Human On My Faithless Arm

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
- W.H. Auden "Lullaby"

Jeffrey Spender sits on the hood of the car and rocks and rocks and rocks. Inside the big house a dozen yards away, it smells like bodies. It's the kind of smell that causes nightmares, the kind of smell that eats holes in the carpet. There's a thing in that house and it's dead, and before it died its face came off in his hands. Jeffrey was going to kill an old man because his father told him to. He was going to drop a paper and have the old man bend over, and then he was going to drive an ice pick into the old man's neck. It was all flawlessly planned, just as if he could really have done it.

Jeffrey lost his nerve and botched his job. The old man's face came apart like modelling clay under his fingernails. And then the driver came in and drove an ice pick into the neck of that thing that wasn't an old man. It died, quietly, greenly bleeding into the carpet.

Jeffrey's father sent him to kill an old man with an icepick.

"How are you feeling?" The driver. Startling, green-eyed man in black denim and leather with a face like a matter-of-fact child's.

Jeffrey shrugs.

The driver comes to stand in front of him. He moves with a hint of a swagger, more likely because he's bow-legged than because he feels the need to impress bystanders. "It's pretty awful, isn't it?"

Jeffrey nods.

The driver turns and pushes himself up to sit beside Jeffrey on the car's expensive, overpolished hood. Almost immediately, Jeffrey can see something flash over the man's face. He glances down at one leather- clad arm, the left one, next to Jeffrey's right. He's about to get down when Jeffrey catches the stiff left hand and brings it into his own lap. A hard limb: artificial. The driver's eyes glitter and for a second all of the man's self-control is gone. It's interesting to watch, really. Everybody's weak. It's not only Jeffrey.

And then the other leather-gloved hand reaches across and catches Jeffrey's chin. It turns him so the driver can study his face. Green eyes meet messy brown ones. It's a half-hearted staring contest in which Jeffrey tries to see what's behind those jade walls and the driver tries to make out if Jeffrey's anything other than numb. He's numb. And those walls aren't coming down.

"Who the fuck are you?" Jeffrey asks.

"Alex Krycek," says the driver, and kisses him fiercely.

It never before tasted like this when Jeffrey kissed a man. The kisses he's received from men in the past have been salty, cum-laced affairs that signalled the end of a blow job and the beginning of forgetfulness. Alex Krycek tastes like a woman: sweet and a little bit hard. It would be entirely too easy to crawl into that mouth and disappear.

When the kiss breaks, all the space between them has collapsed and they're tangled around one another, still perched on the hood of the car. Alex breathes faintly onto the skin between Jeffrey's cheekbone and his ear. It's like an animal's kiss. The artificial hand is still in Jeffrey's lap, or more accurately between his thighs, pressing ferociously against his erection. The other arm has snaked around Jeffrey's shoulders, so that it holds their bodies pressed together. It's a comfortable position. They're close enough that he can feel Alex's heart beating through both their coats and both their skins.

For a minute or two, they just sit like that, and Alex rocks him slowly. The entire world's become the size of the car, and it moves at the pace of Alex's heartbeat.

Then Alex releases him and slides down to the pavement. Big hands, one supple and one unnaturally hard, pull Jeffrey closer to the edge, so that his knees bend and his heels strike the front bumper. One of the gloves has disappeared: he can feel human-warm fingers against his belly as Alex pulls his shirt out of his pants. Warm, wet lips find his navel and suck at it for a moment, and a tongue slips out to trace the line of Jeffrey's pubic hair under his trouser-band.

One more kiss to his belly. Alex makes short work of his belt and his pants. Before Jeffrey can think to argue, Alex's hands are coaxing his hips to raise up, and then his pants and briefs are slung around his ankles. That hot, small mouth slips down and picks up the end of his cock, sucks it delicately a moment before sliding further down.

Christ, it feels so good. He's hard against the back of Alex's throat, and he can feel the muscles shifting and relaxing, and then Alex tilts his head back just a little, and Jeffrey slides down his throat. So good. Hot, wet, the barest suggestion of teeth. There are slick, very human fingers wrapped around his balls and slipping back to press against his ass. A fingertip presses in, then a finger. Jesus, Alex has big hands. Just that one finger is stretching him, and it would hurt if his cock didn't feel so goddamned good. And then that one, slick finger finds his prostate and it's the end of him.

Jeffrey screams and thrusts hard down Alex's throat and comes. Only the hardness of Alex's unhuman hand is still bracing his body on the car. As soon as he relaxes, the mouth around him pulls back until all that remain are Alex's lips around the end of his cock. No mortal mouth should be able to be so gentle. Alex holds him there until he starts to soften, then slides him down from the car hood and gathers up his pants, handing them up to Jeffrey from where he still rests on his knees.

It's all he can do to take his pants and settle them back around his hips instead of just pulling Alex's soft, dark head close against his belly. Even in the dark, even with the other man clothed entirely in black, he can see that Alex is hard. As soon as his pants are decently braced, he pulls Alex up and kisses that mouth. This time, Alex Krycek tastes like a man: salt and sweat and cum and under all of that he's still sweet.

Jeffrey whispers into Alex's mouth, "Get in the car with me."

The back seat of the car is the same velvet-lined burrow that Jeffrey remembers. The air in it tastes like cigarettes and Alex's body. As soon as they're safe behind the tinted glass, he's pulling Alex's clothes off, as many as he can get free. He gets the butter-textured leather jacket off and the black jeans open, but when he reaches for the sweater, Alex stops him. It's so dark that the green eyes look black, but that doesn't make them any less electric. And he can guess why Alex might not want to be naked in front of him. So he only nods, then darts forward to kiss the fabric in the place where the prosthesis and the arm must join.

He doesn't want to do this here. He wants to be somewhere warm and soft and dark and timeless, where he can take Alex apart and lick him all over. He's never seen anyone so beautiful in his entire life. Sex acts involving Alex Krycek demand care and attention and masses of chocolate ice cream. Definitely. If someone could please stop the world, he'd like to attend to this body for a century or two.

Alex pulls him back. There's rage in him like there was in Jeffrey's father's face in the second before he hit him that afternoon. For a second, Jeffrey thinks Alex might hit him too, and he ducks his face away.

But Alex only pulls him close and strips away Jeffrey's clothing until he's naked against the thick upholstery. And the fingers on the human hand reach out and stroke him, down his shoulders, across his ribs, against his abdomen and between his legs. They weight his cock and balls and stroke him back to something that's almost like hardness. They disappear for a second and the other hand shifts Jeffrey so he's kneeling, his back to Alex's front.

When the fingers return, they're dripping slick and they feel good sliding up between his buttocks and into his ass. Alex stretches him with his inflexible left hand bracing against Jeffrey's abdomen. Up his ass, it's a sharp, hard burn, but it gives more focus than he's had in days, and it's good enough to beg for. There are three fingers up him, impossibly large. It's too much, it's not enough, and he's pushing against them frantically.

The fingers disappear and he finds himself pulled close against Alex's body. "You OK, Jeff?"

"Mmm-hmm. Don't stop."

Alex darts his tongue out and licks Jeffrey behind the ear. For more minutes, they just rock together, warm body to warm body, with Alex's erection pressing against Jeffrey's ass. Then Alex sits back and lowers both hands to Jeffrey's hips. Alex spreads his knees, guides him down, and all at once Alex is pressing hard against the entrance to Jeffrey's body. It hurts, it hurts, and Alex thrusts up and pulls down and Jeffrey shrieks, and they're locked together.

He's never made love like this before. He's sitting in Alex's lap, with Alex's legs between his own. His ass is burning, but there's something bright and wonderful coming up through the pain. Alex has his mouth all over Jeffrey's shoulders, licking and biting. Now that they're braced, the warm right hand is in Jeffrey's lap, massaging him back yet again to hardness.

And Alex fucks him. It's a curious mix of body grinding and weight shifts, limited by the small space in the car. One arm is still around Jeffrey's waist. It gives him something to brace against as he pushes himself up, then slides back down. This isn't the hardest Jeffrey's ever had it, but it's got to be the most intense, and it's good, it really is.

Jeffrey comes first. So soon after the blow job, it's just a few drops, but Alex raised his hand to show it to him, and it seems like the most natural thing in the world to lick it off. He stays sucking on Alex's fingers, and eventually the artificial arms has to shift up carefully to brace Jeffrey around his waist. It takes a dozen more rough thrusts and grinds for Alex to orgasm. He does it wordlessly, breathing harshly from the back of his throat, so quiet it's almost not a sound.

Alex cradles him until their breathing steadies, then eases Jeffrey up and off his cock. He runs warm fingers over the opening, a little apology for the soreness. Jeffrey curls up against the opposite door and watches Alex while he wipes himself down with a rag that vanished under the seat, then re-dresses. Clothed, he holds his arms out to Jeffrey, who crawls into them and settles against Alex's chest. The heartbeat under the leather and cotton and skin is steady, and at the moment that's the reassurance Jeffrey needs.

He's tired, but gradually, the small, screaming part of his brain surfaces with warnings about decomposing not-human bodies and old men and ice picks and Jeffrey's father. They're things he's going to have to deal with, but he doesn't know how.

"Alex," Jeffrey whispers, "what are we going to do?"

"We're going to sleep," Alex says. "And as soon as it's light, we're going to go and find a man who can help you."

"Who?"

"Mulder."

Yes. Yes yes yes yesyesyesyesyesyes. "No."

"Yes. Come on, Jeff, get some sleep. I'm gonna take good care of you."

"Alex?"

"What?"

"Why Mulder?"

"Because he's a good man. The only one I know, and you need one."

"All right," Jeffrey whispers.

"Good boy. Try to sleep."

It's like that. Jeffrey rests naked against a clothed Alex in the back seat of an expensive, anonymous car. It's warm enough there to make him forget his father and the alien body and the sharpness of the February night. Jeffrey's father sent him to kill an old man, but Alex is taking care of Jeffrey right now. It's almost enough to let him sleep the sleep of the just, and he's already so goddamned tired. Jeffrey Spender lies cradled in Alex Krycek's arms and rocks and rocks and rocks.