"If you don't eat something," she threw over her shoulder as she walked,
"you're going to fade away."
Every muscle in his body ached; his head hurt; his bones protested as he
moved. Scully thought it was flu. Mulder knew it wasn't the presence of a
foreign body but the absence of one that gave him pain.
It had been nearly a year since Alex disappeared.
Alex. He still wanted to call him that. He still remembered how good it
felt, the intimacy, the trust it implied to call him Alex that last time.
They stood in the hallway, Mulder pushing to get the keys to his car. He
told him not to worry. Mulder would handle everything. What problems could
there be? Alex, his partner, had defended him, corroborated his reports.
After all this time Mulder was still not sure if he hurt from the betrayal
or just the loss of Alex.
Mulder took the box from behind the couch pillows where he had hidden it
from Scully. This was his problem to deal with. He pulled back the flaps
and looked at the note once more. It was in the showy, spiked handwriting
that was unmistakably Alex's.
The unwanted memories of him circled Mulder like tormenting specters. The
first time haunted him. He wanted to think it was fate. A collision of
two forces looking for a source of ignition. He was afraid that it had
been a calculated plot.
He had taken Alex back to his apartment in Georgetown after the 'Augustus
Cole' shooting. The neighborhood was a little upscale for a junior agent,
but Alex explained he was sub-letting from a friend of a friend. The
apartment was even more unusual than the area. Spacious, with a view, one
wall of the livingroom was mirrored and a large beveled mirror hung over
the fireplace opposite.
Alex told Mulder there was beer in the refrigerator and excused himself to
take a shower.
He rejoined Mulder a few minutes later, clad in faded gray gym shorts and a
high-cut T-shirt. He stopped by the beveled mirror and ran his hand
through his damp hair.
It was almost a shock to see him like this. He had metamorphosed from
bland civil servant into a young deity. Mulder felt ready to worship at
the sight of him. His hair fell over his forehead in soft strands. He
looked vulnerable, and carnally beautiful. His body, no longer hidden by a
baggy suit, was long limbed and elegantly powerful.
He turned to face Mulder. Alex absentmindedly explored his stomach with his
hand, the fingers sneaking past the waistband of his shorts. Fox wasn't
sure if Alex looked at him or past him at his own reflection in the
mirrored wall. Either way, he was distracted and startlingly
unselfconscious. After a moment Alex noticed he was being watched and smiled.
"I really need to do laundry," he explained, his voice low and
introspective as he pulled at the front of his T-shirt by way of example.
Mulder stared for a moment at the flash of pebbled nipple, the cut and
swell of Alex's pecs.
"Never mind," Mulder offered but he wasn't sure who he was trying to put at
ease, Alex or himself. "How are you feeling?" He motioned for him to join
him on the bronze leather couch.
Alex padded over and sat down beside him. He leaned forward, his body
tense, arms resting on his legs. He studied his reflection in the glass
coffee table for a moment before he spoke.
"I don't know what to say. I can't put a name to it. They train you at
the academy for situations like this but nothing prepares you for what it
really feels like." He looked up. The mirror over the fireplace was hung
at an angle and he could see himself as he sat on the couch. He ran his
hands over the sides of his face. His fingers trailed down the length of
his body as he spoke. "I feel like I have a mark on me. Something
everyone can see. And they know what I did." He hung his head as his
hands reached his knees.
Mulder reached out to him. His own hand settled on Alex's shoulder. Heat
radiated from him as Mulder moved his hand over the bow of his back.
"You did what was necessary. You did the right thing."
"But he didn't have a gun."
"He did. I saw it." Mulder lied as he had lied to the detective-in-charge
to protect his well-intentioned partner.
"They just can't find it."
Mulder continued to run his hand over the young man's back till he felt the
tremble, the heaving, as breath caught in his throat and he struggled not
to cry.
Mulder put his arm around him.
"It's okay, Alex. It's best to let it out."
Alex leaned close. Tears gathered and glistened on his long dark lashes.
Mulder hugged him and ran his hand over Alex's shoulder. His fingers
strayed under the cap of the T-shirt sleeve and touched warm bare skin. He
continued to stroke him, to give consolation. He was comforting him,
Mulder told himself, in order to discount his own heat.
Alex leaned closer.
Mulder pressed his lips against the soft damp hair near his face as Alex
rested his head on Mulder's shoulder.
"It's okay," he whispered.
Alex leaned closest to him and in a moment had snaked his body around till
he lay against Mulder, pushing him back into the yielding pillows of the
couch. His face pressed into Mulder's chest. His arms enfolded him and his
fingers clutched at the back of Mulder's shirt.
Startled, Mulder didn't embrace him for a moment. But, slowly his hands
came to rest on Alex's back. His lips touched the damp hair, again.
Alex's heat, the soap-sweet fog of his scent from his recent shower
surrounded Mulder intoxicating him. He tightened his grip, desperate not
to lose this potent Alex experience.
Alex pushed back after a moment and Mulder let him lean away. He watched
Alex as he sniffed back his tears.
Alex brought his hands to rest on Mulder's chest, toying, for a moment,
with a button on Mulder's shirt while he regained his composure. The act
might have appeared coy as he lounged against Mulder. But Mulder watched
in fascination as Alex's hands moved in a minimal caress on his chest.
Finally, Alex brought his gaze up to meet Mulder and it was startling.
Open, raw, sensuality transformed his features. There was an unguarded
wantonness as he licked away a tear that lingered on his upper lip.
Mulder gasped, not realizing he had been holding his breath. He opened his
mouth but no words came.
Alex spoke instead. "I can see myself in your eyes." He moved close,
closer, closest till their lips touched at last and Mulder devoured his mouth.
Even, now, as he sat with the gift from Alex in his lap, Mulder still
wondered if Alex had kissed him or only some embodiment of his own reflection.
Not that Mulder had ever really cared. There were times he felt jealous,
jealous of the way Alex would look at himself, consumed with self-love.
Mulder had grown angry and confronted him with his fears, but at the last
he accepted their strange relationship for what it gave him. Still, he had
never grown used to the times when they made love and he had looked up,
lost in lust and sensation, to see Alex gazing at his own image in one of
the ever-present mirrors.
Once he had forced himself to stop, in mid-feast of that delicious young
body, when he had noticed Alex watching himself in the bedroom's mirrored
closet doors. Alex traced his fingertips over first one nipple and then
the other. His lips were parted in breathy flirtation with his own
reflection.
"I think you use me to masturbate," Mulder accused.
"Don't stop Fox. I need it." Alex continued to trail his fingers over his
own skin.
"It! That's the real truth in this. You don't need me. Just some thing
you can use." Mulder became infuriated as he watched Alex gaze drift back
to the mirror.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"
The green eyes, hard as emeralds, fixed an unsettling glare on Mulder.
"I'm just looking at what turns me on." Alex grazed Mulder's mouth with a
hard kiss. "The same thing that turns you on."
Mulder was certain that Alex studied the play of their kiss, embrace and
the exquisite pleasure of their fucking in the mirrors that surrounded
them. And that moment of self-voyeurism gave him more pleasure than the
acts themselves. But Mulder grew so addicted to the feel of Alex, the
sensations he evoked that the reality of what was happening didn't matter.
Even in Alex's most blatant displays Mulder could find passion. The sight
of Alex on all fours as they fucked, like a jade-eyed panther, watching his
own arousal in the nearest reflective surface, only served to evoke
shameful need in Mulder.
Then, that had been jerked away from him. Alex had betrayed him. Mulder
knew the depths of his deception but that did not erase the memory of the
moment in the hallway. There was undreamed of perfection when those
faceted green eyes looked only at him. He had called him Alex, knowing
that Alex had backed him up.
Mulder took the photograph out of the box. Five by seven, a little grainy,
but there was no mistaking who was in it. The picture was of the two of
them having a brown bag lunch at the park down the block from the FBI
building. They were sitting on the wall surrounding the fountain at the
center of the park. Mulder was looking at Alex. Alex was gazing at his
reflection in the fountain's pool.
A neatly typed legend was glued to the base of the picture.
'This is just the beginning. We have many explicit photos of you and Alex
Krycek. They will follow.'
Mulder let the photo fall beside him on the couch. He reached into the box
and pulled out the object nestled in the excelsior at the bottom. The
barrel of the gun was inscribed with his name, Fox Mulder. A card was
attached to the handle with gold string, like the tag on a Christmas
package. Mulder read the words, again, the words printed in his
unmistakable handwriting.
'Do the right thing, Fox. Alex.'
"Mulder! No!" Scully screamed.
Narcissus
by LeFey
Mulder eased himself back onto the couch while Scully strode into the kitchen.
Mulder gave him what he wanted, the means and the freedom to make love to
himself. In turn Mulder entered a world of erotic fulfillment, and as he
had endured the trials of being Alex's proxy lover, he had been rewarded
with the one thing he never expected, loyalty.
