TITLE: Bentropy One
NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: mik_dok@yahoo.com
CATEGORY: M/K
RATING: NC-17. M/K/? This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. So, if you don't like that type of thing - STOP NOW! Forewarned is forearmed. Proceed with caution. Of course if you have four arms you can throw caution to the wind, or perhaps lend one to Krycek.
SUMMARY: Entropy - chaos. Bent - not straight. 'nuff said.
ARCHIVE: Only with my permission.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist...
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: This is after everything, the season in the shower notwithstanding.
KEYWORDS: story slash angst Mulder Krycek NC-17
DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Alex Krycek, and all other X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from their use...unless you count cheap thrills. Other characters belong to me...or someone else but they left them at my house so I'm playing with them.
Author's notes: This story isn't about anyone. Doesn't mean anything. Isn't a present for anyone. It just is. Okay? Now, get thee hence with foamy Americanos and choccy to the nearest altar of happy endings, and hope for the best.
If you like this, there's more at https://www.squidge.org/3wstop
If you didn't like it, come see me, anyway. Pet the dog.
Bentropy One
by Mik
"No."
The woman at the ticket counter looked up at me, bewildered. "But, sir, your reservations are for -"
"I want to change my reservations."
"But ..." She looked as if she was about to launch into a lengthy explanation about airline policies, but I locked eyes with her, and even without a mirror I could tell my own expression could best be described as 'screw policies'. She lowered her eyes, and began stamping paperwork with vigor. "Yes, sir." She thrust them back at me with an expression that bordered on 'screw you' and added, "You'll have to go back to Reservations, sir. Next?"
It was the damn muzak that did it. I was standing in line to board my flight to San Francisco, the last leg of a journey to take me as far away from Washington DC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Dr. Dana Scully, a baby, and my whole fucking life as possible. I had spent time in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, Phoenix, and was finally on my way to a terminus in San Francisco. But then that song came on. And suddenly, I was taking my receipt, government issued identification and preprinted boarding pass back to another counter to change my final destination.
"Los Angeles," I told the clerk tersely. There was no point in going back. I saw him die with my own eyes. I wanted him dead. I was relieved when Skinner shot him. But something about Frank Sinatra and dancing on a Saturday morning in my apartment made me want to go back and look at that alley again. For all I knew, Bois Town was gone and there was another Starbucks standing there, nestled between a Blockbuster video and a Taco Bell. But I needed to look at it again.
The clerk glowered at me, and sighed. "There's a flight in twenty minutes."
I nodded. I didn't even trust myself with words at that point.
He thrust papers at me. "Gate six. You might have to run." That idea seemed to afford him some satisfaction.
That wasn't a problem. I've been running for eight years.
*******************************************
It was crazy thinking I could have a relationship with anyone, especially another man, and most especially a man like Alex Krycek. I knew from the first we were playing the opposite sides of the fence. And I knew he was dangerous, lethal and completely without remorse. Yet I tried. For four months we snuck around, meeting in cheap motels, chucking buckets of change into pay phones to talk all night, wondering where he was when he wasn't with me, and knowing that I really, really didn't want to know. Because...trite as it sounds, I loved him.
And then the bodies started piling up. My love turned to betrayal and then to hatred in a blink. I nearly killed him twice. Scully stopped me once. I finally killed him in my heart. Made up my mind that the man whom I held in my arms and danced to Frank Sinatra songs with was dead, and there was this evil clone with his face, one arm and no heart.
There were moments, I admit, when I wasn't so sure that I had fully accepted that he was gone. He brought me information once, broke into my apartment, and left me with a kiss. The feel of his lips on my face brought back a flood of longing and hunger that made me want to grab him and hold him against me, to kiss every inch of him but I let him go and that left me emotionally spent long after he disappeared.
But I got over even that eventually. My whole world, everything I believed in began to crumble around me. Scully nearly died of cancer. All my work was destroyed in a fire and the ashes swept under the rug. I got reassigned. And reassigned. And reassigned. And then things happened to me that I don't even like to whisper about in the deepest recesses of my consciousness. The stuff of waking nightmares, the stuff that kills you and leaves you breathing. I died. And yet, I didn't. I went mad and then quietly insane. Somewhere in the last eight years, I lost myself. It was time to go. Time to be reborn. But I had one more ghost to face before I could make that happen.
It had started in Los Angeles. It had to end there.
As the plane started to lift off the ground and toward the sunset, I closed my eyes. I tried to close my ears. My heartbeat was thrumming to the upbeat tempo of The Way You Look Tonight.
We'd met in Maryland at a dance club. I don't know how he managed it, but he bribed/threatened/charmed the DJ into playing 'our' song. The floor pretty much cleared for us, not so much in deference to our superb dancing skills, but more in amused tolerance for a couple of 'old guys' dancing to a song recently experiencing a resurgence in popularity, and therefore claimed by kids who weren't even alive when I was in high school.
Still, we didn't really care. We didn't really notice. We hadn't seen each other in a couple of weeks, and all we wanted was a chance to be crotch to crotch to the sound of a song that lit matches inside us. Fueled by Coronas and Stoli, we went at each other with abandon, rocking, dipping and swaying, but never losing contact. And when the song was over, and we were staring into one another's eyes, I knew it. The fire was about to consume us and leave nothing but ash and memories.
I should have stopped it there. I should have kissed him goodbye, paid my check, gotten in my car and driven home. But I didn't. Neither did he. We had another drink. Had another dance. Some Scottish group, no real dancing involved, just frenetic movement. And we left. Together. For the last time.
He'd taken a hotel room nearby. A nice one. His bags were packed and by the door. I pretended not to see. We left the lights off and stripped each other impatiently, our mouths locked in snorting, snarling, sniffing need. He pushed me back on the bed, and dropped to his knees between mine. There was no further ado, and he engulfed my rigid cock in a swallow as if he'd been practicing on vodka bottles in the weeks we'd been apart.
"Ahhshit, Alex!" I groaned, coming up off the bed. "Don't. I'll...I'll..."
His hand came up to cup my balls and pull downward sharply and continued his oral assault.
"Shit! Fuck!" I tried to draw my legs together, but he held them apart and kept sucking. He repeated this process three or four times; sucking me to the point of firing all rounds, then yanking the ammo back out of the clip with a sharp tug. And then he released me, letting my cock, flop wet and aching onto my belly.
I lifted my head again. "I'm going to kill you," I promised him.
He smiled knowingly. "You always do." To my amazement, he turned, still on his knees, and offered his ass to me.
I was surprised. I'd done him like that a couple of times, but only because there wasn't a bed nearby. But at that moment we were in a well appointed hotel room, appointed especially with a nearby bed. "Alex," I started.
He waggled his ass at me, round and sort of gold in that half-light, reminding me of a peach. "Come on, do me. I want it hard tonight."
Ah, but that was no surprise. I slid down to the floor behind him to find packets of lube and latex waiting for me by his knee. I leaned in and bit that peach. Hard.
He grunted and pushed back at me.
I straightened and ran my palms over the roundness. He had such an amazing body. And I had developed an amazing sense of propriety where it was concerned. Basically flawless, there were no hints of his scars. They were all internal. And even hidden as they were inside him, they were deep and vivid and I think, since we'd tumbled into one another's arms, a bit raw. We'd never really talked about where and how he'd learned the things he knew, but I knew he learned them long ago and in hard lessons.
"Come on, do it, you pussy," he taunted.
I ignored him, determined this one time to enjoy his body, the pure strength, and heated passion beneath flesh like silk. This one time I would not succumb. I ran my fingers up the sides of his body, letting them feel the ripples of muscle and bone.
"Forget how?" He wriggled and pressed back at me.
Leaning against him, my cheek against the small of his back, I let my fingers tangle in the hair of his armpits, collecting his scent. "Hush, Alex," I murmured, rubbing my face against him.
"No wonder Scully never fucked you. That bitch needs a real man."
My voice hardened slightly. "Alex, don't." I had to relax my fingers before they clenched and tugged hard in that vulnerable spot.
"How are you going to stop me, you pussy." He was pulling away from me now. "Forget it, I'll go find a real man."
"Be still," I implored, my arms tightening at his sides.
"Oh, oh, don't cry, Foxy, I'll be good," he simpered. "Mustn't cry. Didn't Daddy tell you real men don't cry?"
"Alex." With effort I pulled back before I was driven to grab his cock and yank hard to silence him. Not this night. Not this way.
It didn't take a doctorate in Psychology to know he sought the familiar in me; the abuse I lavished on him was painful, yet safe in its familiarity, and he knew how to rake fingernails over the blackboard of my psyche to get it. The scars that I bore were close to the surface, and bled regularly, and I wiped the blood on him, in rough, brutal sex. I needed to punish someone and he needed to be punished. The punishment was often terrifying in retrospect; the levels to which I could sink to feel a sense of retribution. Yet, he loved it. He loved to writhe and howl and beg. Tenderness was the ultimate torture for him. It was as if he had no idea he deserved such treatment.
There were mornings after violent nights when I wanted to take him not for the bloodlust I'd feel in the dark, but for the love I felt for him in the light of day. With the exception of that first night in my apartment, he'd resisted all overtures of affection and caring within the symbolic bedroom. Even after having used him abominably, I was expected to leave the bed and let him cry it out on his own. Any attempts at comfort were rejected with snarls and threats to leave. But, damn it, I just wanted to make love to him that night.
I pulled off of him, and rested on my heels, waiting. He turned enough to look over his shoulder, surprise flickering over his face before the sneer returned. "Forget what to do?"
I shook my head slightly. "Get on the bed," I told him.
"No." He resumed his position. "Here."
"I don't want to do it that way tonight, Alex," I said quietly.
He was momentarily nonplused. There was rarely a contest of wills between us. "But..." his expression hardened. "No."
I slid a hand, palm up, between his legs. It was a caress and he shifted away from it. "Yes, Alex." My hand curled around his balls lightly. "On the bed." I slid my other hand slowly up his back. "Now, Alex. I want to make love to you."
I felt a tremor run through him. "No." His teeth were clenched. "No. Fuck me."
I reached for him, wanting to pull him back into an embrace. I just wanted to kiss him, press my body against his but he jerked away, rolling onto his back, as he did so. "Alex."
He spread his legs wide, taunting me. He wrapped his fingers around his cock and began to pump. "Come on, pussy ... don't you want it?"
It was working. I could feel my blood pressure rising. With supreme effort, I reached out for him, catching his ankle, and dragging him back to me. I pulled his parted legs over my thighs and let a finger trace the happy trail. "On the bed, Alex."
He bucked and thrashed against me. "Let go, you fuck." There was something wild in his eyes. Something frightened.
"Get on the bed, Alex. I'm going to make love to you," I insisted. I released his ankle and ran my hands very slowly up his inner thighs. "Make you feel good. That's what I'm going to -"
"No!" He scrambled away from me.
I launched myself after him, landing hard on him midway across his body. "Be still, you prick," I growled.
Something in my tone made him stop moving for a moment, but the moment I turned my face to kiss him, his struggles renewed and he surprised me by swinging one fist.
It missed me, but it pissed me off. I grabbed for his wrists. "Damn it, be still. Just once I'm going to have you without blood loss -"
He went wild at that moment. Scratching, biting, kicking, his knee hitting my ribs just right to knock breath from me.
Instinctively, I let go of one wrist to tuck my arm against my side, and when I did, he broke free and scrambled for his jeans. When I reached for him again, he was standing, his gun in my face.
I pulled myself up on my knees, one hand still cupped at my side, panting, staring up at him, seeing him, and seeing everything, and nothing. I saw only a stranger with a gun. "You don't ..." I was struggling for breath, and feeling tears of shock and realization burning at my eyes. "It's ... not me, is it?" Anger and loss made the tears come faster. I rubbed at my eyes with my other hand. "It's never been me." Ah, shit, could I be more pathetic?
He just looked at me, the gun never wavering in his hand, his expression betraying nothing but me.
Swallowing hard, I struggled to my feet, and reached for my own jeans. I dressed slowly, ever mindful of the gun that remained on me, and the eyes seeing through me. I walked to the door, pausing only to pick up my jacket and keys. I wanted so much to be allowed the dignity of walking out, head high, not looking back, leaving him there, alone. But, no.
I turned around and walked back with purpose. I was too angry to deny him his punishment. I pulled back my fist and slammed it against his jaw. "Bastard," I hissed.
He staggered, and a strange satisfaction came over his face.
It was that smile that shattered the last of my self-control. I smacked the gun from his hand carelessly and swept my foot between his ankles at the same time, sending him teetering backward, until he hit the foot of the bed with a grunt. Tugging at my belt, I straddled his flailing body, and yanked his hands behind his back. In another moment, I had him bent over the edge of the bed, hands restrained, legs spread.
I worked my throbbing cock out of my jeans in silence. He was muttering something in Russian; something that could have been either fear or exultation. "Shut up," I hissed, hunching over his writhing body.
I used him.
I used him to satisfy my need for retribution, I used him to punish him for using me, I used him to protest the gut-wrenching discovery that this love was one-sided, that I was only a tool for the exorcism of his demons. I took no time for him, no care for his body; I did not bother with lubricant or latex. I didn't even wait to give him release. I came. I went.
*******************************************
The taxi jerked across traffic and rolled to the curb. I looked out the window. Nothing had changed. The block remained suspended in time. The building had been painted a dull grey but the sign was still there, the fishbowl doors were still there, the alley where the boys were abducted was still a strip of broken asphalt, flagged with tall grass and litter. The more things change, I thought, thrusting money through the grated divider between the driver and me and sliding out.
"I don't know if it's open, Mac," the driver told me doubtfully. "Business doesn't pick up around these parts until after ten." He must have watched me standing there on the curb looking up at the sign, trying to block out autopsy photographs and mothers' screams because, after a moment, he leaned toward the window. "If you're in the market right now, I can take you -"
I didn't turn around. "No." I waved him off with one hand behind me. "This is where I wanted to go." I know he shook his head behind me, I could feel it. But he kicked the cab into gear and pulled back into the thick traffic of the beginnings of rush hour.
It took me a while to draw up the nerve to move to the door. I half expected to find a small notice pinned somewhere in that vestibule to state the place was closed, but there was no such sign, and the doors were clean, and polished and unlocked. I pushed one open and peered in.
It was dark, and quiet and cool. No music was blaring, just the faint sound of CNN on a small TV over the bar. A handful of men had mounted stools along the counter, and the dance floor and the booths beyond were empty. For a moment I thought Bois Town had gone straight. I stepped back outside and looked up at the marquee. Still read Bois Town, still outlined in neon, though the sign wasn't lit yet.
As I stood there, gaping up at the sign in uncertainty, a couple came around the corner that erased all doubt. They were young, happy, walking too close, talking with too much animation and affectation. They paused as they passed me, both gave me a look, murmured to one another and then laughed loudly as they pushed inside. I felt my face getting hot, and shifting my jacket to the other arm, I followed them back inside.
I slid up to a stool on the end, and dropped my jacket on the bar. "Corona," I said when the guy in the Buddy Holly glasses shot me a look.
"You want it pink?" he asked me.
"Pink?" I repeated, bewildered. "No. I want a beer. If you don't have a Corona, what have you got in a long neck?"
He nodded patiently. "I've got Coronas." He pulled one from a cooler and popped the cap with almost the same motion. It was in front of me with a glass in another second. "Six bucks."
I bit back a retort, pulled out my wallet, laid out a couple of twenties, and pushed the glass away. "Keep 'em coming."
The kid gave me another look and moved down to the opposite end of the bar.
I sat there for a long while, hearing the songs and seeing the faces of a world I'd been given a brief but privileged look. You just don't see men and women practically making out on a dance floor out in 'the real world'. And when you do, it makes you look away as if you're intruding. What was it about those couples, men dancing and holding and kissing other men that seemed to scream out about a level of sexuality I'd never understood? I mean, hell, it was an effort for me to touch Scully and she was the closest and dearest person in my life. We made a baby together and I still had trouble kissing her and holding her. But Alex...I couldn't keep my hands off that bastard, alone or in public.
I thought of a baby faced blonde and a guy in a black wig. Both victims. Both dead. Neither deserved to end the way they did. Was it because they were gay? That was the hard thing to understand. The knee jerk answer was yes. He was gay and resented it so he killed other gay young men. But it is hardly that simple. And the bottom line is that they were both dead.
People die everyday, but not like that. Being gay isn't always the cause of death. Alex was gay and he died for where he put his trust, not where he put his dick. On the other hand, Matthew Shepherd was gay and he died for being what he was, where he was, around people who were too small and too stupid to see who he was. On the other other hand, John Wayne Gacy ... ah, it all made my head ache, and I still didn't understand it.
Another beer. Someone turned off CNN and started the jukebox. Couples moved out onto the floor, embracing, smiling, offering voyeurs like me another good look. I admit it, I looked. I envied. I did something I rarely do, and indulged in some 'what if...'
A guy in jeans and a black tee shirt shuffled up to me. Dark hair, dark eyes. Not him. But it made my heart jump a little. "Wanna' dance?" he asked, not quite meeting my eyes.
Grateful for the distraction, I put my beer down and slid off the stool. I thought I knew the song, something I'd heard on a car radio or in a mall. One of those ubiquitous boy bands, but it was slow and soft, and despite the fact that my nameless partner thought he was going to lead, I pulled him into my arms, and held him close and moved with the music. If I closed my eyes and pretended, I could almost smell the leather of Alex Krycek's jacket. This was a mistake. I should have never come back.
Impatiently, I started to pull away. He let me go just enough to break contact between us, but kept his hands on my hips. "Sorry," I heard him mumble, ducking his head. "I'm afraid I've got two left feet."
Something about his expression, the resignation in his eyes, got to me. I didn't so much feel sympathy for him as empathy. "It's okay," I promised and pulled him a little closer. "Just relax." Good advice, Mulder. I took in a deep, leather scented breath. Just relax. Maybe all you need is sex. "What's your name?"
I felt him move a little nearer, so that his warm breath washed over my collar and down my neck. "Peyton. What's yours?"
I started to answer, but the M in Mulder became a protracted hum. Who am I? I wondered. I stopped being me so long ago. "Jon," I answered quietly. I moved just enough to press my cheek to his just as the song came to an end.
He backed away from me reluctantly and gave me a good look at him. He was the right age, a handful of years younger than me, with the right sort of features, full lips, firm chin, dark hair. But his eyes were the color of coffee and not nearly so wise or amused by the world. His skin was faintly pockmarked, and he bore the air of someone who had never been to a prom. This was a man who went about his day in the quiet surrender of being gay and alone, and probably loved from afar. This man was far more like me than like Alex. I worked up a smile. "What are you drinking?"
He seemed startled by the question. "I...oh." He swallowed and glanced back to the bar. "Coke," he said with a sort of helpless smile.
I liked it. I'm not sure why. Maybe I liked the suggestion of innocence. Maybe I just recognized the solitary desperation within him. I draped an arm over his shoulder almost protectively. "Come on, I'll buy you another one."
We took our drinks to a booth on the far side of the wall, and drank in silence, watching the dance floor fill as lovers of nightlife spilled inside. I didn't try to stimulate any conversation, and he seemed too nervous to do anything more than suck on his coke and watch the couples move around in rhythm and abandon and let his gaze skitter away if anyone made contact. It finally dawned on me. "First time out?"
He twisted around in his chair sharply, his hand reaching for and bumping his glass so that Coke splashed onto his fingers and sleeve. "How did you know?" he asked, sucking the drink from his fingers.
There was something endearing about his clumsiness. I smiled and used my napkin to wipe Coke from his sleeve. It felt nice to hold his hand and I held it a moment longer than I should. "Just a guess. Why now?"
He shrugged. "Why not? I'm twenty-nine years old. I never dated women. If I ever want a date, I guess I'd better admit to myself and to the world that I'd rather date men." He lowered his eyes. "Does that scare you?"
I kept his hand in mind. "A little. But I admire your honesty."
He shook his head. "Oh, nothing honest about it. I've been lying to myself and everyone else for twenty nine years."
"Yeah, but you're doing it now. I was older than you when I realized I was g - realized I loved a man."
He didn't miss either; my hesitation or my confession. "A man?" he repeated, emphasis on the article.
I nodded and, realizing that I did not want to go any farther into the past, stood. "Long sad story. Want to dance?"
He stumbled a little coming up into my arms.
I held him. Tight. The music was a slow guitar piece I'd never heard before. And I needed to hold someone. Anyone.
He shifted in my arms, not fighting the embrace, his mouth close to my neck. "How long?"
His words tripped down my spine, and settled between my legs in a way I hadn't felt in a very long time. I groaned. "Eight years."
He pulled back. He was nose to nose with me, his dark brows arced in surprise. "And no one else? Ever?"
An image flickered through my imagination. A face. A memory. A voice. "No," I said huskily. I needed to kiss him. To taste other lips. To get other memories. I moved in.
"I was wondering if you'd show up."
I jerked back sharply. Turned. Looked down. "M - Mich." I felt Peyton pull and I let him go. "What made you think I'd be here?"
She was collecting glasses and she put ours on her tray without looking up. "Because Alex was in last week."
- End One -