TITLE: Bentropy Seven
NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: ccmcdoc@hotmail.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: Once upon a time, many eons ago, an author started a story, but he let it go...
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 Seven
by Mik
"No."
Well, I wasn't surprised. That's the answer I expected. It's the answer I would have given, and I certainly wouldn't have expected any less from him. After all, I have my own share of pride...or did, once. He still keeps K rations of it in every pocket, just in case he slips in puddles or is caught humming Enya. "Of course not," I mumbled and rolled onto my side. The wall facing me was grey and cold and unforgiving. "Thanks for coming to check on me," I added faintly.
"Goodnight, Mulder," he answered quietly.
"'night." I pressed my face against the coolness of the pillow. I felt unsettled...unfinished. I couldn't close my eyes or the images of Krycek would come back. If I kept them open, there was that blank wall. I was trapped, not for the first time in life, between the reality of dreams and the reality of wakefulness.
I shifted onto my back. The ceiling offered no more consolation than the wall, but it did have the entertaining aspect of water stains I could turn into the profiles of famous presidents, mushroom clouds, chalk outlines...
I turned onto my other side, looking across the narrow strip of floor at his back. There he was. Asleep. I could stretch out my arm and...and what? I turned back to the wall.
A moment later, I heard him push back bedclothes impatiently. I felt his weight on the bed behind me. "What are you doing?" I asked the wall.
He chuckled almost inaudibly as he settled himself next to me. "Relax, Mulder. You're safe. It's just I'll never forgive myself if I pass up my one opportunity to say I slept with Fox Mulder." He stretched out comfortably beside me. "Goodnight, Mulder," he said again, and his hand rested on my hip.
I stared hard at that wall. What was I supposed to do? He was in the same bed, in his underwear! It wasn't that I hadn't noticed his eyes over the years; dark, penetrating, meaningful. And he certainly gave me a new appreciation for other aspects of his anatomy on the dance floor. But damn it...Oh, what the hell.
I rolled back to him, resting my cheek against his arm, resting my hand against his chest. "Might as well do it right," I muttered.
I felt his chest move. "Might as well," he said.
I closed my eyes. There was warmth and darkness. I slept.
*******************************************
It was my cell phone ringing that woke me. Somehow in the night, we'd mashed ourselves together and I had to untangle myself from arms and legs and sheets to get to the phone before it stopped ringing.
"Speak," I hissed. It was too late. I tossed the phone back on the dresser, and allowed myself a good stretch and thorough scratch before turning around. He had turned and sprawled over the entire bed. There was no way to get back into bed without significant Skinner removal. I opted for the other bed.
"Hey," came a muffled protest as I pulled back the bedclothes of the abandoned bed.
I looked at him. He appeared to be face down in my pillow, but one hand was patting the general space I had been occupying prior to the phone call. I smiled to myself and crawled over him, trying to avoid contact between pointy body parts and sensitive body parts. "I didn't bring my backhoe, so you're going to have to move something if you want me back in there."
He lifted an arm. I don't know how he was breathing in that position, but unless he had died and become a zombie in a matter of moments, his brain was still receiving enough oxygen to send messages to his limbs.
I scooted into place and he sort of oozed over me. "S'cold," he mumbled.
I had to concede he was right. It was an early Los Angeles morning in August, but the room was cold. I let him pull the thin blanket up over me and tuck it around, and held my breath. His hand was dangerously close to an impressive morning erection. His wrist brushed over it as he worked the sheet tight against my side. He paused and then finished the task before moving his arm up to my chest. I still couldn't breathe. Just that one accidental touch had sent electrical sparks through me. I'm not sure why. It had only been a couple of days since my couch ride with Peyton, but I'd gone longer than that without contact. Way, waaaaaaay longer. Maybe it was remembering Krycek. Maybe it was actually him. Walter S. Skinner. Big frigging fruit in his looms. I shut my eyes.
"It's okay, Mulder," I heard him say. "I am not assuming things."
I opened my eyes. Thank Go - hey! Why not? I risked turning my head. He had turned his face to me, and was looking at me. I closed my eyes again. Drew a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Nope. It wasn't getting any better. "I think it's time to get up," I said.
He didn't respond.
I turned my face to his. "Why?" he asked.
Why indeed? "This could be...in - inflammatory," I stammered. Shit, he had nice eyes without the wirerims. "I don't want you to - to think..."
"I won't, Mulder." He shifted so slightly and his lips were against mine. Yet a different kind of kiss, warm and light and insinuating. A kiss of pure sex. Al - Krycek used to kiss me like that. I sighed against his mouth and he moved his hand from my chest to my waist and turned me toward him. I had no choice. I had to kiss him back.
He dipped his hand under the blanket, and began to stroke the small of my back. Featherlight caresses that went through me like lightning. I made my stupid hands move around his neck and over his throat. I felt his tongue pushing into my mouth and I surrendered to it. Felt him push his body against mine and I surrendered to that as well. I had a million questions. How long have you been gay? How many lovers have you had? How long have you wanted me? How can you make me feel like this? Do you understand that I don't want this, want you? Do you understand I still need him? Do you ... oh, do that again ...
His mouth moved, latched onto my throat. I groaned. Couldn't help it. He took that as encouragement, and moved a hand farther down my back, cupping my butt in one big paw. Pulling me hard against him. And speaking of hard, he was. Very. It was like an iron I beam between us. So hard it almost hurt to be crushed against it. I think I made another kind of sound, because he pulled back and tugged impatiently at the fly of my jeans. "How can you sleep in these, Mulder?" he muttered, pushing his hand inside to pull me free.
"Years of practice," I grunted, scrambling to get my hand inside his shorts.
"Get 'em off," he growled, rolling back from me. "Now."
Another time I might have argued, or made a smart remark...or hit him. But that morning I just lifted my hips and let him yank them out of the way and toss them on the floor impatiently. One hand planted firmly on my chest, he bent over me, swooped down and took me in.
I have been accused on more than one occasion of making a 'girly scream' but that morning I made something more like a wild animal cry. Deep and raw. I couldn't stop it. I felt it ripped out of my middle and rushing for my throat and I let it come, going rigid, head tossed back hard against the pillow.
He sucked, slow and methodical, up and down, his free hand on my thigh, stroking downward, pulling my legs a little farther apart with each movement. And then I felt his fingers playing in a pool of his saliva over my balls. And then ...
When I felt his hand pushing my cheeks apart, my legs snapped shut like a miser's purse. "Uhh, nnno," was the best I could manage.
That didn't stop him. His fingers, trapped between my legs continued to worm into places I did not want them to be. When he encountered more resistance than he expected, he pulled his mouth up, and frowned at me. "Geesh, Mulder, when was the last time?"
I unclenched my teeth and looked at the ceiling. "Last time implies there was a first time," I gasped.
"You mean Krycek -"
"No."
"Really?" His hand kept working me, nice and easy. "I would have assumed he would have ..."
I lifted my head and looked at him. "I'm a top," I pointed out a bit indignantly.
He chuckled. "Well, so am I."
Well, shit, there's a surprise. I shook my head. "No."
He took it well enough. "Okay." He resumed his mouth work and teasing my balls with his fingers, making me writhe all over the bed and make noises that probably weren't human. Then he stopped again.
"No, Skinner," I groaned. "But if you stop again, I may fuck you."
That made him laugh. A big hearty sound they could probably hear at Bois Town. Filled up the room, filled up me. He fell onto his back, and let his fingertips dance around my cock. After a moment he got up, stripped off and returned to the bed.
I stared up at him. For one terrifyingly intense moment, I thought he meant to do it anyway, no matter how I felt about it. The idea was doubly frightening when one took into consideration the weapon he would be using. This was not a man who could have ever felt inadequate in the shower at the gym.
He knelt and pushed my legs apart, fell forward, planting his hands on either side of my shoulders, and leaned into me. Kissed me hard as his body pressed against mine and moved.
Felt good. I moved back.
That seemed to encourage him. He shifted, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and under me, holding me tight, thrusting hard against my cock and my belly with all his weight.
My arms were trapped at my sides by his embrace, but I lifted my knees and put my feet flat on the bed so I could at least use my legs and hips to thrust back and I did. I'm amazed the bed didn't collapse.
I knew what it was called, this thing we were doing. Frottage...from the French frotter...to push. And we were pushing the hell out of each other. Between sweat and copious pre-ejaculate we had enough lubrication to slide all over each other, and we did. Avec enthousiasme...from the French for...oh, wow.
It wasn't like this with Peyton. Not that it hadn't been sweet and satisfying, but I'd done all the work and he would just lie beneath me, still and waiting and helpless. Skinner and I were in cock to cock combat; wild, feverish, animalistic. Clawing, biting, rutting animals. It was passion at the level I'd known with Alex, but without the need to dominate. Skinner's body might have been on top of mine, but he was not topping me. This was a mutual engagement and both of us were equally equipped to fight to the finish.
I could feel the finish coming. He was dripping sweat on me, and grunting with every thrust. I had locked my legs around his thighs and was meeting every lunge, every grunt with one of my own. It was swelling up between my legs and rushing through every nerve ending and toward release. I felt my entire body lock around his, hips jerking up hard against his, thighs shaking, hands clawing..."Oh...shhhhhhhhhhit...oh, shit, Peyton!"
He collapsed heavily against me, his cum spurting out over my hip and belly. His arms went rigid around me, his brow pressed against mine. He gasped for breath. "Peyton?" he protested raggedly.
I pushed at him. "That's who called this morning. Peyton." I pushed again. "Let me up. He's got some information for me."
He rolled off me fast.
I scrambled up, dripping cum, grabbed my phone from the dresser and darted in to use the toilet. I hit last number redial while I scrubbed at my stomach and between my legs with a towel. "Peyton? It's Mu - John. You called?" I actually felt a little shy, as if he knew what I'd been doing.
"Hey, John." He didn't sound as if he knew. He just sounded rushed. "Yeah. I'm on my way out the door, but ... got a pen?" I could hear him trying to juggle the phone, and a briefcase or something.
"Sure," I lied. "Go."
He rattled off an address. "It's a local private child advocacy program. Been around for years, though, in various forms. It's a place he hit several times." He sounded frustrated. "I am so late. Can we meet up later?"
"Yeah, sure." I realized why I was shivering. The bathroom window was open. I reached over the commode and snapped it shut. "Tonight at the club?"
"Yeah." He fumbled with the phone and I missed part of his reply. "...eight thirty."
"I'll see you there." I finished my business and returned to the bedroom. Skinner was up and setting out clean clothes with an annoying air of efficiency. A wad of tissues somewhere near the trash bin indicated he had done his cleaning up while I was on the phone. "The shower's free, if you want it," I told him, putting the phone back on the dresser.
He answered with a tight nod, and continued to pack. He seemed only mildly uncomfortable with his nudity, or mine. But his mouth was pulled up into such a forced expression of calm, one I knew from many years experience, seeing it across his desk before he let me have it for some misdeed or other, meant he was angry about something.
I should have let it go. I mean, him being angry with me was nothing earth-shattering, nothing out of the ordinary. But we'd just done some pretty deep incursions into new and scary territory. The last thing I needed was to be abandoned out there alone just because I pissed off my back up. "Did I..." I didn't know what to ask. I sat down on the foot of the bed and watched him while trying very hard not to actually look at him.
And to my very great surprise, he was something to look at. All those years looking at him behind his desk, I'd never had a clue what was there. He was in great shape for a desk jockey. Well, I knew he worked out...I knew he boxed...but...there was something more...something...something without a word for the way he moved. It was powerful, intimidating, sexy as hell - hey! Whoa! Back up. Rewind the film. Mulder does not start getting hot for the boss no matter how they spent the morning. No! Bad Mulder! No cookie. I suddenly felt like a Muppet. Mulder-the-dork.
He was looking at me, waiting. I was blushing. I could feel it. I swallowed and looked to the mess where he'd made coffee the night before. "Did I do something wrong?"
"I don't know," he said in a very quiet voice, gathering up clean socks and things. "Did you?"
Well, there was a question of a different color. I lowered my eyes. "No."
He paused in front of me, underwear in hand. I could smell his sweat and our cum and his clean cotton stuff. "Do you feel you betrayed Peyton?"
I looked up. "Oh, no. Not at all. It's just...what we were doing..." I flicked a hand backward toward the stained sheets and tangled blankets, "...I'd done with him and that made me think of him and then that made me remember the number of the missed call this morning...and I was thinking if it hadn't been for the phone call we wouldn't have ..." I stopped because he was still frowning. "Sorry, it's the way my mind works."
He acted as if he was painfully aware of the way my mind works and wanted to forget. "Did you call him back?"
I nodded.
I could feel him still looking at me expectantly. I sighed. "Peyton was able to pick up some screen grabs for me, looking at what he'd been looking at recently."
"Isn't that illegal?" Skinner sounded more than mildly disapproving.
I shook my head. "Peyton says not. He says ISPs monitor the surfing habits of their customers all the time ... for marketing purposes." I knew I was making a face. "Anyway, he found a local agency that he thinks Krycek has been contacting. I'm going to go check it out."
He was still standing in front of me. "Do you want me to come along?"
"No, I ..." I managed to get my eyes up to his. "Did you bring your badge?"
"Of course." He said it as if I should be able to see it pinned to his naked, furry chest.
"Feel like using it for less than official business?"
He was going to say no. The word had formed on his lips before he even heard the question. But he paused. He actually considered it. "What did you have in mind?"
I got up and reached for the folder on the dresser. "Here." I handed him the advert for the porn vid. "Look familiar?"
He had the decency not to look smug. In fact, he looked almost pained. "He looks so young," he murmured.
"I know." I took the folder back. "There's a child abuse agency, private, someone he had contact with. I don't know why and I don't know when, but I want to find out."
He had to think about it. But he did think. I'll give him credit for that. "I'll go with you," he decided. "Just let me get a shower."
I was grateful. So damned grateful I might have cried. I stood up, keeping my face averted. "I'll make coffee," I offered.
"Good idea," he agreed. "I could use it to warm up. Who would believe it could get so cold in Los Angeles in August?"
"Well, it wouldn't have done if you hadn't left the window open in the bathroom all night," I countered, dumping the filter packet and routing around the debris on the counter for an unopened one.
"I did not!" he protested. "I'd never open a window in a hotel room."
I gestured faintly and shrugged. "Well, it was closed last night and then ..."
"Mulder?"
I was cold again.
"Mulder."
I looked back to the bed.
"Mulder!"
"He..." My heart was hammering in my chest and I raised my voice to be heard over it. "He was here. Last night. He...he saw..."
"Mulder." There was gentleness in his voice. "Mulder, how can you be sure?"
"I'm sure." I let him lead me back to the bed because I don't think my legs were going to hold me up much longer. Krycek had been in our hotel room last night. He had seen me in Skinner's arms. What if he had come back because he wanted me back? What if he would never come back now because he thought I wanted Skinner? What if I stopped talking like an adolescent girl and tried to actually think?
"Mulder." He sat down beside me, his hand on my shoulder. "Mulder, it's been eight years. It really should be over now. Think of all the things he's done, think of -"
"That's just it," I blurted, pained. "That's all I've done...think. Maybe he did those things because of what I did to him."
"What did you do to him?" His voice was so quiet I could barely hear it over that hammering heartbeat of mine.
"I..." Flashes of that last night. Dancing, laughing, wanting him as a lover, the violence, the realization that I was nothing more than a tool for him. And yet, oh, and yet...I stared at him, but beyond him. I lost his features in the mist of remembering and doubt. "I dunno...have you...have you ever said goodbye to someone, and then when you wanted to say 'wait a minute, I was wrong' they were gone? Ever knew someone was going to go so you left first? And then wondered if they were really going? I mean ... yeah, you saw the luggage in the doorway, but maybe...just maybe...oh, hell...never mind." I pushed away from him and reached for my jeans. "You're better off out of this. I'll go alone."
He caught my arm. "I've known regret, Mulder. Believe me. I'm going with you." He stood and gave me a push. "But first we're going to take a shower so that we don't offend the rest of the population."
I stalled a little, but it's hard to stall successfully when a mountain decides to move. I let him propel me into the tiny bath and stayed still while he turned on the water and started a shower. "In," he commanded.
I went. I had the unmistakable impression that if I did not get in of my own accord, I would be put in there and I wasn't ready to let him put his hands on me with force. He climbed in behind me, reached around to adjust the temperature, and then handed me the world's tiniest, thinnest washcloth and matching soap.
It wasn't a shower scene from a porn film, that's certain. It was more like the Marx Brothers Cabin Scene on a budget. The two of us pretty much filled every molecule of space in that shower stall and at the same time made every possible effort not to come in contact with one another. Some of the moves we made were downright comical. But somehow we got out of there clean and without broken bones.
The coffee was done when we got out and I let him pour me some. I didn't drink it, but it felt good to stand there and hold it.
He busied himself around the room, cleaning, piling, sorting. I contributed to his efficiency by staying out of his way. At least until I realized he was laying out clothes for me...khaki slacks, a chambray shirt and..."Good God, Mulder, where did you get this tie?" he protested, holding it up with an expression that was just short of gagging.
I snatched it out of his hand defensively. "Scully gave me that."
His brow wrinkled up. "Was she mad at you?"
"Oh, fu-um...forget it." I draped the tie around my neck and leaned against the wall.
He smiled. It was a nice, gently amused, mostly tolerant smile. "You know...it might work with that outfit." He eased the coffee cup from my fingers, set it on top of the television and measured the tie around my bare neck.
I stood very still, not breathing, as he expertly knotted the tie, and smoothed it down my bare chest.
He stood back. "Yes. Definitely a good look for you."
I looked down self-consciously. Then at the clothes spread out on the bed. "What are you doing? Dressing me, now?"
"Relax. It never hurts to have someone look after you now and again." He settled on the other bed and unfolded a pair of dark socks. He looked up again in time to catch my frown. "How long since someone looked after you, Mulder? Really cared for you?"
"Oh, no...don't start analyzing me, thank you." I tugged the tie loose and pulled it over my head. "And if you mean...like a girlfriend or something...a long time." I tossed the tie on the bed and reached for my jeans, left where he had flung them against the wall earlier. "A long time." I shoved a leg in.
He pulled on one sock. "Krycek never -"
I tugged the jeans up to my hips. "Krycek just used me, okay?" I pushed the other clothes aside and grabbed the shirt. "Leave it at that." I started buttoning the lower buttons.
He had the second sock on and was snapping the creases out of a pair of Y-fronts. "But I thought you said ..."
I was tucking the half buttoned shirt into my jeans. "There are different ways of being used, Skinner. You of all people should know that."
"And how did he use you?"
I shook my head, avoiding his eyes. "It's not important."
"It is to you."
Something in his tone made me look up, something warm and earnest. "Look...Skinner...W - Walter...let's just get this right out on the table, okay? I'm a fool." I pressed a fist to my chest. "I do not contest that." He was still looking at me, waiting for a reason for my foolishness. "I'm still feeling something...who knows...maybe love...for a guy who just wanted someone who could hurt him physically. That's all he wanted. He didn't want or need my love, just my ability to inflict pain and make him believe he was still alive." Damn it! I didn't put in an order for tears. I blinked them away.
He didn't recoil or jeer as I expected. He slid into his crisp white dress shirt. "But...you gave it to him because you loved him?"
"Yessssss." I pushed my feet into my shoes, not bothering with socks. I needed to get out of that room.
He stood. Moved toward me. "What do you need, Mulder?"
I backed up hard against the wall. "Nothing," I said flatly. "I don't want or need anything. Except..." I swallowed, "...except to close this door once and for all."
"When you do," he was in front of me, "don't shut me out," he said softly, reaching for my shoulders. "Don't shut me out."
I was shaking. It wasn't fear. It wasn't pain or desire or chill...it was all of it and none of it. There he was ... looming over me. "Listen to me," I whispered as he moved against me. "I don't...I can't...Skinner, listen," I implored as he kissed my cheek, and then moved under my ear. "Don't. Damn it, don't. Listen to me." I pushed at his arms.
He sucked gently, his voice a purr in my ear. "I don't need to hear it." His big arms wrapped around me. "I know you don't want or need me. But I want and need you. I know if you find him again, no matter what he's done, you'll take him back. I know I'm leaving myself open to be hurt. But I don't care."
"Yeah, well ..." with effort I pushed him away, "I do. Don't be like me, Skinner." I had my palms on his chest, under his open shirt. "Don't be the pathetic thing that I've let myself become. I have always respected you, man. I don't think I could stand to see you this way." I lowered my hands because they were starting to want to stroke all that warm, hard skin. "I'm a lost cause, Skinner. Give up on me and go home. Whether I find him or not..." I felt a fucking tear fall, "...I'm a lost cause."
He actually brushed the tear away. He looked at it for a long moment before he met my eyes again. "You're not lost, Mulder." He pulled back and returned to the bed to pick up his slacks. "I know exactly where you are."
- END Seven -