulder doesn't hesitate as he comes closer, focusing the camera in on the face, then parts of the body. "We're making history here, Scully. Think about what this could mean."

He has. In detail. Only his focus on taking photos is keeping him from expounding at length.

Well, it's his choice to make. She shrugs, takes a deep breath, and goes back to where she was.

"Ah... Corpse is extremely desiccated, and in an advanced state of decay. On external exam, distinguishing features include an oblate cranium and large ocular cavities-- Can you point that away from me, please?"

She turns away from the flash to grab a scalpel.

"Although interred in Ray Soames' grave, initial indications are that this subject is not human."

No glamour shots for Scully. Noted. He lets the camera hang, confident in the photos he's already gotten. If the body weren't evidence - and decomposing - he'd be inclined to touch it, just to prove it's real. "If it's not human, what is it?"

You know what it is, he doesn't say. We both do.

She shrugs a shoulder slightly.

"Definitely mammalian-- maybe a chimpanzee, or an orangutan."

Obviously not an alien.

"Commonly found in Oregon graveyards," he says, snorting. "We're going to need a better explanation for Soames' family. X-rays, tissue samples, blood type, toxicology, a full genetic workup - how fast do you think we can get them?"

"Genetic--" She looks up at him, a little incredulous.

"I'd be more interested in figuring out where Ray Soames' body actually is-- doesn't it seem obvious that this was buried so that someone could dispose of the evidence another way?" And by someone she means, probably, the medical examiner.

"There's two of us," he says brightly. There's nothing energizing like potential proof of extraterrestrial activity on Earth. "I'll keep looking for Ray Soames, and you can prove this is an ape. C'mon, you know you want to be right. This is the only way to know for sure."

Maybe that's not fair, but if playing to her skepticism works, then he'll do it.

"I don't want to be right, I want to know what's true."

This is, at least, mostly true; it's just that she can't entirely conceive of a situation where they find the truth and she isn't correct about this body not being Ray Soames. It'll take a lot more than one weird corpse to convince her that aliens exist.

But he's got at least most of a point. Step one, prove that the body is strange but mundane; step two, determine what happened and how it ended up in his grave.

"Some of it might have to go to another lab, I don't think their facilities are very advanced." Doubting Dana can stick her hands right into the Y-incision while Agent Mulder goes looking. Probably better if he doesn't stay around for the fun.

"So we'll send those samples out." Simple enough, completely worth the time, effort, and expense. He's going to be walking on air for the rest of the day. "Do whatever you can here. The X-rays are possible, right?"

He's too wired to get any rest that night, and he knows it before he's even left the morgue. After they're finished for the day, he goes for a run. Even offers to let Scully join him, despite the fact that it'd mean a slower pace. She doesn't take him up on it, though, and he pushes himself until he's sweaty and panting, flying through the sleepy streets of this tiny town.

The next day is even more exciting: time loss, more information on the missing Ray Soames, a thunderstorm so powerful it blacks out the motel. Mulder finds a candle - incredible, inexplicable, unless this happens more often around here than the proprietors would like to admit - and is ready to settle in for a night of listening to the rain and maybe jacking off when he hears a knock at the door.

Scully's on the doorstep, and while he doesn't remember most of the French he took in high school he's pretty sure the term for her just then is déshabillée. His eyes remain on hers, his expression exactly as casual as it'd be if she'd come over in one of her suits. "Hi."

It's not until he opens the door that she realizes how bad this might look. Must look. Her hand clenches in the fabric of her robe slightly, reflexively, but Agent Mulder doesn't really react which is-- well, it's good, of course. Maybe he just thinks she's crazy. (Maybe she's crazy.)

She tries to force a smile, but can't quite manage it.

"I need you to look at something for me," she says, as if she means evidence. In a sense she does. This is fine and normal-- aside from the darkness and the fact that she's in her underwear-- it's just medical.

He moves away from the threshold, so she can come in. The candle gives a warm sort of glow to her face, her big eyes and round cheeks - or maybe it's just the fact that everything else is pitch black right now. Any light looks good at the moment. "What's wrong?"

There's something a little desperate in the glance she gives him before she comes inside. On paper this might look like something else, but in the moment-- the flickering candlelight, the set of her shoulders-- the anxious tension in the air is anything but seductive.

She turns away from him, takes a breath, and slips the robe off her shoulders, pulling it around to clutch in one arm tight against her front. As vulnerable as the moment is, she isn't shy about all the bare skin; it's all forgotten in favor of the constellation of little bumps on her lower back. She looks back over her shoulder at him, her wide-eyed stare betraying panic she's tried to suppress, and reaches a hand around to frame the marks with her fingers.

"What is it?" she asks, barely above a whisper.

Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me...

He kneels, holding the candle close to her skin, wondering if she can feel the heat cast by the flame. Nothing touches her - the wax, his hand, his lips - but he can't help the awareness of just how long it's been since he was this close to a scantily clad woman.

The bumps, Fox. Pay attention to the bumps. He peers at them in the candle's glow, comparing them to his memory of autopsy photographs, refusing to let himself notice the soft curve of her hip, hugged by her panties, any more than he already has. It takes a little longer than strictly necessary, but Scully waits for his answer. He can nearly feel the tension running through her - excepting, of course, the part where he really can't feel any of her, if he wants this partnership to lead to anything good.

(It finally feels like it could, like Scully could be convinced. He won't jeopardize the work because his thoughts keep flitting places they shouldn't.)

"Mosquito bites," he finally breathes, grinning up at her.

While he examines her back she screws her eyes shut, trying to gather the courage to deal with-- with what? She has no idea what. That's the problem-- if she's been marked by whatever nefarious force or person is operating here, then her fate is unclear but presumably tragic. They know just enough to know it's not good.

The only silver lining is there's little room to feel shy, or worry that he'll take this the wrong way. To her rational mind-- which, admittedly, is only barely keeping hold of the reins-- her body is only a body; right now an open question, a piece of evidence, not a vehicle of desire.

It takes forever for him to look over the patch of skin. She tries to even out her breathing, lower her heart rate; it doesn't do much good. The heat of the candle almost itches, the ghost of his breath-- even and calm, better than she's doing-- a reminder in the darkness that she isn't alone.

It takes her half a second to process that he's spoken, and then--

"Really?!" All the panic she's been trying to swallow is audible in the word. Her eyes snap open and she twists to look at him, the shadows jumping around them, the candle a point of impossible brightness. "You're sure?"

She's already fumbling for the sleeves of her robe, but she needs him to swear to it before she can even think about relaxing.

Her body should be only a body, and he knows it. The fact that he keeps thinking of the form of her is proof that it's been a while. If he keeps it swallowed down, hopefully she won't notice, and none of it will make a difference.

"Positive." On the outside chance he's wrong, they'll handle it after that point. For now, he's breathing a sigh of relief, and hopefully she will, too. "You'll itch for a while, but that's all."

And now that they know, there's no reason for him to kneel in front of her ass and stare at her spine. He gets up, wandering over to his bed and flopping down on it.

"Oh my God," she breathes, half embarrassed but mostly relieved. It makes her feel, at least, a little ludicrous to be standing here in her underwear. (Thank God it's at least practical, reasonably conservative-- the last thing she wants is for him to imagine she's angling to seduce him.) She slips the robe back on, crossed high on her chest and belted, and stands, shifting her weight slowly side to side. She ought to leave, she thinks, arms crossed over her waist.

"I'm sorry-- I just thought-- and with the lights out I could hardly see..."

Dangerously close to babbling, Dana. She chides herself to get it together, but she's still trembling with adrenaline and uncertainty, and if she were honest with herself-- which she often isn't-- she's not eager to be alone.

"It's fine. They were eating us alive out there." He gives her an easy smile, setting the candle on the bedside table. Would it be inappropriate to pat the mattress and suggest she stick around? Probably. Instead, he says, "You sound a little shaken. Want to sit down?"

There's a chair. There's also the rest of the bed, and the floor. Hell, there's the rest of the bed, and he can sit on the floor.

"I--"

She should go, right? But the desire not to be alone is intense enough that she can't ignore it. With a little sigh, she steps further into the room, tries to unclench her hands from the fabric of her robe. (The robe, too, is blessedly unsexy; a flattering crimson, but thick rather than silky.)

"Maybe that's a good idea," she relents, heading for the unoccupied chair. "I'm not going to get work done with the power out, anyway." Her heart rate is finally slowing, her breathing a little less ragged. After a moment, she adds--

"Thank you."

Mulder leans lazily on one side, and if there was a moment of sexiness in the bug bite examination, it's disappeared into something merely friendly. Slumber-party-esque, even. "Any time. I'll let you know if I have any bumps to investigate, but so far all my itches are highly visible."

He lifts an arm, as though to demonstrate.

[ 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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