Never Gonna Happen

Karen sat at her roommate's computer, lazily clicking through RATales stories. The ones marked "Slash" or anything like it were not even considered, but she did dabble in some of the other ones. Something didn't seem quite right, however. Krycek wasn't right. He wouldn't do those things, no matter how entertaining they would be. She frowned at the screen.

The sound of the front door opening woke her out of her reverie. "Hello?" she called.

No answer.

"Suzie, is it okay if I use your computer?" she asked, semi-humorously.

No answer.

Karen looked back at the screen and resumed clicking through the stories. She was stopped in her tracks when she heard the very last voice she was expecting to hear.

"Your door was open," said Alex Krycek.

Karen's mouth popped open in shock. Her brain was too busy diverting all of her blood cells to her face to wonder what he was doing there. The little bit of her brain that was still operating properly did manage to have her say hello, though. Sortof.

".... hi...?" she said in a very tiny voice.

He stood in the doorway of Suzie and Karen's room, towering over the computer. He held up his right hand in an odd cross between a wave and "Look, I'm unarmed (no pun intended)." "Surfing the Internet, I see," he said.

"Yes," replied Karen. "... is that okay?"

He smiled. "I'm not here to kill you. Nobody wants you dead. The Consortium doesn't even know you exist. Don't worry."

Karen relaxed a teeny tiny bit. She even smiled a little. "I guess being a nobody isn't all bad, huh?"

"Can I come in?"

She nodded numbly. He crossed the room, swung her chair around, and sat in it behind her. She watched all of this. "So, um, why are you here then?"

"A simple request." He motioned to the computer screen. "I did an Internet search on my name once, and found lots of crap like this. Isn't it awful? Slash, it's called. Makes me sick."

Karen was glad that they agreed. "Yeah, I don't like it either." She furrowed her brow. "You... ARE straight, aren't you?"

He furrowed back at her. "Of course."

"Oh. Good." She wondered where else the conversation was going. She also wondered briefly if Sarah would mind if she borrowed her camera. "Can I get you anything?" She added the little "I have no idea what I'm doing in this situation" smile that she used quite often. This time it also meant "Please like me."

The smile was wasted on Krycek, however, as he was looking around the room. His gaze stopped at an item over his shoulder. "What... is... THAT?" he asked. Karen turned her head and saw he was pointing at a picture of Mulder gazing in horror at a green tank, with the word "October" and lots of little boxes under it.

Thinking quickly, Karen said the only thing she could. "It's Suzie's."

He nodded. "What was I talking about? Slash. Right."

"Right. So... what about it?"

"Hate the stuff."

"........ and?" Karen could not believe she was being sarcastic with someone who intimidated her so much. Someone who was, to use Eddie Van Blundht's phrase, such a "damn good-looking man."

I wanted you to write some better stuff. Like those Krycek-and-Yanichka stories. I like those."

It actually was possible: Karen turned redder. "You...... read those?" Back to the teeny tiny voice.

He smiled at her again. "You don't think e-mail is private, do you?"

Amazingly, she retained the presence of mind to ask "Why are you reading my e-mail?"

"You would not believe how boring it gets between jobs."

She nodded slowly.

He sat back a little in the chair. "Yeah, I really like the character of Yanichka. She's an interesting little assassin. Harder to intimidate than some people I could name."

Karen slowly realized he did not know the connection between her and the character. She smiled a small secret smile. Then she turned around in her chair; talking to him was infinitely better than just reading about him.

"Yeah, I want you to write some more stuff. You seem to have a pretty good idea of my character, and you won't make me do..." He shuddered. "...those things."

Was she doing this? Was she actually putting her hand on his shoulder? It sure looked like it. Karen couldn't believe it either.

"Of course not," answered Karen. "I'll just need some story ideas."

"Oh, I'll leave that up to you," he replied. "I trust you."

They smiled at each other for a bit as Karen savored that last sentence. Then another voice came through the door.

"Karen? You left the door open...." said Suzie.

The Krycek-and-Yanichka story he refers to is another story I wrote, not really fanfic at all, just another universe that happens to contain Krycek among a lot of other characters that are based on my high school friends. And I'm Yanichka. That's my calendar, in case you couldn't tell. Suzie's my roommate. She wanted to be in the story but we haven't decided what to do with her yet. Sarah's another roommate, and the only one of us who has a camera.

So. Any good?