lament

BIG DADDY NOTES: This is a sequel to "At the Gates of Khartoum," by frogdoggie, gleefully snatched up with permission! Thank you, thank you--Alex and cenobites in the same story, gotta love it... If you'd like to check out the original story (and *lots* more fun!), it's at his site: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/7228/xship.htm

Ratings/Warnings: just barely NC-17. M/K, m/m, implied K/other. And I seem to have mailed my copy of _The Hellbound Heart_ to Finland, so I went with the movie/comics version of the cenobites, except that I made my own, with the exception of the Big Guy. And it's my first slash of any flavor, so...bear with me!

Spoilers: Yeah...all of it, basically, up to and including a year after the events of the movie. (Anyone else ever wondered why scary aliens never wear clothing? What, is it just a human thing? Should we be worried?)

Characters: CC, Barker, and frogdoggie; Concept: frogdoggie; Illicit Substances: Ben & Jerry's.

Thanks again for letting me run with that wonderful story!

Lamentations

by Ladonna King

lking@agora.rdrop.com

Somewhere in the world, it was cool right now. The shadows seeping into a spartan room would be a soft, quiet veil, evening breezes rustling thin curtains, chilling the sweat on a furrowed brow. Shrill, stuttering insects would wake and sing the sun down, their rasping trill rising and falling, like sirens. All he had to do was close his eyes, and he would be there, slumped in a wicker chair on the verandah, a tall, cold glass held carelessly in one hand.

Jolting upright, his eyes snapped open, focusing intently on the shadows across the room. Licking away the sweat beading in the hollow above his lip, he relaxed nervously into the chair by the window, willing his heart to still. There, on the table, in the growing darkness, was the answer to all his hopes. Surely. Except that he couldn't quite bring himself to touch it. Couldn't turn his back on it. Couldn't close his eyes for more than a moment in its presence. He had the irrational conviction that, if he did, it would...*move.*

And it was hotter than hell here in Khartoum. Not even the most vivid daydream, what few happy memories he still possessed, could distract him from that.

This has my vote in the hell category, he snarled silently, dragging the back of his hand across his face. Sitting in a cheap motel, baking alive, waiting for a sign from fucking God. Or for something to take this out of my hands. I can't use it, and I can't leave. Move over, Tantalus; Alex Krycek has officially lost his mind. *And* his nerve.

But. There was that sound again, like far-off voices echoing down a tunnel, like the drone of locusts heard years ago. Through the open window, he could hear the roar of the streets, the call to evening worship, an animal's angry scream. Normal sounds. The...voices...came from somewhere else.

Slowly, Alex unfolded himself from the chair, the joints in his spine crackling as he rose. It was still in his room, stifling, as if the storm he'd first felt approaching in the cafe had settled down to wait, brooding, overhead. There was a smell of ozone in the air, bitingly sharp, and he could no longer unstring nerves waiting tensely for the first clap of thunder. Hesitantly, he took a cautious step forward, his unblinking eyes fixed on the puzzle box gleaming in the murk. And another step. Each footfall so carefully placed, even he couldn't hear his tread. He felt like an idiot. He was stalking the furniture now.

An armslength away, he stopped, and could make himself go no further. Staring down at the small, ornate cube, he had to wonder again just what kind of salvation this was supposed to bring. How was this box an answer, much less transportation? And what did that crazy bastard Frenchman mean by pleasure? The thing frankly gave him the creeps. Walking home with it in his pocket, he'd kept feeling a crawling sensation where it pressed against his side, like something squirming to be set free.

This is more Mulder's thing than mine, he thought as he stared down at it, oddly mournful. Too bad he's not here to help me figure this out. Of course, if he were here...I wouldn't need the box, now would I?

Maybe I could send it to him, though...wrap it up and mail it off, his own little X-File paperweight. I'm sure he'd get a kick outa that. What do you give the paranoid FBI guy who has everything? Well...I've got this box, you see...

How the *fuck* is this an answer?

The Frenchman hadn't explained a thing, not really. Krycek wasn't sure if it was because he didn't know, or just wasn't willing to tell. He knew the box was a 'key' to some kind of weird 'gateway,' but from there things got a little hazy. He had a good imagination, and a fairly liberal education--he knew his Heinlein, his Norton, yeah, and his Anthony, too. He was not unfamiliar with the concept of parallel universes. But even a man who'd had a sentient oil slick riding around inside of him had limits to his credibility.

Except that when he'd held the thing, strangely light on his palm despite its weight, as if a living thing sat coiled to spring--when he'd held it, he could feel something there, inarguable and intense.

A key to what? Transportation to where? And what answers could he possibly find in all these questions?

Pleasure. That was the one thing he really didn't understand, and the one thing Dupres had been certain of. Opening that 'gateway,' solving the box, would grant him pleasure undreamed of. What exactly had he meant by that? What, did it send you over the rainbow into Nympho Oz or something? Of course, there was more than one kind of pleasure.

Maybe, somewhere, there was a world where Alex Krycek, partner to Special Agent Fox Mulder, had never heard of the Consortium, still had two arms, and couldn't pick the smell of a lit Morley out of a crowd of Marlboro Men. Maybe that Krycek, and that Mulder, were chasing little grey men together, on the same side of the battlelines. Or maybe the worst thing they had to worry about was falling asleep over a wiretap on some Congressperson's mistress' phone. That and all the MSG in the takeout. Even if they weren't lovers, even if they were just friends, they would at least be together. At least not enemies.

If I could get there...if that's what this is...wouldn't that be salvation? Pleasure beyond my wildest dreams? I don't see how that could come about without Mulder anyway...it's at least worth a try. At the very least...maybe it can make me forget.

Taking a deep breath, he reached for the box.

***

The pounding on the door nearly startled him out of his skin. Spinning to face it, his hand whipped around to his back, drawing the Glock holstered there in one fluid motion. Some part of him was dimly aware of the box crouched sullenly on the table, *seething* at his sudden withdrawal, but he couldn't spare the concentration to worry about that now. The only thing that kept him from firing or bolting out the window was the realization that no one out to kill him would bother to knock first, however rudely. Even the authorities would have kicked the door in by now.

"Monsieur! Monsieur, please! Open the door!"

Slowly, his heartbeat returned to normal, the blank readiness of his expression slipping into consternation. Arif? What the fuck did the kid want with him now?

A memory of the boy's lips on his scars returned, and Mulder, half-insensible and screaming his name, here, in this room. Arms around his neck, and eyes filled with gratitude, and love.

Nah...

"Arif?" he called warily. "Stand back, and don't fucking move until I tell you to."

"Alex! I--"

"*Now,* Arif," he growled impatiently. Waiting a long moment, he cautiously stepped to the side of the door, unlocking it and throwing it wide open. His gun emerged before his head did, glancing up and down the grimy hallway, but there was only Arif, his hands dangling limply at his sides. "Get in here," he ordered curtly, kicking the door shut behind him as Arif slid past.

And stopped dead, staring at the box on the table.

Alex didn't understand a word of the kid's mutterings, but he recognized a curse when he heard it. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, holstering his gun so he could grab the kid by the elbow and turn him forcibly around. The corner of his mind that was always looking outward, cataloging his surroundings and the people in them, noticed that neither one of them was quite willing to entirely turn their backs on the box. They stood at angles, looking at each other, but facing the box.

"You cannot do this, effendi Alex. You cannot use this box."

Eyes narrowed, Alex glared at the young Arab, searching his face for deception. "Why not?"

"You learn nothing, effendi. Things are not what they seem."

"Fucking talk sense, dammit," Alex shook the kid, his temper frayed dangerously close to the breaking point. "Why *not*? What the fuck do you know about this thing that you couldn't have told me before we left here? What game are you playing with me, you little shit?"

Arif stood passive before him, letting himself be shaken about like so many rags, but met Krycek's furious stare without flinching. "I didn't know he would sell you the box...I swear to you. I did not know..." Something in his miserable hazel eyes, Mulder's eyes in that sweet Arab face, calmed some of the anger away, dimmed the white heat pounding in his skull. Taking a deep breath, Alex relaxed his grip on Arif's arm, and tried again.

"What do you know about the box, Arif?"

Hesitantly, Arif raised one shoulder. "My master...his customers come to him to escape their pasts, yes, and most of them, he finds papers for, or passage. It's usually very simple. But sometimes, there are those for whom escape is impossible. And he sells them the box."

"This box?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"They disappear," Arif whispered. "And he still has the box."

The wheels were turning now, rattling in his skull with a jangle of panic. "What do you mean, 'disappear?' You mean...what? No bodies?"

"No, effendi. Nothing left behind. Only...people have heard strange noises from their rooms, and felt..." Arif shook his head. "You feel it now, Alex. It only gets worse."

"Worse how?"

"My master keeps it in a room in his house, in the cellar. When one of us displeases him, he...he locks us in...."

"And?" Alex asked again, dreading the answer. He could hardly hear Arif's shuddered response.

"Some of us don't return."

"Shit." Okay, he'd been wrong. *This* got his vote for hell-of-the-week. Tantalus? Hell, no. Damocles, definitely.

Then again...it meshed perfectly with the idea of an alternate universe. It didn't have to be all bad. People always went a little crazy when it came to the unusual, the alien, anything they didn't understand. Maybe he was letting superstition get the better of him. He said as much, to Arif, without heat.

"Alex...you have forgotten. You learned nothing."

He recalled those words, Arif telling him to remember the moment, to learn and remember. To learn what? That the kid could throw a mindbending fuck? That a brief encounter with Alex's fist was enough to win a catamite's love? That he was so fucked up, he could hallucinate Mulder anywhere?

Or lips on his aching, wounded flesh, taking away the pain for just that moment... If Alex hadn't had the romance beaten out of him, he might have spirited Arif away in the night, saved him from Dupres and turned his back on everything, and let that gentle touch heal his heart. There was still a part of him that wanted to do that anyway, to believe that love was really that easily come by, but he'd learned to ignore that voice years ago. It was the same voice that had seen joining those shadowy bastards as *exciting,* dammit, getting partnered to 'Spooky' Mulder as an amusement, oh, and that kissing the guy would be a real good idea, too. Not to call it a whim, or anything.

"What was I supposed to learn?" he asked mildly, honestly curious what Arif's answer would be. Somebody out there had to have answers he could hold onto. It might as well be this kid.

"Your one desire."

"Fucking Fox Mulder? I coulda told you that," Alex snorted, letting Arif go. "But that's as close to heaven as I'm gonna get in this world."

"Why, effendi?"

Alex shook his head. "You wouldn't understand. There's no way he'd get anywhere near me, now. I need....I need a change. Something drastic. To get out of all this, so I can come back fresh, and maybe make some of it up to him. I don't know...I don't *think* I have a chance in hell with him. But I have to try. Maybe, if it's big enough to change things for me...it's big enough to get his forgiveness. And if that means I have to go to hell and back, I'll do it."

He had approached the box without quite realizing it, drawn to its lurking presence like a moth to the flame, and Arif, trembling, had matched him every step. "I understand, Alex. But you do not. Fucking him is not your desire."

"Coulda fooled me."

"His love is."

Alex froze, his hand resting lightly on top of the puzzle box, and Arif's covered his own. "That's even more impossible," Krycek whispered.

"Effendi. Alex. Give me the box."

"Why are you doing this?" Alex cried, his face an agony of indecision.

"Because I must. For the ones lost in the cellar. For the blood of strangers. Because you have beautiful eyes," Arif smiled, sweet and breathtakingly lovely, as if his hand was not shaking atop Alex's own. "Because I have heard the voices crying in my sleep for six years. Please. Give me the box."

Wavering, Alex stood poised on the edge, weighing the deadly possibilities beneath his palm against the chance at redemption. He knew this was something he would only do for Mulder...but if Arif was right, then Mulder would never know. He would never be mourned, never again coast into Mulder's disordered life, would be nothing but a dim worry in the back of the agent's mind, wondering whether Alex would be waiting behind the next door, gun in hand. Was a barely hinted-at shot at something better worth it?

Before Alex could pick up the box or pull away his hand, the thing beneath his palm began to move.

***

Yelping, Alex snatched his hand back, reaching for his Glock as he stumbled away from the table. Arif stood frozen, petrified, staring down at the whirring, spinning object dancing on the table. Twisting itself about, slamming pieces *out* and *up* and *in,* it snapped its way through half a dozen combinations before part of it lifted out of the center, clacked over, and sank down again, spread out like the rays of a daggered sun.

"Oh, *fuck,*" Alex hissed, as the room went deadly still, and all the light bled away.

Nonononono...oh Jesus fuck, not the dark, not with that thing, oh *fuck* no...his mind yammered in a panic, nearly knocking himself cold as his hand jerked up, gun still clenched in his fist, trying to cover his mouth and nose. He wanted to call out to Arif, but he couldn't bring himself to make any noise. Maybe if he stood here, perfectly still and quiet, no one would be able to find him.

Behind him, with a sound like the opening of a tomb, the wall cracked open, bleeding light.

Spinning, Alex was in time to see several tall figures step through, the light behind them throwing them into stark silhouette until his eyes adjusted, and more cracks appeared, bathing the room in a cold blue glare. When he took a good look at what stood before him, his stomach rolled over in shock. What the fuck had gotten to *them*?

All of them were in black, with dead white skin and dark, dark eyes, in various states of mutilation. The one on his far right was a woman...he was pretty sure. She would have been quite beautiful, if it wasn't for the crest of spikes, like a cockatiel's flamboyant plumage, arcing from her shaved skull, with more ringing her throat like a necklace. One man looked basically normal, except for the loops and whorls cut into his flesh, gaping bloodlessly. The third was fucking well St. Sebastian, pierced from head to toe...

And the face of the fourth was covered with evenly spaced pins, glittering brightly in the gloom.

"Who...?" Krycek breathed, twitching each time he heard the too-close clatter of chains. Arif was a silent shadow at his side, stiff and straight-spined and pale as the creatures themselves.

"We are of the Order of the Gash," the pin-studded one spoke, his deep, hollow voice dragging cold fingers down Alex's back. "You called, and we have answered. And we have...such sights to show you," the eyes gleamed in the emotionless face. That a voice so devoid of inflection could purr surprised Alex not at all.

"What do you mean?" he demanded, gathering his courage, his chin coming up defiantly. He was going to get some answers, by God, if it killed him, and he wasn't going anywhere until one or the other happened. "What sights? Where do you come from? What happens if I say yes?"

"Solved the box," grinned the woman, "clever boy. Don't you know?"

"Sensation beyond any you have known. A pure agony of pleasure. The burning and the flame. We will take you beyond your memory of limits, beyond yourself. Beyond your dreams."

Alex snorted, meeting the dark eyes of the Order's spokesman solidly. "I think I like my dreams just fine, thanks. And I'm really starting to doubt you have what I want over there."

"Oh, I think we do," that indefinably *wrong* voice mused indulgently. "Let me show you..."

And Alex fell into the cenobite's eyes.

***

He was shackled down to a bed of white sheets, or a mortuary slab, or hanging between two pillars like a sacrifice, screaming a long, harsh note he could not have sustained in this world, every nerve in his body writhing with ecstasy so intense it *hurt,* it was burning right through him, but he had passed beyond that, he *was* the pain, and the joy, so piercing, and the crushing helplessness that came from knowing it would never end, but get stronger with every heartbeat, when his heart still beat at all, and the reason he was screaming, though he had been cut, and remolded, and flayed, and whipped, and he had *two fucking arms now, where the hell did they scrounge the other one from, from what stupid fuck,* the reason he didn't give a flying damn about any of this, was because the one sucking his cock right down a throat that never needed to let up, or breathe, or swallow except for effect, had Mulder's face.

Or.

He had a knife in his hand, the left one. And someone's face in the right. Not the head. Just the face. And he was colder than the darkest night he'd ever suffered through, inside and out, but there was a kind of fierce exultation in it, in doing what he'd been born to do, what he'd practiced for all his life. Circumstance had made him an assassin, but he'd always been a killer. And now, just imagine, his victims didn't have to *die* when he was finished playing with them. He could always come back for more. He had an artist's eye, and a lover's touch, and the admiration of Leviathan's favorite son, the quiet, pin-laced man who had the ear of the god of this place. There were worse things. Someone had once decided he was a monster, someone he cared about very much. And he was nothing if not obliging. And the man whose visage he had just replaced now had Mulder's face.

***

"No, no deal," Alex stepped back, raising the Glock in a white-knuckled fist. Shaken to the core, he couldn't silence the little voice inside, not the one who might have thought the possibilities intriguing, but the one that wondered if the creature mightn't be right about him after all.

"There are no deals. You solved the box. That is all."

"There's always a deal," Alex's eyes narrowed. "And no one solved your fucking box. The damn thing did it all by itself."

"It could not have without the will," the spokesman stated, in a voice that brooked no argument. "You called us. We are here. And you will be adored in our halls, I promise you, one way...or another."

"Like hell," Alex snarled, but the gleam in the creature's eye only intensified. The bastard's getting off on it! he growled to himself, taking careful aim.

Arif stepped forward then, before Alex could pull the trigger, or decide whether the sudden rattlesnake shiver of chain was as ominous as it sounded. "Wait. Monsieur Krycek didn't solve the box. I did."

"Arif! What the fuck!"

"You, child?" the smooth brows raised eloquently, dark eyes fastening on Arif's trembling form.

"Yes, effendi. Alex wavered. I did not. Take me, as you ought, and leave him behind. I swear to serve faithfully in his place."

"Arif, no--" Alex started, seeing the young Arab's body broken in his mind's eye, broken by ecstasy, but broken nevertheless.

Arif just smiled. "Alex. You must give me this. It's time to end it."

And Alex understood.

Why, he wondered crazily, do I always end up saddled with the noble ones, dammit? I *know* I've filled my quota with Mulder, for fuck's sake...

There was a strained silence in the room, the four mutilated beings sizing up Arif...who was not found wanting, Alex thought. Though that might rapidly change. And he thought there was real regret when the leader of the quartet turned back to him, holding his eyes in a long look that both terrorized and tantalized him. "The choice is still yours, if you wish it. When you wish it. I have an eternity to wait."

Alex just shook his head. There was no way he was going to admit the offer was...appreciated. In much the same way the sword had been to a Roman; when all else failed, and there was nothing left, there was always that last comfort, the final exit. If everything else in his life fell apart, then he would go looking again, and this time, when he found them...

They were taking Arif away. Stepping through the fissures in the wall, into that shadowy catacomb half-seen beyond, the walls slipping closed behind them. Arif turned to face him then, eyes expectant, a strange smile on his lips. "Alex! Je t'aime, mon ami!"

He had the gun holstered without thought, an answering grin on his own face as he reached for the box behind him. "Moi aussi, mon petit!" he called back, and pitched the box in after Arif.

The whole world seemed to stop when the box's arc froze, just this side of the wall. The pin-studded man almost smiled. And then the walls slammed shut.

The box dropped to the floor, knocking the sunburst figure awry, and the gears began to smoothly turn, restoring its original shape. Black, etched with gilt fire, innocent and harmless. "Motherfucking son of a *bitch!*" Alex yelled, stalking over to kick the hapless box with all his strength, half hoping the damn wall would open back up again, so he could go after that smug bastard. And Arif...all for nothing...

"No. Fuck that. Goddammit, kid, I'm going to see this through. And the first thing I do, I'm gonna ram this thing up Dupres' ass!" he yelled, kicking the box again for good measure. He had no fear whatsoever that the damned thing would break. There was no way in hell he was that lucky.

Picking the box up later, though, he suddenly realized there was no sensation of it waiting to open. Was it because it had just fed, or was it that the Alex that might have opened it, desperate beyond sense, was no longer in residence? Weighing it coolly in his palm, he fixed his concentration on the smooth form, silently challenging it to fuck with him this time. There was not even the faintest tingle of awareness against his skin.

But...his eyes could trace the exact pathway a pair of hands would take to open it again. A touch here, a tug there, and.... Ah. Hands. There was a problem here.

I'm not going to need this again, he realized suddenly. Not for myself. If I go, it won't be through *it.* Not anymore. But I *can* use it...

First things first. Kill Dupres. Then get on the first flight back to America. He had a lot of work waiting for him.

***

"Wha--?" the sleepy voice slurred, one hand reaching out absently for the gun on the coffee table as a pair of bleary hazel eyes cracked open.

"It's me," Alex snorted, kicking the door shut behind him, a stuffed duffel bag slung from his hand. "Lucky for you."

"Yeah, some luck," Mulder bitched, his head dropping back down on his arm as he rolled over on the sofa. "You have no idea how long it's been since I've had any sleep. What is it this time?"

"More evidence," Krycek shrugged, dropping the bag at his feet.

"It's not going to ooze this time, is it?"

"Are you *ever* going to forgive me for that?"

"Why break a good habit?"

"Up yours, *Fox.*" It was a childish bit of pleasure to see the other man wince, even now, at such an old jab. Payback for that last remark, definitely. He wondered if Mulder had any idea how much that sort of comment hurt. Hopefully, he didn't have a clue.

"Well, why not? It's not like I'm going to be getting back to sleep any time soon."

Alex stared at the agent, shocked speechless. Okay, so he had a clue--and he was a *vicious* bastard. "Your sense of humor's as tired as the rest of you, Mulder," he forced a laugh, hoping it didn't sound as strained to Mulder as it did to his own ears.

"Who's joking?"

"Oh, fuck, they've drugged you," Alex sighed morosely. "Come on, what did you eat today? It's the tap water again, right? Christ, I'll call Scully..."

"*Alex,*" Mulder growled, rolling his eyes as he sat up. "Aren't you sick of dancing around this? You want to fuck me, I want to fuck you, end of story. Can we get on with this before one of us dies of old age?"

Alex took a deep breath, then another. Calm. Calmness was good. *Deep* breaths. "I don't want to fuck you, Mulder." Mulder looked gratifyingly shocked, and horribly embarrassed. "Not if it's the end of the story."

When Mulder just stared at him, he shrugged and wandered into the kitchen, examining the beer in the refrigerator with some misgiving before clumsily prying it open. Who knew *what* the fuck had brought that little scene on, after all. Then again, he did happen to know how long Mulder had been up, first with the Congressional hearings, then with those creepy fucks from whatever bloody agency they were calling themselves these days--MIB coroners, gotta love this country.

"So, Krycek...how'd you keep the...er, carcass from disappearing from cold storage?" Mulder asked when he got back, carefully avoiding Alex's eyes.

Snickering a bit, Alex took a long swallow from the bottle, taking up residence in *his* chair. The one Mulder had learned to leave clear for him, just in case. "I sorta let the word get around...if I had to go through the unadulterated *hell* of killing one of those buggers one more time, I was gonna dump the next body on the news desk at CNN, and let them misplace *that* evidence. I fucking *hate* aliens," he sighed dramatically, sinking deeper into his chair.

Mulder shook his head. "I still can't believe you brought that thing here, though...I swear, on hot days, I can still smell it..."

"Aww, Mulder, I'm tryin'a have a beer here," Alex chuckled. "And I'm *sorry* the bag leaked, okay? But tell me one other place I could dump an alien corpse and have it get where it needed to go, huh? I'm not going to fuck up a year's work just so your apartment won't stink."

"Yeah, well... Alex."

"I'm really not in the mood," Alex looked down at his beer, keeping his temper in check. Once upon a time, a casual fuck with Mulder would have been the be-all, end-all of a perfect night.

"Just tell me why. Why you did it."

"I didn't know any better," he said carefully, setting the bottle aside so he could rise and pace. Away from the window. "I was just a kid when all this started, okay? It was interesting, it was cloak and dagger and cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians, you know? A game. I was a crazy kid, and I was growing into a crazier adult, and that's how things would have stayed. I'm not a nice guy, Mulder, and I'm never really going to *be* a nice guy, and there's a part of me that doesn't even really want to. I'm the guy that gets things done when everyone else's hands are tied. I'm the one who does the dirty work and just maybe tips the scales in our favor. Guys like you are always going to hate me, but you'll always use me, because you can't do it without me. But that's okay. Because I'm not the one who has to live with the consequences. You are. Half the time, guys like me don't even see the end of the war. But at least the war *ends.*"

Standing on the other side of the coffee table, Alex stood staring down at Mulder, shaking almost imperceptibly. Mulder had that shell-shocked expression on his face again, like he'd gotten way too much information, way more truth than he'd really wanted. But then he shook his head, and asked, "No. I mean, why did you come back?"

Alex laughed a little, amused that he'd misread Mulder's question so badly. Talk about your guilty consciences. Well, that had had to be said too. "Because I love you," he shrugged easily. "I just had to lose someone to realize that that was the only important thing."

He could see Mulder about to ask him who, then decide not to. "Oh. You know...it's hard to forgive you. Not just my father, but Scully...Melissa...God, I don't know. But... Hell, I'm finally beginning to make some sense of you, and you go changing all the rules on me," Mulder glared in disgust. "Again! Dammit, when I realized it was you slipping me all that information, I nearly scrapped it all. No way was that rat bastard legit, I thought."

"What kept you?"

Mulder laughed, embarrassed, running a hand through his hair. "I'd already started following up on a lot of it, and it was all coming out right. I couldn't stop there, even if you tricked me into a dead end. At that point, I figured I'd just trust you as long as I could, and hope I could salvage enough when it fell through to make some progress."

Sighing, Mulder slumped back against the couch, fingers working nervously at the seams of the faded jeans he wore. "I guess what really turned it around was when you showed up to save *Skinner's* ass. I mean, if it had been Scully, that could be a bribe, an act, but Skinner? Above and beyond the call of duty, even for a quadruple agent. Okay, so the next AD was liable to be a Consortium toady, but damn..."

Alex chuckled. "I may have to change my opinion of him one day..." he offered, rocking back on his heels. "Seems like he's done me a good turn."

"Just don't ever tell him that to his face," Mulder snorted. "I won't be responsible for his actions."

"I'll stay far away from balconies if I do," Krycek promised with mock solemnity.

"Riiight. Damn. We just keep going around in circles. Look, what I'm trying to say is, I don't know anymore how I feel about you, all right? I don't know if this is just a side of you that I've been missing all along, or if you really changed so much I can barely recognize you--and is it permanent? I know you're not a nice guy. You don't have to tell me that twice. But you're not a monster, either. I don't know this guy all that well yet. Hell, I don't think I ever knew you. But I'm willing to set the past aside. If you want...everything started this last year. Nothing else. For as long as we can make it work."

Alex fought a smile, dropping his head. It felt so good to hear that, even though he knew he couldn't take the promise offered. "It's not that easy. No one else is going to play by those rules, you know. They already think you're out of your mind, trusting me... It'd only get you hurt."

"Well, like you said...the war will end. There's no reason I can't just fade into the shadows when it's done. I'd kind of like that anyway. And some company would be nice. I'm tired of being alone."

Closing his eyes, Alex took another deep breath, but his anger was long gone. "Me too," he whispered. "God, yes."

"Then...would you...?"

He looked up. Mulder was holding out his hand, inviting Alex to join him. The hopeful look on that familiar face undid him. Wordless, he circled the table, taking Mulder's hand in his own, allowing himself to be pulled down onto the couch.

At first, all Mulder did was look at him, like he was memorizing Alex's face against future loss. Alex couldn't blame him. If he hadn't spent so much time watching Mulder, he'd be doing the same thing. "You look...sadder than I remember," Mulder whispered at last, stroking a light thumb along the line of Alex's collarbone. "But more at peace. Are you happy now, Alex?"

"Yes," he smiled simply, and leaned in for a kiss.

Mulder's lips parted for him sweetly, inviting his explorations. God, the man really did taste like sunflower seeds, sharp and salty, like the smell of his skin. Slipping his hand under Mulder's shirt, over the long back and teasing the hard ripple of his ribs, Alex wished briefly for two hands to do this with, before shunting that thought quickly aside. No. This was him, the real him, with the real Mulder, and he had all his scars to prove it. Fuck it. If it didn't bother Mulder, it wasn't going to bother him.

And it apparently did not bother Mulder in the least. The other man's hands were working at the fastenings of both their clothes, while trying to touch every inch of Alex's skin he could reach, never releasing Alex's mouth. When Mulder stripped him out of his shirt, Alex hesitated for an instant despite himself, hoping Mulder wouldn't notice.

Vain hope. "Alex. It's all right. I'm so sorry it had to happen...let me," he muttered against Alex's throat, pushing him back, while he began to work at the buckles holding the prosthesis on. Alex hated wearing the thing anymore--it reminded him too much of a dream he lived in dread of making reality--but a one-armed man was just too easy to spot in a crowd. Forcing himself to relax, Alex lay back and let Mulder strip him of everything, clothes, arm, and armaments. The agent was laughing by the time the last gun was laid aside. "You must be fun in airports," Mulder shook his head.

"But better in airplanes," Alex smiled wickedly. "Are you a member of the mile-high club?"

"I think I will be," Mulder grinned, looking down at Alex with delighted awe. "God...you're incredible." Mulder's hand was stroking down his chest, over his belly, and back up again, sneaking up on the erection that was its eventual goal. His other had gripped Alex by the left shoulder, rubbing his thumb along the soft skin above the scar tissue. Then he was leaning closer, claiming Alex's lips, kissing him senseless.

Alex didn't realize how much he'd missed breathing until Mulder's mouth abandoned his to nibble its way across his body, sucking at his throat, nipping the swell of his shoulder and fastening on a nipple with ferocious intensity. When Alex felt that mouth running over the wreckage where his arm used to be, he felt no self-consciousness, no bitterness, only the sense that he was being adored, all of him.

And then the agent's mouth slipped lower, tongue darting out once to coast the gently curving line of his cock from head to balls before Mulder swallowed him whole. His hips jerking helplessly, he was aware of swearing reverently in Russian as Mulder opened his throat for him, proof positive that the man was nowhere near as innocent as he looked. He'd always known that a man with that lower lip had possibilities...

He knew Mulder was clean. The man was in the hospital so often, he practically had his bloodwork done every other week. Alex had hacked his medical records often enough to know. And as for himself, Alex had been a very good boy. Even better after Arif. He'd known what he wanted now, and he hadn't taken any chances. None of the avoidable ones, anyway. He wondered if he would ever sit down and tell Mulder the whole story, from start to finish, and whether Mulder would want to hear it. But not now. There were much more important things to do.

"Shit, Mulder--move if you're gonna," he gasped, grabbing the arm of the couch over his head to keep from catching Mulder by the hair and holding him down on his cock. Mulder just increased the tempo of his bobbing head, his tongue pressing harder as it swept along his length in slow, sinuous arcs. Hissing through clenched teeth, Alex came hard, bucking up into Mulder's restraining hands, shuddering as he felt the agent swallow around him. Goddamn.

And Mulder, when he sat up, just looked...happy. Blissful, really. Like he'd just gotten something he'd been asking for for years, pleased with himself and not in the least bit disappointed after the wait. Mulder was a man content. Straining erection and all. "Mulder," Alex murmured, reaching down to stroke the silky skin of the other man's cock, fever-warm and twitching impatiently. "Inside pocket of my jacket." Mulder blinked, looking hesitant, but hopeful. "Well?" Alex grinned. "What are you waiting for?"

Nothing, after that. Mulder dove for the lube, grinning back, a wry twist of his lips that showed he knew exactly how crazy their situation was, but wasn't it fun? The sensation of Mulder's fingers, and then his cock, stretching him and filling him up, was far more satisfying and addictive than the darkest dream lure. Matching Mulder's thrusts, he kept his eyes fixed on the lidded hazel stare above him, smiling serenely down on him with that maddening lower lip caught in his teeth. Alex could stay like this forever, hearing Mulder whisper hoarsely, "I love you, Alex," as he came, the last pounding strokes setting Alex off again.

But he had places he had to be.

After their shower, Alex started getting dressed, trying to ignore Mulder's disappointed pout. "Sorry, Mulder," he sighed regretfully. "But there's something I've gotta pick up before it gets in the wrong hands. I can probably be back in a couple of days, if you want me to..."

"Yeah," Mulder smiled, a little sadly. "I'd like that. Take care of yourself, okay, Alex?"

"You bet," Krycek grinned over his shoulder, deftly completing the awkward task of strapping on his holster. "Hey, I've got something to look forward to now, right?"

"Damn straight," Mulder agreed fervently, his smile growing. "Come back soon, okay?"

"You bet. Try and keep me away."

***

In the study of a very respectable house, Alex looked around slowly, watching the walls with a wary fascination he couldn't deny. He could feel the thing from the doorway, pulsing out its final heartbeats before it stilled again, waiting for the next one to be lured in. Cautiously, Alex moved closer, stooping to pick the antique puzzle box up from the floor.

He hadn't seen any of them since that night in Khartoum, but he had felt...something, a shivering along his nerves if he came in too quickly after the box had closed. He could feel its opening from a mile away at this point, and he'd grown adept at judging when it was safe to retrieve it. And always, he was careful what he wished for. It was enough to place it in the path of the next to go. The last thing he wanted to do was try and speed matters up. All it took was will, or so they said.

And he was very careful who he thought about while holding the thing.

(Mais non, Monsieur Krycek,) a ghost of a laugh flitted around the room. (All is well, my friend. I am...not as I was, and not as you saw yourself. And I have a place here, that cannot be taken away, by my master's side.)

Arif's voice, hollow and...lovely.

(I will miss you, effendi Alex...keep your love safe, oui? And yourself. Je t'aime...)

"Love you too, kid," Alex shivered, but some of the sadness Mulder had mourned had lifted from his shoulders. Pocketing the box, he took a final look around the empty room and grinned. "Zakuribai!" he saluted mockingly, and headed out the door. His lover was waiting for him.

But Mulder would kill him if he came in stinking of Morleys.

the end

(Note: forgive me if my spelling is wrong, but I've yet to figure out how to turn Cyrillic into English-type letters properly. With that in mind... "Zakuribai" is 'light 'em up,' near as I can tell, the equivalent of 'smoke 'em while you've got 'em.' Just a shameless pun, there...)