"Talk to me," Mulder said, his mouth close to
Krycek's ear, his voice rough and soft and
implacable.
Krycek squirmed and the carpet on the floor burned
along his skin. He was torn between keeping his
secrets and dreading the consequences of disobeying
that voice. Mulder had the attention span of a fruit
fly unless you were Samantha or Scully or some
species of alien. Krycek was afraid that one day he
would run out of fodder and Mulder would get up and
not come back. So he dribbled out truths and half-
truths, hoarding his store of information for as long
as he could.
He had tried lying to Mulder, but couldn't do it
naked. To lie to Mulder he had to be armed with
prosthetic and leather and denim. Naked, a lie showed
in every nuance of his posture and skin tone. By now
Mulder could read his every blush, evasive eye, and
twitchy finger, and therefore kept Krycek unclothed
and disarmed as much as possible.
Obviously there were things that Krycek didn't dare
reveal to Mulder. Both of them knew this, and each
encounter between them was a battle over how much
Mulder could glean and how little Krycek would
reveal; how little Mulder would credit and how much
Krycek could get him to buy. Right now, it was too
important to too many people that Mulder and Scully
thought her pregnancy was a miracle of science or
faith or serendipity. It was crucial that neither
knew the truth, at least not yet. Mulder wanted
revelations. Krycek wanted to keep his hide intact.
So silence dragged on in the room. Mulder's hand,
which had been stroking the skin of Krycek's back,
fell away. "I should go," he said.
"No," Krycek said, before he could stop himself, then
cursed inwardly. 'Too late now,' he thought with a
mental shrug, and plunged on. "I never told you how I
met the old man."
Mulder stiffened. "Spender?"
Krycek shrugged. "Whoever. You know who I mean."
"What did he promise you, Alex?" Mulder purred in his
ear, his fingers digging into Krycek's flesh.
"Power? Riches?" He let out a little ironic laugh.
"Beautiful women?"
Closing his eyes, Krycek thought back to the dark
wood paneling of the judge's chambers, the smell of
cigarette smoke heavy and acrid in the stale air.
"O for three, Mulder. I wasn't asked. I was bought
and paid for, complete with a bill of sale."
Mulder's hand resumed its course on his back. Circle
and downward spiral then up again to circle. It was
soothing, hypnotic. "I always knew you were a whore,
Alex," he said. "Color me unsurprised." Circle and
downward spiral. Kiss and kick. Mulder knew what he
was doing.
'You're the whore,' he thought, 'fucking me for
information. You're the whore, you self-righteous son
of a bitch.' But he kept silent because of the hand
on his back, circle and downward spiral, cupping his
ass, then drifting back up to his neck. Over and
over. 'Talk to me,' the hand said. 'Open up and
spill and give me what I want and I'll give you what
you want. I promise.'
"Once upon a time," he began, "there was a boy named
Sasha."
Mulder snorted his laughter. "Cut the shit, Krycek."
Krycek stifled the urge to twist around and punch
Mulder in his idiot grinning face. Then he remembered
soft kisses marching along his spine, a hot hungry
mouth on his dick, the harsh sounds of pleasure
Mulder made in the back of his throat when he came.
So his fist curled but stayed by his side. There
would be another day, a day when he wasn't feeling so
weak, when his fist would fly true and blood would
flow and it would be so fucking good, but not today,
not now.
"You don't believe half of what I tell you," Krycek
said evenly, "so why not just pretend this is a
bylichka?"
Mulder looked a little interested. "A what?"
"A fairy tale, I guess you could call it. Or at least
that's close enough."
"All right, fine, I'll play along. Once upon a time..."
Mulder's hand continued to trace its route on his
back.
Krycek let the memory take him. He opened his mouth
and the truth poured out. Part of it. Enough to keep
the hand moving along his skin. Circle and downward
spiral.
Once upon a time... 1975-1986
...there was an orphaned boy named Sasha who lived
with his Russian babushka in the kingdom of Chicago
in the land known as America. Sasha couldn't remember
Russia, despite the stories his grandmother
constantly told him. He barely remembered his
parents. In his mind he could recall his mother's
bright pink lipstick and the brighter red of his
father's blood on the white tile of the bathroom, but
not much more. His mother, a secretary, had been
stolen away by an evil accountant and taken to his
stronghold in Colorado. His father, a programmer for
IBM, had taken a bath in his own blood, falling
asleep there and never waking up.
The only one left was his grandmother, who sat in her
chair by the clanking radiator and told him stories
of the old days and ways in Russia, her voice
quavering but never indistinct, and always in Russian.
She claimed that English spoiled the stories,
stealing their magic, and who knows, maybe she was
right. She told him story after story, and even
though he pretended not to listen, Sasha heard and
remembered every word.
Rusalki and leshii, dead princesses, enchanted bears,
and heroes driven mad -- all of these burrowed deep
beneath his Americanized shell and down into his
Russian soul. His babushka's tales never ended well
and Sasha accepted that. Life never ended well,
either. One only had to look at his family and see how
the American dream had run all over them.
Happily ever after was a big, fat lie.
When Sasha was fourteen, America ran over him again.
A social worker came to their apartment and decided
that his grandmother wasn't fit to raise him. She
went to a nursing home (for her own good) and he was
placed in foster care (for his own good). In his new
home, the sheets he slept on were dirty, the floors
cold, and cockroaches were everywhere. He doubted
his grandmother had it much better. Before long he
stole away in the night to seek his fortune.
On the street, he learned to cheat, to steal, to
survive. He was pleased to be finally getting an
education.
At fifteen he got his first pass from a laughing-eyed
man in his twenties. Sasha was on Halstead, where
picking the pockets of the drunk queers was
ridiculously easy. He shouldn't have been surprised
by the come-on, but he was. Instead of moving on to
find an easier mark, he stopped. Sasha just looked
at the man, poised to run if the guy made a
threatening move toward him.
"I'm not gonna hurt you, beautiful," the man said. He
was wearing a fur coat and was not shivering at all
in the cold wind that bit through Sasha's clothing.
The coat was long and gray, and it must have been a
silver fox, but all Sasha could think of was the big
bad wolf.
Sasha said nothing, but didn't move, either.
"You wanna make fifty bucks?" Mr. Big Bad Wolf took a
step toward Sasha.
Fifty bucks. Shit. He thought fast. "One hundred," he
said, having an idea what he was getting into and not
caring. So much money for so little.
"Seventy-five," said Mr. Laughing-Eyes Wolf.
Sasha nodded and followed the man into an alley that
ran beside and behind a nightclub. 'If worst comes to
worst,' he thought, 'I have my knife.' "What do you
want me to do?" he asked.
The man opened his fly. "Get on your knees,
beautiful, and let me see you open that gorgeous
mouth of yours."
Sasha slipped to his knees. 'What a little dick you
have,' he thought. 'All the easier for me, my dear.'
He earned his seventy-five dollars and it wasn't so
bad. Not so very bad. Not really.
At sixteen he was busted for prostitution and thrown
into the juvey. During his six-week stint he learned
more about fucking, stealing, and fighting than he'd
been able to learn in a year and a half on the
streets. His second arrest was for fencing stolen
property. That one landed him in the detention center
for three months. It was good to see the guys again,
and besides, it got him off the streets for January,
February, and March. So it wasn't so bad. Not really.
He was arrested for the third time at age seventeen,
this time for manslaughter. He expected a final stint
in the juvey until he was eighteen and then his slate
would be wiped clean, but the judge had other plans.
"Son," he said, "I see you as a hopeless case in a
city of hopeless cases. I am, however, going to give
you more than you deserve -- a chance at redemption."
"And if I don't take it?" asked Sasha.
"Then when I see you again -- and I *will* see you
again, of that I am quite sure -- I will show you no
mercy whatsoever." The judge looked down at him with
cold eyes that held no mercy even then.
Sasha thought of his father, before he took a razor
to his wrists. He thought of his mother and the
barely remembered image he had of her that was mostly
bright lipstick. He thought of his babushka,
prattling her stories still, no doubt, unless she was
dead. A sudden weight settled around his shoulders.
'I have no one but me,' he thought. It'd been true
for years, but it hadn't hit home until that moment.
'I have no one to live for but myself. If I fuck it
all up, I hurt no one but me.' He was seventeen, had
killed a man in a fight, and suddenly he wanted to cry.
"I'll take it," he mumbled.
"What was that, son?" asked the judge sharply.
Sasha raised his eyes to the steady gray ones of the
judge. "I said I'll take the offer. I'll take the
chance."
"There may be hope for you yet," said the judge, and
then summoned the bailiff to take Sasha back to the
detention center.
He was awakened at the crack of dawn by one of the
juvey's wardens and driven, with five other boys,
downtown to the juvenile court building. He was led
to a darkly paneled room that held the judge he'd met
the day before and an older man who was smoking. The
smoking man had his back to the room, looking out the
window, the smoke from his cigarette forming hazy
sinister shapes around his head.
"I hope there's something here I can use, Harold,"
the smoker said, his voice low and dry.
The judge said nothing.
The smoking man turned around and walked to the first
boy. He looked down at a piece of paper in his hand.
"Michael Cohen?"
"Yeah," the boy replied.
"Let's see here, Michael," the smoking man said.
"You're a thief, a pusher, and a junkie. Do I have
that right?"
Michael glanced around the room, met the eyes of the
judge, then nodded. "Yeah."
"I have no use for junkies. You can never trust one.
They'll fuck you over every time." The smoking man
smiled then, and Sasha caught a brief glance of sharp
nicotine stained teeth. "Next."
He walked the few paces to where Sasha stood.
"Aleksandr Krycek?" The smoking man lifted his
eyebrows. "Are you Russian, or were your parents just
creative?"
"I was born in Moscow," Sasha said, "but I don't
remember living there."
"Hm. Did your parents defect?"
"IBM came to the U.S.S.R. and obtained work visas for
several Soviet citizens. My father was one of them."
"I suppose it's too much to hope for that you speak
Russian."
Sasha found himself wanting to impress this man. He
sensed power in him, and within that power,
opportunity for himself. It was like the man was a
great wizard, and Sasha could see himself as his
sharp eyed and ambitious apprentice. 'I could be
something,' he thought, 'and this man can help me. I
can feel it.' Below that was the notion that not
only could Sasha become something, he could become a
*part* of something important, something greater than
himself. The second distinction was somehow more
important, and it was that barely articulated feeling
that made him say in Russian, "It's all my
grandmother spoke."
The old man's lips formed a tight smile. "How
fortunate for you," he replied, also in Russian. He
glanced down at the paper he held then tapped it
against his lips. "Whore, thief, and killer. Hm."
He looked deep into Sasha's eyes. One of the first
things Sasha had learned on the street was to never
make eye contact, and he had to force himself to meet
the smoking man's speculative gaze. What he saw in
the other man's eyes made him feel uncomfortable. He
thought of ogres hiding in the depths of ice caves.
He thought of trickster leshii, who told only lies
disguised as truth. Apprehension shot through him.
Maybe he should have kept his big ass mouth shut.
"He'll do," the smoking man said to the judge.
"Don't you want to look at the others?" the judge
asked.
"No, I like this one. He looks like a jackal. He's
just what I've been searching for. Congratulations,
son. You're no longer the responsibility of Cook
county. You belong to me now."
The smoking man turned to the judge. "Get them out of
here," he said, gesturing towards the other boys. After
the boys and the warden had been herded from the room,
the smoking man resumed speaking. "The usual
arrangements stand. The amount we agreed upon will be
deposited in your account."
The judge nodded. "Of course. Do you want me to keep
an eye out for future prospects?"
"I'll let you know. It depends on how this prospect
shapes up." He put his cigarette in his mouth and
held out his hand for the judge to shake. "As always,
Harold, it's a pleasure doing business with you."
Sasha felt a shiver run down his spine. What the fuck
had he gotten himself into? "What do I call you?" he
asked.
"Mr. Spender," the man replied. "I've got high hopes
for you. Don't let me down, Alex."
And with that, Sasha's story ended and Alex's began.
But that's another story for another day.
Now—2000
"Jesus, Krycek. No wonder you're so messed up," said
Mulder.
Krycek felt raw after the recitation, having ripped
open old wounds for Mulder's delectation. The least
the bastard could do was to show some damned emotion
beyond vulgar fascination. Not necessarily of the
Hallmark variety, but at the very least he could have
given Krycek a manly but sympathetic arm squeeze.
Anything but than that shit-eating unmindful grin.
"Fuck you," replied Krycek. "That's it? That's all
you've got to say?"
"What was Spender doing in Chicago? What happened to
you between then and when I first met you?"
Krycek refused to dignify Mulder's insultingly clumsy
lure with any response beyond a glower.
"Okay, then, what about your grandmother? What
happened to her?"
Krycek unbent enough to say, "She died in the nursing
home when I was sixteen. I learned that years later
when I tried to find her." After searching forever
for her grave, he'd paid for a new monument to be
erected on the site. It was carved with weeping
angels. Babushka would have approved.
"I'm sorry," said Mulder somberly, but that didn't
mean anything. He always sounded that way.
"Liar," Krycek said. He sounded petulant and he hated
it. "Story time's over. I'm going to bed." He started
to stand up.
Mulder caught his hand and Krycek looked down. "I
always said you were a whore," he said, smiling. He
was teasing, Krycek could tell, and of course he was
supposed to laugh and let Mulder pull him down. He
was supposed to kiss those curved lips and fuck that
lovely body and receive his payment for services
rendered. He had whored out his mind and now it was
time for Mulder's version of stuffing a few folded
fifties into his curled hand.
Rage exploded within Krycek and he snatched his hand
out of Mulder's grip. "You are such a fucking
asshole," he said, and punched Mulder in the face. He
heard the satisfying crunch of bone and saw the red
spurt of blood against Mulder's pale skin. 'Like my
father,' he thought, the memory of blood on white
tile still fresh in his mind.
"God, that hurt," wheezed out Mulder, but he was
laughing, pleased to have pushed Krycek to this
point. 'I've won,' that nasal, gurgling snigger said.
"Good night, Mulder," Krycek said. He walked to his
bedroom door and opened it. Before going inside, he
said, "You're going to pay to get the fucking carpet
cleaned." Then he stepped inside his bedroom and
slammed the door.
Twenty minutes later, Krycek reopened his bedroom
door. He'd tried unsuccessfully to sleep and had
given it up as a useless endeavor. What he really
needed now was a drink.
He found Mulder kneeling on the living room floor,
tissue shoved up his nostrils, scrubbing at the
maroon stain on the carpet. His nose was tilted to
one side at an unnatural angle.
"You're not using hot water, are you?" asked Krycek.
Mulder flashed him a guilty glance. "Wasd't I
supposed to?"
"Idiot. Cold water for blood. Hot makes it clot.
Didn't Scully ever teach you anything?"
"I'b sorry," Mulder said with a lopsided grin that went
well with his lopsided nose.
"Don't worry about it. It wasn't like I was expecting
to get the deposit back on this dump. Here. Sit on
the couch. Let me give you a hand."
Mulder sat and looked up at him. Krycek took Mulder's
nose between the index and middle fingers of his
right hand and pulled hard. There was a sickening
grinding noise, then Mulder's nose was on straight.
"Oh God fuck ow that fucking hurt!"
"Don't be such a baby, Mulder."
Krycek walked away to the kitchen, letting Mulder
moan in solitude on the couch. He grabbed two beers
from the fridge and went back to the living room. He
handed Mulder one bottle and drank deeply from the
other. Mulder peered at his bottle. "This stuff is
shit," he pronounced, then tipped it back and drank
half of the contents anyway.
"Deal," said Krycek. He sat down next to Mulder.
"Look at by dose. It's all bessed up. Did you have to
break it?"
Krycek gave it a few seconds thought. "Yes. Yes, I
did. I'm the bad guy, remember?"
Mulder nodded. "For a secod there, I dearly forgot.
You're quite the bodster. Cad't forget that. Dot
for a bobet."
'Dot for a bobet?' What the fuck was that supposed
to mean? Oh, well, didn't matter. For some reason,
Krycek was feeling much more copacetic. Maybe it was
the beer. Maybe it was Mulder's broken nose. Maybe
it was just from sitting next to the closest thing he
had to a friend in this world. "It's a miracle that
you keep showing up at my doorstep in such tight
jeans, just begging to be fucked," he said, his smirk
very firmly back in place.
Mulder turned to look at Krycek. "But you're *by*
bodster, thought you dew that."
Krycek took another drink of his beer. Mulder's
monster. The monster belonging to Mulder. He could
live with that. It even had a nice ring to it.
"Just checking," he said, and finished off his beer.
Bylichka
by Kelly Keil
Now—2000
