Fic commentary - Porch Light (XF)
And finally, for bardsmaid, commentary on "Porch Light," which has Mulder and Krycek in it. Of all my XF stories, I'm proudest of this one.
This story was written over the course of a year. Maybe more. An early version was put up for nailing on Glass Onion, and then I decided to rewrite it from scratch, more or less. And then it lingered on my hard drive, without an ending. Until I realized that the ending I expected would never happen to these characters.
Porch Light
by Vanzetti
Rating: PG.
Category: Angst, M/K UST. Some kind of post-existence AU. Yeah, so I say it's M/K story, but who am I kidding, really? I mean, I started this story out in the firm belief that every Krycek writer has at least one M/K story in her. But guess what? I don't. This is as good as it gets.
Summary: Two men, maybe a little concord. But I do like the summary.
Disclaimer: The X-Files universe and the characters therein are the property of Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox. No copyright infringement intended.
City streets, five in the morning
Would have stopped to phone you but I'm almost home.
At my back door there's a porch light that's shining.
No, I just don't mind living here by myself if I leave it on.
--Nanci Griffith, "Working in Corners"
I like this verse for this story, because (to me) it sounds like the narrator isn't phoning because she'll see the other person when she gets home. But then it turns out that she lives by herself.
The opening is meant to be distant. I want the reader to feel a little lost here, which is probably a bad thing. But the whole thing is a narrative experiment -- I think I got carried away with this third-person... I don't even know what to call it. It's not even omniscient -- it's actually quite limited, but impersonal.
It ought to be the start of a joke: a man walks into a bar. A man walks into a bar. There's a bar like this on every third corner in some cities: linoleum floor, ceiling stained yellow by decades of cigarette smoke, Formica tables, and the bar is only old and wood because no one could afford to replace it. New leather on the five booths that line one wall is the only nod toward gentrification.
I was thinking of Chicago, the far South Side. Except that they don't have gentrification down there. It could be anywhere, really.
The man might be another nod toward gentrification, but not much of one. He's wearing a suit, a good suit, but it's rumpled as if he's been wearing it a few days too long. He's got a long wool overcoat slung over his shoulder and a briefcase in his hand. The briefcase, like the man, looks like it's seen better days: a canvas case which barely zips around the rectangular shape of a laptop and an inch or two of paper. He heads straight for the bar and tosses the coat onto a stool. The briefcase gets placed gently on the floor before he takes a seat. No need to ask: the bartender has a drink in front of him already. Bourbon, on the rocks. He's known here. The bartender calls him by name, Mulder, and Mulder mumbles some kind of reply.
When I started this story, it was sometime mid S8, while Mulder was off missing. And I found it hard to imagine what would keep him away in that situation, with a newborn child. You know, not that Mulder is the poster child for responsibility, but that seemed excessive even for him. So sure, he's drinking, because anything that's serious enough to keep Mulder away from Scully and William is serious enough to make him start to drink.
He's on his fourth bourbon, and the bartender is starting to give him anxious looks, when a new man walks in. He pauses in the doorway for a second to scan the room; when he sees Mulder his face doesn't relax in recognition. If anything, he looks grimmer. The other drinkers glance up at him and then away: the careful blankness in his eyes doesn't bear looking at too closely.
So yes, this is denial fic. Roll with it, or don't. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I don't feel like justifying it.
He sits down at the bar next to Mulder and orders a drink as well. If Mulder reacts to his voice or his presence, it doesn't show. The new man watches him out of the corner of his eye and opens his mouth as if to say something. He seems to think better of it, though. Instead he finishes his beer in silence and sets the bottle back on the bar.
...because at this point, Krycek is probably remembering that none of his other meetings with Mulder have gone well for him, and wondering what exactly he's doing here.
Mulder only moves when the man gets up to leave. His hand shoots out with uncanny accuracy-he never even turned to look-and grabs the other man by the arm. Only then does he turn his head and they stare at each other for a second. The other man looks down at the white knuckles clutching his black leather sleeve. Now that he's unobserved there is, for the first time, a hint of some emotion on Mulder's face. Only for a second, before it's repressed. "He'll have another," he says to the bartender.
The other man pulls his arm back slightly, but Mulder maintains his grip. "Don't buy me a drink."
"Why not?" Mulder asks. "You can't stop me, Krycek."
"You know why not," Krycek answers.
For some reason, once I'd settled on the distant 3rd person, I couldn't use names until they'd been introduced by one ofthe characters. I have no idea why, but it didn't seem to constrain the story too much. I like the way Mulder knows exactly where Krycek is, here.
"Do you want the drink or not?" the bartender asks.
"He wants it," Mulder says, and lets go of Krycek's arm. It's more of a shove, almost a violent motion.
I needed to find a better way of saying that -- of indicating the repressed violence here -- but this is the best I could come up with. Too wordy, I now think; at least the "almost" should have been cut. I do like the way Mulder buying a beer for Krycek is also a kind of attack.
Krycek slumps back onto his stool and contemplates the bottle. "I can't drink this."
"Some people say that if you save a man's life, he's your responsibility forever."
"That's bullshit," Krycek tells the bottle. "What the hell are you doing here, Mulder? Hiding out under your own name? Do you know how easy it was for me to find you?"
"Don't bother telling me you're here to kill me," Mulder says. "Three months in the grave didn't hurt my ability to follow a line of reasoning. You never meant to kill me."
Mulder-logic is not like our Earth-logic. On the other hand that scene in Existence defies all logic, so maybe he's right.
Krycek glances at the bartender, who looks away and finds another customer to serve. "This is stupid," he says. "I should leave."
"You can't leave," Mulder says with the authority of a man on the edge of drunkenness.
"Don't give me orders." There's a flicker of something in Krycek's face: anger, maybe, or irritation. It disturbs, for a second, the dead look in his eyes.
"Then tell me what you're here for, since you're not going to kill me."
"I wanted to see you." It may not have been the response he expected to give: he looks surprised after the words leave his mouth.
In my original plan, there was finally going to be some kind of slashy reconciliation between them, or at least a more overt recongition of their interdependence. But by the time I came to writing the final version, I'm not sure I believed in that any more. In a way, although I still write in the universe, this story is my "farewell" to the X Files. I'll try to say more about that later on. But anyway -- Krycek needs to see Mulder, and Mulder, although he doesn't quite know it, needs to see Krycek.
It is not the response Mulder anticipated, and Krycek watches him examining the statement from every angle, shaking it like a child with a present, to see what is hiding inside it. "Krycek. I never knew you cared," he says flatly. "You should have just sent flowers."
"...like a child with a present" -- effective, or a tired cliche? Discuss.
"Fuck you, Mulder," Krycek says. "Go the hell back to Washington." He pushes himself off the stool and walks away. Mulder stares at his own two hands flat on the wooden surface of the bar; he gets up as the door closes behind Krycek, grabs his coat and briefcase, and follows him out.
Obviously, all references to more than a single hand in a Krycek story are significant.
Autumn is edging into winter; icy mist carries the orange light of the streetlights further. Krycek is nowhere to be seen, so Mulder starts trudging toward the apartment he has rented. When Krycek steps out of the shadows and starts to walk next to him, he shows no surprise. They walk step in step, down to the corner, where Mulder pauses on the curb. "Spit it out," he says. "Something brought you here, and something's keeping you here."
"Just passing through and heard you were in town. You might want to do something about that." Krycek steps off the curb and heads unerringly in the direction of Mulder's apartment.
Of course Krycek knows where Mulder lives.
Mulder hurries his steps to catch up. "So that scum sucking assassins like you can't track me down at my local bar?" Despite the insult, his voice is flat.
"Sure."
"Coming back from the dead really did a number on you, hunh?"
I wrote this when I didn't hate Mulder. And the thing is, when his brain works, it really works, and he has this amazing intuitive way of hitting the heart of whatever he's looking into. But he often seems heartless toward his own people, because I'm not sure he always remembers that they're not-him. I'm not saying this well.
There is the slightest hesitation in Krycek's step. He jams his hand even further into the pocket of his leather jacket and stares down at the concrete. At the next corner, he turns right.
Mulder stops and watches him start across the street. "Hey," he says. "My apartment is this way."
Krycek turns and meets his eyes. "Mulder, it's late."
The silence stretches out between them. "Too late?" Mulder finally asks.
...because now Mulder, also, has nothing. What matters in this story, I think, is that they're both alone. And you know, maybe they could be alone together, is probably what Krycek thought at the beginning of the story, and what Mulder thinks here, but that turns out not to be the case.
An awkward shrug is his only answer.
He tries again. "Do you have anywhere else you need to be? Aside from the middle of the street, I mean."
"Do you care?"
"If you get run over? I could pretend to care."
Because really, no one would believe that he did care, least of all Mulder and Krycek.
The smile on Krycek's face is like the hesitation in his step, gone before Mulder can be sure it was ever there. "Go home, Mulder. That's all I came to tell you. It's over. Go home."
"You know I can't."
"Because of your father?"
And whether Krycek means CSM here, or is reminding Mulder of his hand in Bill Mulder's death is up to the reader to determine.
"Because I was missing for three months and dead for three more. I've seen things that..." His voice fails, and he continues in a different tone. "Come out of the street, Krycek."
"What's going on, Mulder? Now that you've been dead and I've been dead you think you understand me? Is that it?"
"I don't think I ever understood you, Krycek."
So that's it. The big payoff is recognition, and the only recognition they have is Mulder's admission that he doesn't understand. But of course, that's all Krycek, I think, ever needed from Mulder.
The anger fades from Krycek's face, and he stands there, one eyebrow half-raised, until Mulder ducks his head as if against a breeze. "Mulder," Krycek says, half a whisper, half a sigh.
"You've seen it too. You know it's never going to be over. Not really. That's why," Mulder whispers. "That's why I can't go back. You know it too."
Krycek remains silent as Mulder takes a step and then another into the street.
Is this too anvilicious? Is the whole thing just a big crashing pile of anvils? I honestly cannot tell.
Mulder stops about an arm's length away and watches Krycek for a moment longer, as if waiting for some other reply. "It's late, Krycek. Come out of the street."
"You're impossible, Mulder. This... this is impossible."
One more step would bring them close enough to touch. Mulder stands still. "If you say so."
"Of course I say so. I'm..." He looks away from whatever he sees on the other man's expressionless face. When he looks again, Mulder has taken the last step.
"You kissed me once," Mulder says. "Do you remember?"
In the yellow streetlights, Krycek's face looks haunted. "It was a long time ago. Mulder, I'm not sure that man even exists any more."
"He exists." Mulder sounds certain. "We've been on the same side."
I think Mulder is wrong here, and knows he's wrong -- not about them being on the same side, but about either of them still being the men they were then -- but he also needs to say it, and to have it heard.
"I didn't think you believed that." Krycek's voice is rough.
"I want to believe it. Krycek, I..." His voice trails off. "Come home, Krycek."
"With you."
The story ended here for about a year, because I wanted Krycek to go with Mulder. Once I realized that wouldn't happen, the story could be finished in a very short time. And I use their exchange below to recreate the moment I realized how ridiculous it was, to think that these two men would go home together.
The words hang between them. They stare at each other until Mulder looks away. He opens his mouth and closes it without saying anything.
"You know that can't--" Krycek begins.
At the same time Mulder says, "I just thought..." His voice trails off. "It isn't enough, is it?"
"I'm... I'm not sorry I came to see you."
"No." They stand close enough to touch, not touching. Mulder lifts his free hand, awkwardly, and lets it fall. "Well. Watch your back, Krycek."
There's a kind of relief to the ending, though, isn't there? A lightening of the heaviness, the tension that built up between them through this story. they've had their encounter -- now they can move on.
This time Mulder can see Krycek's smile. "You too," Krycek says. He turns and makes his way across the street and away down the block. Hand in his pocket, head up, he doesn't hesitate or turn back.
Mulder watches him pass under the streetlights, but turns away before the other man is lost to his sight.
I like that final line.
End.
So I called this denial-fic above, and it is in ths sense that Krycek is up and walking around in it. But I think that in a broader sense, it isn't, because what I found I couldn't deny as I wrote it was the weight of history between Mulder and Krycek, which may drive them together but also holds them apart. And that weight can't be overcome. This is as close as they get, that moment of recognition. And because I wrote this story, this is a story about Krycek getting something from Mulder, the recognition he once wanted -- although hidden in here, and I'm not sure I do a good job of it, is Krycek's attempt to give something to Mulder as well, in the shape of the "It's over, you can go home," line.
Somewhere, in that strange livejournal way, I heard a rumour of a discussion about the stories we write for ourselves and the storese we write for an audience; this is very much a story I wrote for myself. Obviously, I want it to work for other readers as well, but mostly it was a story I needed to write. I think what this story is, for me, is an attempt to undo some of the emotional damage (in the limited sense that fandom things lead to emotional damage) done by "Existence," and that strange final scene between Krycek and Mulder. So part of me wishes that everyone else loves this story as much as I do, but part of me recognizes that they can't precisely because it's so personal a story for me. Although I think it's not a bad piece of writing, either.
In the midst of writing this, the show ended, and "The Truth" was shown, along with ghostly-Krycek. But I still needed to write this story for myself.
Oh, and when I first posted this story I suggested that this Krycek could be a ghost. Not true. This Krycek is alive.
This story was written over the course of a year. Maybe more. An early version was put up for nailing on Glass Onion, and then I decided to rewrite it from scratch, more or less. And then it lingered on my hard drive, without an ending. Until I realized that the ending I expected would never happen to these characters.
Porch Light
by Vanzetti
Rating: PG.
Category: Angst, M/K UST. Some kind of post-existence AU. Yeah, so I say it's M/K story, but who am I kidding, really? I mean, I started this story out in the firm belief that every Krycek writer has at least one M/K story in her. But guess what? I don't. This is as good as it gets.
Summary: Two men, maybe a little concord. But I do like the summary.
Disclaimer: The X-Files universe and the characters therein are the property of Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox. No copyright infringement intended.
City streets, five in the morning
Would have stopped to phone you but I'm almost home.
At my back door there's a porch light that's shining.
No, I just don't mind living here by myself if I leave it on.
--Nanci Griffith, "Working in Corners"
I like this verse for this story, because (to me) it sounds like the narrator isn't phoning because she'll see the other person when she gets home. But then it turns out that she lives by herself.
The opening is meant to be distant. I want the reader to feel a little lost here, which is probably a bad thing. But the whole thing is a narrative experiment -- I think I got carried away with this third-person... I don't even know what to call it. It's not even omniscient -- it's actually quite limited, but impersonal.
It ought to be the start of a joke: a man walks into a bar. A man walks into a bar. There's a bar like this on every third corner in some cities: linoleum floor, ceiling stained yellow by decades of cigarette smoke, Formica tables, and the bar is only old and wood because no one could afford to replace it. New leather on the five booths that line one wall is the only nod toward gentrification.
I was thinking of Chicago, the far South Side. Except that they don't have gentrification down there. It could be anywhere, really.
The man might be another nod toward gentrification, but not much of one. He's wearing a suit, a good suit, but it's rumpled as if he's been wearing it a few days too long. He's got a long wool overcoat slung over his shoulder and a briefcase in his hand. The briefcase, like the man, looks like it's seen better days: a canvas case which barely zips around the rectangular shape of a laptop and an inch or two of paper. He heads straight for the bar and tosses the coat onto a stool. The briefcase gets placed gently on the floor before he takes a seat. No need to ask: the bartender has a drink in front of him already. Bourbon, on the rocks. He's known here. The bartender calls him by name, Mulder, and Mulder mumbles some kind of reply.
When I started this story, it was sometime mid S8, while Mulder was off missing. And I found it hard to imagine what would keep him away in that situation, with a newborn child. You know, not that Mulder is the poster child for responsibility, but that seemed excessive even for him. So sure, he's drinking, because anything that's serious enough to keep Mulder away from Scully and William is serious enough to make him start to drink.
He's on his fourth bourbon, and the bartender is starting to give him anxious looks, when a new man walks in. He pauses in the doorway for a second to scan the room; when he sees Mulder his face doesn't relax in recognition. If anything, he looks grimmer. The other drinkers glance up at him and then away: the careful blankness in his eyes doesn't bear looking at too closely.
So yes, this is denial fic. Roll with it, or don't. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I don't feel like justifying it.
He sits down at the bar next to Mulder and orders a drink as well. If Mulder reacts to his voice or his presence, it doesn't show. The new man watches him out of the corner of his eye and opens his mouth as if to say something. He seems to think better of it, though. Instead he finishes his beer in silence and sets the bottle back on the bar.
...because at this point, Krycek is probably remembering that none of his other meetings with Mulder have gone well for him, and wondering what exactly he's doing here.
Mulder only moves when the man gets up to leave. His hand shoots out with uncanny accuracy-he never even turned to look-and grabs the other man by the arm. Only then does he turn his head and they stare at each other for a second. The other man looks down at the white knuckles clutching his black leather sleeve. Now that he's unobserved there is, for the first time, a hint of some emotion on Mulder's face. Only for a second, before it's repressed. "He'll have another," he says to the bartender.
The other man pulls his arm back slightly, but Mulder maintains his grip. "Don't buy me a drink."
"Why not?" Mulder asks. "You can't stop me, Krycek."
"You know why not," Krycek answers.
For some reason, once I'd settled on the distant 3rd person, I couldn't use names until they'd been introduced by one ofthe characters. I have no idea why, but it didn't seem to constrain the story too much. I like the way Mulder knows exactly where Krycek is, here.
"Do you want the drink or not?" the bartender asks.
"He wants it," Mulder says, and lets go of Krycek's arm. It's more of a shove, almost a violent motion.
I needed to find a better way of saying that -- of indicating the repressed violence here -- but this is the best I could come up with. Too wordy, I now think; at least the "almost" should have been cut. I do like the way Mulder buying a beer for Krycek is also a kind of attack.
Krycek slumps back onto his stool and contemplates the bottle. "I can't drink this."
"Some people say that if you save a man's life, he's your responsibility forever."
"That's bullshit," Krycek tells the bottle. "What the hell are you doing here, Mulder? Hiding out under your own name? Do you know how easy it was for me to find you?"
"Don't bother telling me you're here to kill me," Mulder says. "Three months in the grave didn't hurt my ability to follow a line of reasoning. You never meant to kill me."
Mulder-logic is not like our Earth-logic. On the other hand that scene in Existence defies all logic, so maybe he's right.
Krycek glances at the bartender, who looks away and finds another customer to serve. "This is stupid," he says. "I should leave."
"You can't leave," Mulder says with the authority of a man on the edge of drunkenness.
"Don't give me orders." There's a flicker of something in Krycek's face: anger, maybe, or irritation. It disturbs, for a second, the dead look in his eyes.
"Then tell me what you're here for, since you're not going to kill me."
"I wanted to see you." It may not have been the response he expected to give: he looks surprised after the words leave his mouth.
In my original plan, there was finally going to be some kind of slashy reconciliation between them, or at least a more overt recongition of their interdependence. But by the time I came to writing the final version, I'm not sure I believed in that any more. In a way, although I still write in the universe, this story is my "farewell" to the X Files. I'll try to say more about that later on. But anyway -- Krycek needs to see Mulder, and Mulder, although he doesn't quite know it, needs to see Krycek.
It is not the response Mulder anticipated, and Krycek watches him examining the statement from every angle, shaking it like a child with a present, to see what is hiding inside it. "Krycek. I never knew you cared," he says flatly. "You should have just sent flowers."
"...like a child with a present" -- effective, or a tired cliche? Discuss.
"Fuck you, Mulder," Krycek says. "Go the hell back to Washington." He pushes himself off the stool and walks away. Mulder stares at his own two hands flat on the wooden surface of the bar; he gets up as the door closes behind Krycek, grabs his coat and briefcase, and follows him out.
Obviously, all references to more than a single hand in a Krycek story are significant.
Autumn is edging into winter; icy mist carries the orange light of the streetlights further. Krycek is nowhere to be seen, so Mulder starts trudging toward the apartment he has rented. When Krycek steps out of the shadows and starts to walk next to him, he shows no surprise. They walk step in step, down to the corner, where Mulder pauses on the curb. "Spit it out," he says. "Something brought you here, and something's keeping you here."
"Just passing through and heard you were in town. You might want to do something about that." Krycek steps off the curb and heads unerringly in the direction of Mulder's apartment.
Of course Krycek knows where Mulder lives.
Mulder hurries his steps to catch up. "So that scum sucking assassins like you can't track me down at my local bar?" Despite the insult, his voice is flat.
"Sure."
"Coming back from the dead really did a number on you, hunh?"
I wrote this when I didn't hate Mulder. And the thing is, when his brain works, it really works, and he has this amazing intuitive way of hitting the heart of whatever he's looking into. But he often seems heartless toward his own people, because I'm not sure he always remembers that they're not-him. I'm not saying this well.
There is the slightest hesitation in Krycek's step. He jams his hand even further into the pocket of his leather jacket and stares down at the concrete. At the next corner, he turns right.
Mulder stops and watches him start across the street. "Hey," he says. "My apartment is this way."
Krycek turns and meets his eyes. "Mulder, it's late."
The silence stretches out between them. "Too late?" Mulder finally asks.
...because now Mulder, also, has nothing. What matters in this story, I think, is that they're both alone. And you know, maybe they could be alone together, is probably what Krycek thought at the beginning of the story, and what Mulder thinks here, but that turns out not to be the case.
An awkward shrug is his only answer.
He tries again. "Do you have anywhere else you need to be? Aside from the middle of the street, I mean."
"Do you care?"
"If you get run over? I could pretend to care."
Because really, no one would believe that he did care, least of all Mulder and Krycek.
The smile on Krycek's face is like the hesitation in his step, gone before Mulder can be sure it was ever there. "Go home, Mulder. That's all I came to tell you. It's over. Go home."
"You know I can't."
"Because of your father?"
And whether Krycek means CSM here, or is reminding Mulder of his hand in Bill Mulder's death is up to the reader to determine.
"Because I was missing for three months and dead for three more. I've seen things that..." His voice fails, and he continues in a different tone. "Come out of the street, Krycek."
"What's going on, Mulder? Now that you've been dead and I've been dead you think you understand me? Is that it?"
"I don't think I ever understood you, Krycek."
So that's it. The big payoff is recognition, and the only recognition they have is Mulder's admission that he doesn't understand. But of course, that's all Krycek, I think, ever needed from Mulder.
The anger fades from Krycek's face, and he stands there, one eyebrow half-raised, until Mulder ducks his head as if against a breeze. "Mulder," Krycek says, half a whisper, half a sigh.
"You've seen it too. You know it's never going to be over. Not really. That's why," Mulder whispers. "That's why I can't go back. You know it too."
Krycek remains silent as Mulder takes a step and then another into the street.
Is this too anvilicious? Is the whole thing just a big crashing pile of anvils? I honestly cannot tell.
Mulder stops about an arm's length away and watches Krycek for a moment longer, as if waiting for some other reply. "It's late, Krycek. Come out of the street."
"You're impossible, Mulder. This... this is impossible."
One more step would bring them close enough to touch. Mulder stands still. "If you say so."
"Of course I say so. I'm..." He looks away from whatever he sees on the other man's expressionless face. When he looks again, Mulder has taken the last step.
"You kissed me once," Mulder says. "Do you remember?"
In the yellow streetlights, Krycek's face looks haunted. "It was a long time ago. Mulder, I'm not sure that man even exists any more."
"He exists." Mulder sounds certain. "We've been on the same side."
I think Mulder is wrong here, and knows he's wrong -- not about them being on the same side, but about either of them still being the men they were then -- but he also needs to say it, and to have it heard.
"I didn't think you believed that." Krycek's voice is rough.
"I want to believe it. Krycek, I..." His voice trails off. "Come home, Krycek."
"With you."
The story ended here for about a year, because I wanted Krycek to go with Mulder. Once I realized that wouldn't happen, the story could be finished in a very short time. And I use their exchange below to recreate the moment I realized how ridiculous it was, to think that these two men would go home together.
The words hang between them. They stare at each other until Mulder looks away. He opens his mouth and closes it without saying anything.
"You know that can't--" Krycek begins.
At the same time Mulder says, "I just thought..." His voice trails off. "It isn't enough, is it?"
"I'm... I'm not sorry I came to see you."
"No." They stand close enough to touch, not touching. Mulder lifts his free hand, awkwardly, and lets it fall. "Well. Watch your back, Krycek."
There's a kind of relief to the ending, though, isn't there? A lightening of the heaviness, the tension that built up between them through this story. they've had their encounter -- now they can move on.
This time Mulder can see Krycek's smile. "You too," Krycek says. He turns and makes his way across the street and away down the block. Hand in his pocket, head up, he doesn't hesitate or turn back.
Mulder watches him pass under the streetlights, but turns away before the other man is lost to his sight.
I like that final line.
End.
So I called this denial-fic above, and it is in ths sense that Krycek is up and walking around in it. But I think that in a broader sense, it isn't, because what I found I couldn't deny as I wrote it was the weight of history between Mulder and Krycek, which may drive them together but also holds them apart. And that weight can't be overcome. This is as close as they get, that moment of recognition. And because I wrote this story, this is a story about Krycek getting something from Mulder, the recognition he once wanted -- although hidden in here, and I'm not sure I do a good job of it, is Krycek's attempt to give something to Mulder as well, in the shape of the "It's over, you can go home," line.
Somewhere, in that strange livejournal way, I heard a rumour of a discussion about the stories we write for ourselves and the storese we write for an audience; this is very much a story I wrote for myself. Obviously, I want it to work for other readers as well, but mostly it was a story I needed to write. I think what this story is, for me, is an attempt to undo some of the emotional damage (in the limited sense that fandom things lead to emotional damage) done by "Existence," and that strange final scene between Krycek and Mulder. So part of me wishes that everyone else loves this story as much as I do, but part of me recognizes that they can't precisely because it's so personal a story for me. Although I think it's not a bad piece of writing, either.
In the midst of writing this, the show ended, and "The Truth" was shown, along with ghostly-Krycek. But I still needed to write this story for myself.
Oh, and when I first posted this story I suggested that this Krycek could be a ghost. Not true. This Krycek is alive.