TITLE: No Happy Endings
NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: ccmcdoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: M/K
RATING: NC-17. M/K. This
story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. Not suitable for children,
Baptists or Republicans.
SUMMARY: It might be half empty, but gosh, isn't it a
pretty glass?
ARCHIVE: 3waystop first, and then the usual suspects.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist.
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. I
personally think Chris Carter, et al, should just give them to me, since
they're not using them anymore, and anyway, I treat them much, much better, but
there you are.
Author's notes: I've been a long time quiet. Haven't felt
right posting any of my other stuff 'til I finished the Katrina stuff…but I
thought, as it's Christmas, Valarie
and Yja would forgive me.
No Happy Endings
I recognized the posture as I stepped through the door; even
in shadow I could see he neither lay back in repose
nor sat up in interest. He sat, only by the definition of being
supported by his fundament while his feet were on the floor, but his
torso was slung back more in the definition of despair. There were no tears,
but a black arch of something worse than irritation marred his brow with a
purse of the lips to match.
I confess, given the absolute shit of a day I'd had, I was
tempted to turn around and go out again. There were red flag warnings in that
room, and I was in no mood to sail into a storm.
He lifted his eyes to me. A gale force
glance. I actually took a step back. It was then my hand fell against
the cool plastic of the DVD case. I lifted it, noted the title, and approached,
pausing to hit the eject button on the DVD player as I turned to him. "I
thought we agreed you weren't going to watch this," I chided, waving the
case at him.
His answer was a rolling shrug and a sniff
which might have been more irritation, or perhaps even indignation.
The disc slid out to me, I lifted it and placed it into the
case and dropped both on the floor. "I warned you." I stepped on the
case with force and deliberation.
He made a sound of protest…no, more of surprise, in harmony
to the sound of the disc cracking under my heel. "You didn't have to do
that."
"I should have done it yesterday." I turned as I reached the futon and backed up to it.
"Come on…scoot." He slid to the end and I settled
down, lifting my feet to the table, carefully seeking a place in the detritus
of half eaten frozen meals and half emptied coffee
cups. "Do you ever clean up after yourself?"
"Do you ever do anything but complain?" he
snarled.
I would have argued that point but it was clear he wanted to
have his fit first. I pressed my lips together for a moment, keeping
unnecessary words inside, and when I felt it was safe I eased them open and
said, "Are you okay?"
"No. Why can't we ever have happy endings? Why don't we
ever get to ride off into the sunset like…like…"
"Normal people?" I
offered. Bad choice of words.
He jerked toward me, slapping his chest with his palm.
"We're normal people. We're just as normal as anyone else.
So why don't we get romance? Why must we always be pathetic; why must we be the
victims, or druggies…why do we always have to die?"
"It was only a movie." Worse
choice of words.
"Only a movie? It's our every
day, whole fucking world."
I leaned toward him, arms outstretched, offering comfort.
He wasn't ready to accept it, shifting further away from me.
"I'm tired of it. I want a happy ending."
I sighed and settled back, letting my head bump against the
wall. "We've had this conversation before. No one gets happy endings. No one. Straight people, gay people, black, white, good
guys, bad guys, dogs, cats and elephants."
His shoulders jerked, he didn't look at me. "Thank you
for taking me seriously," he said icily.
"I am serious," I countered. "What's our
ending? We die. What's happy about that?" I reached for him. "I don't
want a happy ending. I want a happy right now."
He brushed me off. "Don't you understand?" He
stood up, nearly tripping over newspapers and moved away from me, the futon, the mess on the table. "I want more than right now. I
want a happy tomorrow, and next week, and next year."
"Yeah, that would be nice," I conceded, collecting
the pillow he had been using to support his back. It was still warm, and felt
good in my arms. "But no one gets that guaranteed. We make what we can of
the right now, because none of us, no matter who or
what we are, is promised the next minute." I hugged the pillow against me.
"I could be run over tomorrow by a clown on a unicycle delivering pizzas,
or there could be a sniper outside that window right now, with you in his
crosshairs." Impulsively I stood. "In fact, move away from that
window, please?" I reached out and guided him out of bull's-eye central.
His foot landed on the broken case. He looked down at it.
"Why couldn't they have had a happy ending?"
"Because that's the way the story was written," I
said. "And don't make this about that movie. I warned you it would depress
you. You had to watch it anyway."
He bent over and collected the pieces. "Why did it have
to be written like that?"
I didn't really have an answer…in fact,
I'd asked the same question myself when I'd seen it in the theatre several
months ago. "Maybe they were trying to show how unfair society was then, and that there has been progress since that
time."
"Progress?" He shook the
pieces at me. "How is it progress? He died."
"Yes, but the movie got made, didn't it?" I pried what was left of it from his hands.
"That's progress."
"I want more progress."
"Greedy bastard." I took
the trash to the kitchen and dumped it into the bin. "Would you settle for
a coffee?" I asked over my shoulder. "And you know, not every movie
has a happy ending, even for," I lifted my hands to make quotation marks,
"normal people."
"Name one," he challenged from the doorway.
"Gone With the Wind. The mother of all unhappy endings." I pulled the carafe
from the coffeemaker and rinsed it under the tap. "Love
Story. The mother of all stupid catch phrases." I pulled a bottle
of water from the refrigerator. "Moulin Rouge. The mother of all bad premises." I filled the
reservoir. "Steele Magnolias…well, that one I guess had a happy ending.
Shirley MacLaine got slapped."
"You don't have to prove to me you're gay by naming all
these chick flicks," he complained.
"Mad Max, Road Warrior, Thunderdome."
I spooned coffee into the filter. "Bang the Drum Slowly. Brian's Song. Planet of the Apes."
He snickered. "Okay…not everyone gets a happy ending.
But…we never do."
I waggled the spoon at him. "Again
not true. La Cage Aux Folles.
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, To Wong Fu…Lord of the Rings."
He laughed outright at that.
I pushed the switch. "Happy right
now?"
He stopped laughing, and shrugged. "Will we ever get
our happy ever afters?"
I slid my arms around him. "Some day." I
kissed his brow. "People change slowly. But I think they're
changing." I tipped his chin up to let my lips brush his. "Besides,
we're the ones responsible for making our happiness. It's the water in the
glass thing. Do we want it to be half empty or half
full? It's our choice how we view it, we don't get to
blame the person who poured the water."
"So, it's our fault that things are the way they
are." He started to pull away, but I held him fast.
"I didn't say that. Some things are unfair. I'm not
denying it. But some things are all right, and we can
make them better. Maybe…just maybe, if we change how we view the world, the
world just might…once in a while…change how it views us."
He rested his chin against my shoulder with a heavy sigh.
"It was a depressing movie."
"I know."
"I shouldn't have watched it."
"I know that. Of course, you
shouldn't have watched Little Man, either, but will you listen to me? Ever?"
Full body shudder in my arms.
"Oh, that was dreadful."
"Come on, pull yourself together. Comb your hair and
put your shoes on. I'll take you out to supper and we'll scandalize
He shook his head. "See if you can find that pizza
delivering clown on a unicycle." He reached around me to pick up something
from the table, a slow and possibly wicked grin spreading across his lips.
"I've got White Chicks."
- END -