Grievances Foregone
Fandom: X-Files
Rating: NC-17
Category: V,A
Spoilers: Red and Black
Keywords: Mulder/Krycek, slash
Summary: Krycek contemplates the intricacies of betrayal, time,
and planning.
Disclaimer: The boys belong to CC, I mean no harm--just taking
them out for a spin. I'll make sure they're returned nicely washed
and with a full tank of gas.
This is for MustangSally who is teaching me fearlessness --
one careful step at a time.
My boundless gratitude to CGS, who puts up with way more than
any one editor should have to.
Grievances Foregone
Originally published as Rye
August 1998
I've never been good at long-range planning. The short run has
always been my thing. The immediate. Instant gratification. I've
always lived moment-by-moment. From pleasure to pleasure.
The future was always far too uncertain for me to count on, let
alone try to shape or attain. There just didn't seem to be any point
in investing a lot of energy in worrying about something I was
unlikely to have.
I was born a double agent. Triple agent. Mole. Assassin. Saboteur.
Opportunist. All of them true. All of them lies. Just masks over
masks. I no longer know if my name is my own, or only another
fiction.
But no matter what mask I've worn, I've always known that I didn't
have much of a future, so I didn't plan for it.
Mulder was just one more short-term goal. The minute I laid eyes on
him, I knew that I wanted him--wanted to possess him. I don't try to
explain my needs to myself. I merely act on them. The pull toward
Mulder was a dark and familiar need. Something erotic, hot and
dangerous--my favorite flavor.
I knew I might not get him, but it was worth trying. I didn't see
the danger until much later. Until it was too late. Far too late.
# #
Fuck it.
I'm such a fucking idiot.
I should have killed him. There on the floor of his apartment.
Should have shot him right there and then, instead of trying to
give him information that might very well kill him in another
way, but just might save us all.
What do I care? I never thought I was going to have a future,
anyway. Why didn't I kill him?
If I had simply pulled that trigger, he'd be dead. I could have
watched the mocking, tired, ambiguous hazel light slowly dim
in his eyes. And I'd be free. And what would the point be of
that? Free, sure, but what does that mean, in a life that doesn't
even belong to me?
I'm such a fucking idiot.
Resist or serve, I told him. A lie. A false hope. What would I
know about it? No matter how hard I resist him, I return again
and again to serve this...this....thing that coils around my gut and
strangles my heart. This need I have to see him. This bond I
would sever, but if I did, I would sever my own soul.
If I still have a soul.
Why is it that I always wax melodramatically lyrical and Russian
when I think about him? Why do I only think about my soul when
Mulder comes to mind?
Oddly, I think maybe I do still have a soul, though. In that brief
instant when I thought so seriously of pulling the trigger, there
was a spark in his eyes. A spark I felt clear through the prison
that passes for my heart. A connection that defied logic and
reason. Then he blinked and it was gone--replaced by the mocking
anger and wariness that is his habitual mask when I am there.
But I know it is only a mask. I know that he resists this thing
between us as desperately as I do. We fight this thing that is
more than attraction, less than love--more frightening and
undermining than either. We fight. It is our connection. For now.
The only thing we are allowed. All that we will allow ourselves.
We do not wish it. But it is. It simply is.
He didn't shoot me, though. I saw his finger twitch, saw it slide
along the barrel to curl possessively around the trigger. I saw
the rage and possibility race through his eyes, pursed by the
hounds of what if and if only.
I gave him a chance to kill me, or to call me back. I needed both,
and he gave me neither. We have always reached out to each
other only through denial.
Besides, if he'd killed me, he could have actually laid to rest one
of his ghosts--the murderer of his father. Mulder could never
allow himself that much closure. It would feel too good.
So now I am on the road again. This road is just like the other
roads that have slashed through the planes of my life. The roads
that have carried me forward, and back and across, but mostly away.
This particular road leads away into a still unknown and unseeable
future. It is a road I take toward escape and to survive. It is a
road into and through hell.
But I walk it. I ride it. I travel it by hook and crook and stolen
car. It is who I am. What I am. The conduit, tool, and pawn of
history. A rat in a maze whose confused and twitching movements
somehow convey to the answer to riddles being asked by men I
can't see.
The grey men. The old men. I feel them in some of the shadows.
And therein lies the danger. They lurk only in some of the shadows.
The other shadows are my sanctuary. But too often I have stumbled
into the wrong shadow, and barely escaped again to tell the tale.
And once, the trap slammed shut and I had to chew off my own paw to
escape. Well, I did have some help.
I cannot remain in the shadows. So I keep on this road that loops and
winds back on itself--ending always and only in hell, because the
road always leads away from him.
I should have killed him. I would have killed him. Except that
once, he spoke my name with something other than hate or
indifference, and the echo of that moment has driven me to all
the unexpected and unwanted places since then.
# #
I was young at that point--already evil, already dedicated to nothing
except what would get me ahead--but naive. I was so fucking naive.
I knew nothing about evil then. Hell, Mulder knew more about it
than I did. I just didn't see it at the time.
We had been partners. Even now the now the word twists fresh and
sharp through my skin--flaying me with the pain of futures foregone.
Special Agent Alex Krycek. Just another cover, over a cover. Just
another mask. A dangerous mask, though, because it was one that
tempted me.
Naive--stupid, brash, still believing in the possibilities of real
escape. Real change. Even in myself. Mulder didn't want me--as a
partner, a friend, a ....anything. But still. There was something
there. Something that he knew, and that I knew.
For the first time in my life, I started actually making plans
beyond tomorrow. Actually allowed myself to contemplate something
beyond the immediate. To consider ...fuck it. I hate to consider
what a sap I nearly became.
I was given a chance by the men in grey--a chance that promised
power, and I took it. Then she was gone. Then I had to go. The
first of many escapes. The first of many betrayals. Well, not the
first betrayal, but the first that meant something.
Even on the run, I maintained certain...contacts. The conspiracy is
more complex and twisted than even Mulder guesses. Loyalties are
nothing more than temporary and easily sellable commodities. These
men scare even me.
I'd heard through several channels that Mulder was off on yet another
case. This one so far off the fucking path that it was clear that
Skinner had signed the 302 purely to get him out of the AD's
thinning hair. Mulder was disintegrating, and Skinner needed him
out of sight for a while to cool the gossips at the Hoover
watercoolers.
I tracked him down in the back of nowhere, fleabag motel he was
staying at. I refused to ask myself why I was going there. Why I
would risk the exposure. I simply went.
I found him in his room. He was sitting at the foot of the bed--
nearly catatonic. I watched him through the widow first. Lurking
in the shrubs outside that seedy building with the peeling paint and
half-dimmed neon sign.
He seemed to be watching TV. Then I realized that all he was doing
was looking toward the flickering screen. Whatever he was seeing
was horrifying, scarring and a million miles from the Lysol-scented
room he was slumped in. His face was dead--slack--but his eyes
were alive and drowning in some unnamed horror.
I'd intended to simply see him and leave, but something in the
desolation of his eyes drew me into that room. He didn't even
notice I'd come in the door. There was no reaction at all as I
leaned up against the wall. Finally, I closed the door with a click
that shocked him back to life.
He began to move for his gun, but half-way through the motion gave
up. He slumped back on the foot of the bed and watched me with eyes
that were utterly without hope. It occurred to me that he wanted me
to kill him.
Mulder's a hero. I say that without irony and without admiration.
He is a hero because he still believes in Justice and Truth and all
that bullshit, and what's more--he can make people around him
believe it too. How else do you explain Scully sticking around
for so long?
Mulder inspires an odd loyalty and protectiveness that makes me
sick. It makes me sick, because I'm not immune to it, as has been
proved over and over.
For the longest time that night we simply sat there watching each
other. After a few moments, I knew that he no longer even saw me.
His eyes were turned toward me, but the gaze had pulled back to
some middle ground that existed nowhere in the space or time that
I occupied.
I watched him, though. I ate him alive. I absorbed him. I fixed his
image in my memory molecule by molecule. I memorized the scent of
him that managed to insinuate itself past the pine-scent of the
room's cleanser, the uneven rhythm of his breathing, the way his
tie was pulled slightly off-center at the knot.
Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer. I'd come here against all
my better judgment, and I wanted a reaction--I needed him
acknowledge my presence. Dammit--he was staring through me as
though I was nothing more than another panel in the fake wood shit
that covered the walls of that room.
"What? No warm greetings for your long-lost partner?" The sneer in
my voice was a long-practiced effect.
He didn't even blink, and his voice was as dead as the desert in his
eyes. "You're not my partner. You were never my partner."
"No? Then what am I?"
"I don't really care." He wasn't even going to ask what I was doing
there.
"Aren't you even going to ask what I'm doing here?"
He closed his eyes and sighed. "What do you want, Krycek?" The
vaguest sneer now echoing in his tone. But it was life--it was
contact.
"I just thought I'd see what had become of the wunderkind. The
downfall of the golden Spooky."
"Shut the fuck up." But the heat was only a tiny flare. A habit.
"Oh c'mon, Mulder. What the fuck are you doing here, chasing wild
geese all over this back of nowhere shithole?" Badgering him because
I had no other way to connect with him--no other means of reaching
him. Why do I bother?
"What are you doing here?" A longer pause this time. "Krycek?"
And now there was almost nothing but weariness in his voice. But
something in the way he said my name....Jesus....something.
It shocked me into honesty. "I don't know."
For the first time that night he regarded me with something almost
like interest. "You were just in the neighborhood?"
"Something like that." His eyes, although scarcely welcoming, gave
me the courage to push away from the wall and walk over to him.
"What are you doing here, Mulder?"
"What are any of us doing here?" Being Mulder, he meant the question
seriously.
I sat on the bed next to him--overwhelmed almost immediately by the
heat and scent and proximity of him.
He turned away from me when I approached him. Not to shut me out,
just to impose some distance. He was clearly too weary, or too
indifferent to physically move away.
I didn't want his indifference. I needed contact. I needed him.
I needed.
So I touched him.
The skin of his arm, where he'd rolled up his cuffs, was warm and
dry to my trembling touch.
He started under my fingers, my name escaping his lips in a hiss.
"Krycek." But he didn't pull away.
"What do you see?" I wasn't even sure what I was asking. I was
surprised that my voice came out calm and level.
"Alone. Always alone." It should have been plaintive, but was
stated as mere fact.
"You're not alone." I wanted to kill myself. When did I turn into
this cliche-spouting asshole? My hand, of its own volition, began
to stroke his arm--feeling the rasp of his hairs under my fingers.
The smooth skin underneath. I began to imagine that I could actually
feel his pulse.
For another long moment he remained motionless under my touch, and
then I saw his focus sharpen. Saw him see me. I froze, wondering
if lightening would strike me down. Wondering if I would care if
it did.
Briefly something that almost looked like humor sparked through
the morass of misery polluting his eyes. "No, it would seem that I
am not alone." He shook his head and grimaced. I could feel him
begin to drift away again.
Finding courage from the same place that pressed my finger
against the trigger during my first assassination, I put my arm
around him. I had nothing to lose. I had to touch him. Had to
reach out.
I expected him to pull away, to reach for his gun in earnest this
time. I was surprised by the warm weight on him against me. The
feel of his face burrowing into my neck. It startled me--frightened
me.
This wasn't us. This wasn't who we were.
The sharp lacerating need that had driven me through this night, to
this room, was replaced by an undefinable ache that started in my
chest, and radiated out along my arms and legs. I wrapped both
arms around him and held him tighter than a concealed knife.
I half-expected him to begin crying and had no idea what the hell
I was going to do if he did. But he surprised me again. Always.
I felt his mouth open against the smooth and rough skin of my neck
and chin. Hot, wet lips trailing a path of agonized pleasure. His
teeth nipping at my flesh -- bemused by visions of vampires -- I
was started into momentary stillness.
Jesus, Mulder. What are you doing? Don't stop. Don't let this be
a trap. Don't let this be a dream. What are you doing?
He didn't stop, and so I had no choice but to move, to reciprocate.
Some benevolent, but probably mercurial god was granting me a
boon. I would no doubt pay a heavy price for it, but right at that
moment, I didn't care what the price would be. I still don't,
although I have long since given up hope that I will ever pay the
debt in full.
My hands released from befuddled paralysis traveled his back and
chest before cradling his head--raising his face. I had to see his
eyes. I needed to know what he was thinking. Why he was doing this.
I think I honestly believed for a moment that I could still walk away
if I were nothing more than a warm body in a dark and lonely place.
You can always lie most effectively to yourself.
I can't answer that question, though, because in his eyes I found
recognition and a need and knowledge that matched my own. I
started to speak, and was cut off by his mouth lowering across mine,
bringing devastation and salvation from the first touch.
Oh god. I've never been kissed like that. As though the simple--
although there was nothing simple about it--pressing of lips against
lips could merge souls. Could erase time and meaning and the
world itself.
I had failed to see the danger. I hadn't been careful, and I had
gotten that which I had asked for. At the first kiss I was already
so lost that it no longer mattered.
Warm and wet, his lips were confident, demanding. Moving over mine,
calling forth a response from depths I didn't know I had. I tried
to answer the darkness, the fire. When did I surrender control?
Had I ever had control?
You don't control the tides. I slid under the waters of his demand,
his need. Lacking oxygen, I breathed in Mulder. Oh god. He
tasted of solitude and rage. Soft and hard, the planes and angles
of his mouth yielded to my exploration. I gave way before his
hands and mouth.
His body beneath my fingers was alive -- tense and expectant. My
fingers fumbled to remove his tie; clumsily tore at his shirt's
buttons. I wanted nothing between us except the secrets and lies
that were always there.
His skin was sour sweet with the sweat of the day, and it burned
beneath my mouth. Surprisingly responsive. He gave a breathy
sound that was almost a moan as I found his nipple and sucked
and licked and pulled. The sound wrapped around me--pulled tight,
hot, hard. I was so hard. Aching.
His hands tugged impatiently, shedding me of my jacket and t-shirt.
Clothes tossed casually --almost violently -- to the floor, and then
skin met skin. Mouth against mouth again. Greedy, longing,
something that felt almost gentle.
Those lips.....I had wondered for so long how they would feel. Now
that I knew, I didn't know how I would live without them. What that
man can do with his mouth....He communicated so much with a
simple touch, a subtle pressure. A sweep of his tongue, telling me
things I'd only guessed at.
Somehow on a growl and a violent twist, we found ourselves on his
bed, stretched out, face to face. Pausing in our frantic exploration
of each other, I pulled back to look at his face again. It took what
little breath I had left away.
He was there. Present in a way I had yet to see from him. He saw
me clearly--clear through my twisted, yearning soul. Saw parts of
me that I had forgotten I'd possessed. A rueful smile, and his hand
brought our bodies back into the closest contact.
Our cocks--hard and ready--pressing into each other as we thrust and
thrust with our hips. I freed one hand and eased it between us,
shaping his erection, welcoming the instinctive movement of his cock
against my hand. So tight and hot.
Now his mouth was moving across my chest. Teasing, nipping,
torturing me with promises unfulfilled, promises undefined. I
allowed myself to surrender to his lead. An eternity later, I felt
his fingers easing open my jeans, carefully opening the buttons.
I reluctantly opened my eyes and dragged myself back to the
present to deal with the logistics of wrestling our pants off one
another.
It was long past any sort of question of dignity. Speed was the
essential thing. A moment of fumbling, and then glorious nakedness.
He was beautiful. That, above everything else surprised me--
absurdly. Easing him back down onto the bed, I wanted to stop for
a moment and look. Do nothing but drink in the sight of him--the
slim hips, the brown hair that lightly covered his chest and legs
and arms.
But he was impatient--then, now, always. Tugging me against him,
resuming his exploration of my body. Encouraging me to continue
my own travels and expeditions across his frame. And who was I to
resist? Dangerous and amoral, I might be. Stupid I am not.
I tasted my way down the center line of his chest--struggling a
little to keep him still, keep him from wriggling out of my grasp,
and then I paused, just breathing in his musky darkness before
carefully running my tongue the entire length of his cock.
And then stopping.
"Bastard." The word was a complaint, a laugh, a heart-felt epithet.
"Probably." I licked him again, and then took him in my mouth--hard,
silken, twitching.
His groan shook the room, shivering furious and warm through me.
His hips were already rocking restlessly--counterpoint to the rhythm
of my strokes. He had lapsed into wordless sounds--tiny moans and
whimpers that turned into a long growled protest when I pulled back,
and crawled back up to kiss him again, to wrap myself around his
body.
Even at this moment, my arousal piercing me with immediacy and
stabbing fire, I could not resist his mouth--his mouth branding my
body and that the thin veil of memory that I call a soul. I fed from
his mouth -- drawing strength and answers and nourishment from
his lips. I was greedy for this. An addict, trying to satisfy a
never-ending hunger.
And the hunger grew sharper still. We were helpless before this
onslaught of lust and need--a whirlwind sweeping us away. Blowing
out of the darkness, extinguishing sanity and reason.
I wanted to wait--to prolong the time, because this would be the
only night. Even then I knew the limits of the gods' whims. But
neither of us could wait, and so I found myself leaving him briefly
to scramble through the pockets of my jacket to find the condoms
and the lube.
He was planning to make some smartass comment about being a Boy
Scout--I could see the spark in this eye--and then he shook off the
thought like water, and simply reached for me.
I came undone.
My hands were shaking so hard he had to help me roll the condom
on--his steady touch nearly ending it all before it began.
I tried to be gentle, but lacked the practice. My fingers found his
opening--pressed, invaded, stretched. And then I was buried in
him, wondering why it was only now that we were doing this.
Wondering how I was going to live never being able to do this again.
And his eyes. His eyes never closed, never left mine, provided my
only anchor in a rapidly disintegrating world.
Stroke.
this is impossible
Back.
this is real
Deep.
this is now
Hot.
this is only now
Hard.
And harder, and my hand wrapped around his cock, stroking him in
time with my thrusts. Deeper, faster. And now, now, now, and I
was beyond any constructs of space or time.
In the extremity of the moment, the only language I could find was
Russian. I wondered what Mulder thought of the foreign words, but
then was overtaken by the waves of pleasure that washed me over
and under and through the surf that drowned me. As I lost my
bearings for the final time, I felt him tense and then the spasms
of his orgasm wrack him.
At the instant of his release he cried out, "Alex!" The only time
he has ever spoken my name in that tone.
I left before first light, and didn't see him again until Scully was
preventing him from killing me. I remain ambivalent about the
outcome of that particular meeting.
There have been other encounters. Nothing like that night in his
room, though. There never will be again. Time is now forever
fragmented into time with Mulder and all the time in between. It
is an irrational and illogical distinction, but it is fitting--I am
Russian, and melodrama is in my blood, and I eat regret for
breakfast.
# #
And so once again, leaving, traveling away from him. A kiss for
farewell and good luck. Pure whimsy on my part--pure self-torture.
I needed the taste and smell of him in my senses before I headed
out again. Before I went away.
"Good luck to you, my friend," I said. In Russian. The words were
unimportant. The language was. The tone was. Mulder speaks loss
and regret as fluently as I. He understood. He chose not to answer.
Which was answer enough.
# # # #
END
Rating: NC-17
Category: V,A
Spoilers: Red and Black
Keywords: Mulder/Krycek, slash
Summary: Krycek contemplates the intricacies of betrayal, time,
and planning.
Disclaimer: The boys belong to CC, I mean no harm--just taking
them out for a spin. I'll make sure they're returned nicely washed
and with a full tank of gas.
This is for MustangSally who is teaching me fearlessness --
one careful step at a time.
My boundless gratitude to CGS, who puts up with way more than
any one editor should have to.
Grievances Foregone
Originally published as Rye
August 1998
I've never been good at long-range planning. The short run has
always been my thing. The immediate. Instant gratification. I've
always lived moment-by-moment. From pleasure to pleasure.
The future was always far too uncertain for me to count on, let
alone try to shape or attain. There just didn't seem to be any point
in investing a lot of energy in worrying about something I was
unlikely to have.
I was born a double agent. Triple agent. Mole. Assassin. Saboteur.
Opportunist. All of them true. All of them lies. Just masks over
masks. I no longer know if my name is my own, or only another
fiction.
But no matter what mask I've worn, I've always known that I didn't
have much of a future, so I didn't plan for it.
Mulder was just one more short-term goal. The minute I laid eyes on
him, I knew that I wanted him--wanted to possess him. I don't try to
explain my needs to myself. I merely act on them. The pull toward
Mulder was a dark and familiar need. Something erotic, hot and
dangerous--my favorite flavor.
I knew I might not get him, but it was worth trying. I didn't see
the danger until much later. Until it was too late. Far too late.
# #
Fuck it.
I'm such a fucking idiot.
I should have killed him. There on the floor of his apartment.
Should have shot him right there and then, instead of trying to
give him information that might very well kill him in another
way, but just might save us all.
What do I care? I never thought I was going to have a future,
anyway. Why didn't I kill him?
If I had simply pulled that trigger, he'd be dead. I could have
watched the mocking, tired, ambiguous hazel light slowly dim
in his eyes. And I'd be free. And what would the point be of
that? Free, sure, but what does that mean, in a life that doesn't
even belong to me?
I'm such a fucking idiot.
Resist or serve, I told him. A lie. A false hope. What would I
know about it? No matter how hard I resist him, I return again
and again to serve this...this....thing that coils around my gut and
strangles my heart. This need I have to see him. This bond I
would sever, but if I did, I would sever my own soul.
If I still have a soul.
Why is it that I always wax melodramatically lyrical and Russian
when I think about him? Why do I only think about my soul when
Mulder comes to mind?
Oddly, I think maybe I do still have a soul, though. In that brief
instant when I thought so seriously of pulling the trigger, there
was a spark in his eyes. A spark I felt clear through the prison
that passes for my heart. A connection that defied logic and
reason. Then he blinked and it was gone--replaced by the mocking
anger and wariness that is his habitual mask when I am there.
But I know it is only a mask. I know that he resists this thing
between us as desperately as I do. We fight this thing that is
more than attraction, less than love--more frightening and
undermining than either. We fight. It is our connection. For now.
The only thing we are allowed. All that we will allow ourselves.
We do not wish it. But it is. It simply is.
He didn't shoot me, though. I saw his finger twitch, saw it slide
along the barrel to curl possessively around the trigger. I saw
the rage and possibility race through his eyes, pursed by the
hounds of what if and if only.
I gave him a chance to kill me, or to call me back. I needed both,
and he gave me neither. We have always reached out to each
other only through denial.
Besides, if he'd killed me, he could have actually laid to rest one
of his ghosts--the murderer of his father. Mulder could never
allow himself that much closure. It would feel too good.
So now I am on the road again. This road is just like the other
roads that have slashed through the planes of my life. The roads
that have carried me forward, and back and across, but mostly away.
This particular road leads away into a still unknown and unseeable
future. It is a road I take toward escape and to survive. It is a
road into and through hell.
But I walk it. I ride it. I travel it by hook and crook and stolen
car. It is who I am. What I am. The conduit, tool, and pawn of
history. A rat in a maze whose confused and twitching movements
somehow convey to the answer to riddles being asked by men I
can't see.
The grey men. The old men. I feel them in some of the shadows.
And therein lies the danger. They lurk only in some of the shadows.
The other shadows are my sanctuary. But too often I have stumbled
into the wrong shadow, and barely escaped again to tell the tale.
And once, the trap slammed shut and I had to chew off my own paw to
escape. Well, I did have some help.
I cannot remain in the shadows. So I keep on this road that loops and
winds back on itself--ending always and only in hell, because the
road always leads away from him.
I should have killed him. I would have killed him. Except that
once, he spoke my name with something other than hate or
indifference, and the echo of that moment has driven me to all
the unexpected and unwanted places since then.
# #
I was young at that point--already evil, already dedicated to nothing
except what would get me ahead--but naive. I was so fucking naive.
I knew nothing about evil then. Hell, Mulder knew more about it
than I did. I just didn't see it at the time.
We had been partners. Even now the now the word twists fresh and
sharp through my skin--flaying me with the pain of futures foregone.
Special Agent Alex Krycek. Just another cover, over a cover. Just
another mask. A dangerous mask, though, because it was one that
tempted me.
Naive--stupid, brash, still believing in the possibilities of real
escape. Real change. Even in myself. Mulder didn't want me--as a
partner, a friend, a ....anything. But still. There was something
there. Something that he knew, and that I knew.
For the first time in my life, I started actually making plans
beyond tomorrow. Actually allowed myself to contemplate something
beyond the immediate. To consider ...fuck it. I hate to consider
what a sap I nearly became.
I was given a chance by the men in grey--a chance that promised
power, and I took it. Then she was gone. Then I had to go. The
first of many escapes. The first of many betrayals. Well, not the
first betrayal, but the first that meant something.
Even on the run, I maintained certain...contacts. The conspiracy is
more complex and twisted than even Mulder guesses. Loyalties are
nothing more than temporary and easily sellable commodities. These
men scare even me.
I'd heard through several channels that Mulder was off on yet another
case. This one so far off the fucking path that it was clear that
Skinner had signed the 302 purely to get him out of the AD's
thinning hair. Mulder was disintegrating, and Skinner needed him
out of sight for a while to cool the gossips at the Hoover
watercoolers.
I tracked him down in the back of nowhere, fleabag motel he was
staying at. I refused to ask myself why I was going there. Why I
would risk the exposure. I simply went.
I found him in his room. He was sitting at the foot of the bed--
nearly catatonic. I watched him through the widow first. Lurking
in the shrubs outside that seedy building with the peeling paint and
half-dimmed neon sign.
He seemed to be watching TV. Then I realized that all he was doing
was looking toward the flickering screen. Whatever he was seeing
was horrifying, scarring and a million miles from the Lysol-scented
room he was slumped in. His face was dead--slack--but his eyes
were alive and drowning in some unnamed horror.
I'd intended to simply see him and leave, but something in the
desolation of his eyes drew me into that room. He didn't even
notice I'd come in the door. There was no reaction at all as I
leaned up against the wall. Finally, I closed the door with a click
that shocked him back to life.
He began to move for his gun, but half-way through the motion gave
up. He slumped back on the foot of the bed and watched me with eyes
that were utterly without hope. It occurred to me that he wanted me
to kill him.
Mulder's a hero. I say that without irony and without admiration.
He is a hero because he still believes in Justice and Truth and all
that bullshit, and what's more--he can make people around him
believe it too. How else do you explain Scully sticking around
for so long?
Mulder inspires an odd loyalty and protectiveness that makes me
sick. It makes me sick, because I'm not immune to it, as has been
proved over and over.
For the longest time that night we simply sat there watching each
other. After a few moments, I knew that he no longer even saw me.
His eyes were turned toward me, but the gaze had pulled back to
some middle ground that existed nowhere in the space or time that
I occupied.
I watched him, though. I ate him alive. I absorbed him. I fixed his
image in my memory molecule by molecule. I memorized the scent of
him that managed to insinuate itself past the pine-scent of the
room's cleanser, the uneven rhythm of his breathing, the way his
tie was pulled slightly off-center at the knot.
Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer. I'd come here against all
my better judgment, and I wanted a reaction--I needed him
acknowledge my presence. Dammit--he was staring through me as
though I was nothing more than another panel in the fake wood shit
that covered the walls of that room.
"What? No warm greetings for your long-lost partner?" The sneer in
my voice was a long-practiced effect.
He didn't even blink, and his voice was as dead as the desert in his
eyes. "You're not my partner. You were never my partner."
"No? Then what am I?"
"I don't really care." He wasn't even going to ask what I was doing
there.
"Aren't you even going to ask what I'm doing here?"
He closed his eyes and sighed. "What do you want, Krycek?" The
vaguest sneer now echoing in his tone. But it was life--it was
contact.
"I just thought I'd see what had become of the wunderkind. The
downfall of the golden Spooky."
"Shut the fuck up." But the heat was only a tiny flare. A habit.
"Oh c'mon, Mulder. What the fuck are you doing here, chasing wild
geese all over this back of nowhere shithole?" Badgering him because
I had no other way to connect with him--no other means of reaching
him. Why do I bother?
"What are you doing here?" A longer pause this time. "Krycek?"
And now there was almost nothing but weariness in his voice. But
something in the way he said my name....Jesus....something.
It shocked me into honesty. "I don't know."
For the first time that night he regarded me with something almost
like interest. "You were just in the neighborhood?"
"Something like that." His eyes, although scarcely welcoming, gave
me the courage to push away from the wall and walk over to him.
"What are you doing here, Mulder?"
"What are any of us doing here?" Being Mulder, he meant the question
seriously.
I sat on the bed next to him--overwhelmed almost immediately by the
heat and scent and proximity of him.
He turned away from me when I approached him. Not to shut me out,
just to impose some distance. He was clearly too weary, or too
indifferent to physically move away.
I didn't want his indifference. I needed contact. I needed him.
I needed.
So I touched him.
The skin of his arm, where he'd rolled up his cuffs, was warm and
dry to my trembling touch.
He started under my fingers, my name escaping his lips in a hiss.
"Krycek." But he didn't pull away.
"What do you see?" I wasn't even sure what I was asking. I was
surprised that my voice came out calm and level.
"Alone. Always alone." It should have been plaintive, but was
stated as mere fact.
"You're not alone." I wanted to kill myself. When did I turn into
this cliche-spouting asshole? My hand, of its own volition, began
to stroke his arm--feeling the rasp of his hairs under my fingers.
The smooth skin underneath. I began to imagine that I could actually
feel his pulse.
For another long moment he remained motionless under my touch, and
then I saw his focus sharpen. Saw him see me. I froze, wondering
if lightening would strike me down. Wondering if I would care if
it did.
Briefly something that almost looked like humor sparked through
the morass of misery polluting his eyes. "No, it would seem that I
am not alone." He shook his head and grimaced. I could feel him
begin to drift away again.
Finding courage from the same place that pressed my finger
against the trigger during my first assassination, I put my arm
around him. I had nothing to lose. I had to touch him. Had to
reach out.
I expected him to pull away, to reach for his gun in earnest this
time. I was surprised by the warm weight on him against me. The
feel of his face burrowing into my neck. It startled me--frightened
me.
This wasn't us. This wasn't who we were.
The sharp lacerating need that had driven me through this night, to
this room, was replaced by an undefinable ache that started in my
chest, and radiated out along my arms and legs. I wrapped both
arms around him and held him tighter than a concealed knife.
I half-expected him to begin crying and had no idea what the hell
I was going to do if he did. But he surprised me again. Always.
I felt his mouth open against the smooth and rough skin of my neck
and chin. Hot, wet lips trailing a path of agonized pleasure. His
teeth nipping at my flesh -- bemused by visions of vampires -- I
was started into momentary stillness.
Jesus, Mulder. What are you doing? Don't stop. Don't let this be
a trap. Don't let this be a dream. What are you doing?
He didn't stop, and so I had no choice but to move, to reciprocate.
Some benevolent, but probably mercurial god was granting me a
boon. I would no doubt pay a heavy price for it, but right at that
moment, I didn't care what the price would be. I still don't,
although I have long since given up hope that I will ever pay the
debt in full.
My hands released from befuddled paralysis traveled his back and
chest before cradling his head--raising his face. I had to see his
eyes. I needed to know what he was thinking. Why he was doing this.
I think I honestly believed for a moment that I could still walk away
if I were nothing more than a warm body in a dark and lonely place.
You can always lie most effectively to yourself.
I can't answer that question, though, because in his eyes I found
recognition and a need and knowledge that matched my own. I
started to speak, and was cut off by his mouth lowering across mine,
bringing devastation and salvation from the first touch.
Oh god. I've never been kissed like that. As though the simple--
although there was nothing simple about it--pressing of lips against
lips could merge souls. Could erase time and meaning and the
world itself.
I had failed to see the danger. I hadn't been careful, and I had
gotten that which I had asked for. At the first kiss I was already
so lost that it no longer mattered.
Warm and wet, his lips were confident, demanding. Moving over mine,
calling forth a response from depths I didn't know I had. I tried
to answer the darkness, the fire. When did I surrender control?
Had I ever had control?
You don't control the tides. I slid under the waters of his demand,
his need. Lacking oxygen, I breathed in Mulder. Oh god. He
tasted of solitude and rage. Soft and hard, the planes and angles
of his mouth yielded to my exploration. I gave way before his
hands and mouth.
His body beneath my fingers was alive -- tense and expectant. My
fingers fumbled to remove his tie; clumsily tore at his shirt's
buttons. I wanted nothing between us except the secrets and lies
that were always there.
His skin was sour sweet with the sweat of the day, and it burned
beneath my mouth. Surprisingly responsive. He gave a breathy
sound that was almost a moan as I found his nipple and sucked
and licked and pulled. The sound wrapped around me--pulled tight,
hot, hard. I was so hard. Aching.
His hands tugged impatiently, shedding me of my jacket and t-shirt.
Clothes tossed casually --almost violently -- to the floor, and then
skin met skin. Mouth against mouth again. Greedy, longing,
something that felt almost gentle.
Those lips.....I had wondered for so long how they would feel. Now
that I knew, I didn't know how I would live without them. What that
man can do with his mouth....He communicated so much with a
simple touch, a subtle pressure. A sweep of his tongue, telling me
things I'd only guessed at.
Somehow on a growl and a violent twist, we found ourselves on his
bed, stretched out, face to face. Pausing in our frantic exploration
of each other, I pulled back to look at his face again. It took what
little breath I had left away.
He was there. Present in a way I had yet to see from him. He saw
me clearly--clear through my twisted, yearning soul. Saw parts of
me that I had forgotten I'd possessed. A rueful smile, and his hand
brought our bodies back into the closest contact.
Our cocks--hard and ready--pressing into each other as we thrust and
thrust with our hips. I freed one hand and eased it between us,
shaping his erection, welcoming the instinctive movement of his cock
against my hand. So tight and hot.
Now his mouth was moving across my chest. Teasing, nipping,
torturing me with promises unfulfilled, promises undefined. I
allowed myself to surrender to his lead. An eternity later, I felt
his fingers easing open my jeans, carefully opening the buttons.
I reluctantly opened my eyes and dragged myself back to the
present to deal with the logistics of wrestling our pants off one
another.
It was long past any sort of question of dignity. Speed was the
essential thing. A moment of fumbling, and then glorious nakedness.
He was beautiful. That, above everything else surprised me--
absurdly. Easing him back down onto the bed, I wanted to stop for
a moment and look. Do nothing but drink in the sight of him--the
slim hips, the brown hair that lightly covered his chest and legs
and arms.
But he was impatient--then, now, always. Tugging me against him,
resuming his exploration of my body. Encouraging me to continue
my own travels and expeditions across his frame. And who was I to
resist? Dangerous and amoral, I might be. Stupid I am not.
I tasted my way down the center line of his chest--struggling a
little to keep him still, keep him from wriggling out of my grasp,
and then I paused, just breathing in his musky darkness before
carefully running my tongue the entire length of his cock.
And then stopping.
"Bastard." The word was a complaint, a laugh, a heart-felt epithet.
"Probably." I licked him again, and then took him in my mouth--hard,
silken, twitching.
His groan shook the room, shivering furious and warm through me.
His hips were already rocking restlessly--counterpoint to the rhythm
of my strokes. He had lapsed into wordless sounds--tiny moans and
whimpers that turned into a long growled protest when I pulled back,
and crawled back up to kiss him again, to wrap myself around his
body.
Even at this moment, my arousal piercing me with immediacy and
stabbing fire, I could not resist his mouth--his mouth branding my
body and that the thin veil of memory that I call a soul. I fed from
his mouth -- drawing strength and answers and nourishment from
his lips. I was greedy for this. An addict, trying to satisfy a
never-ending hunger.
And the hunger grew sharper still. We were helpless before this
onslaught of lust and need--a whirlwind sweeping us away. Blowing
out of the darkness, extinguishing sanity and reason.
I wanted to wait--to prolong the time, because this would be the
only night. Even then I knew the limits of the gods' whims. But
neither of us could wait, and so I found myself leaving him briefly
to scramble through the pockets of my jacket to find the condoms
and the lube.
He was planning to make some smartass comment about being a Boy
Scout--I could see the spark in this eye--and then he shook off the
thought like water, and simply reached for me.
I came undone.
My hands were shaking so hard he had to help me roll the condom
on--his steady touch nearly ending it all before it began.
I tried to be gentle, but lacked the practice. My fingers found his
opening--pressed, invaded, stretched. And then I was buried in
him, wondering why it was only now that we were doing this.
Wondering how I was going to live never being able to do this again.
And his eyes. His eyes never closed, never left mine, provided my
only anchor in a rapidly disintegrating world.
Stroke.
this is impossible
Back.
this is real
Deep.
this is now
Hot.
this is only now
Hard.
And harder, and my hand wrapped around his cock, stroking him in
time with my thrusts. Deeper, faster. And now, now, now, and I
was beyond any constructs of space or time.
In the extremity of the moment, the only language I could find was
Russian. I wondered what Mulder thought of the foreign words, but
then was overtaken by the waves of pleasure that washed me over
and under and through the surf that drowned me. As I lost my
bearings for the final time, I felt him tense and then the spasms
of his orgasm wrack him.
At the instant of his release he cried out, "Alex!" The only time
he has ever spoken my name in that tone.
I left before first light, and didn't see him again until Scully was
preventing him from killing me. I remain ambivalent about the
outcome of that particular meeting.
There have been other encounters. Nothing like that night in his
room, though. There never will be again. Time is now forever
fragmented into time with Mulder and all the time in between. It
is an irrational and illogical distinction, but it is fitting--I am
Russian, and melodrama is in my blood, and I eat regret for
breakfast.
# #
And so once again, leaving, traveling away from him. A kiss for
farewell and good luck. Pure whimsy on my part--pure self-torture.
I needed the taste and smell of him in my senses before I headed
out again. Before I went away.
"Good luck to you, my friend," I said. In Russian. The words were
unimportant. The language was. The tone was. Mulder speaks loss
and regret as fluently as I. He understood. He chose not to answer.
Which was answer enough.
# # # #
END