In the time I have rested here, one questing tendril of wan light has
progressed from the badly scuffed leg of a desk to the equally damaged toe of
my left boot. Perhaps rested is the wrong word, but what do you call it when
you simply stop, because there is no longer a reason to keep on moving? I
have been running for so long now—running and hiding and hurting, all to
keep you safe. All for you. Sometimes, in the rare moments when I'm capable
of appreciating the humour, the irony of this situation makes me laugh. Your
closest allies spend so much time telling you that you aren't at the centre
of some giant conspiracy, that everything that happens to you isn't personal.
You are so keen to find the truth, but you cannot see that the one person
who you believe thinks the least of you in the world is the one person to
whom you are everything. I'm a comet caught up in your orbit, a lithified
shell of filth surrounding a frozen core of ice, spiralling ever inwards
towards you. My substance ablates away as I draw near, and I know that when
I get too close everything I am will eventually be obliterated in a blaze of
fire, nothing left but dust and ashes.
I have never understood why others desire to know their future. I don't
think you've ever wanted to know yours, except maybe to have the certainty
that you will succeed in your quest find your sister. Isn't it enough for
people to know that one day they will just cease to be? Knowing how this
inevitable cessation of existence will be brought about is a curse. Do
people imagine the passenger on the 'plane dropping towards the ocean is
comforted somehow by that final infinite moment of awareness, 'this is how
I'm going to die'? I've come to know that feeling today. I remember the
look in your eyes as you held me close, defenceless despite the gun in my
hand. You've always known I would never use it against you, yet the reason
for this fatal flaw in a man whose job it is to cheat, lie, kill and betray
seems to have completely eluded your sharp intellect. For one so obsessed
with the truth you can be so dangerously oblivious to reality that I'm
surprised you're still alive, even with my help, but maybe this selective
blindness only applies to me. Too close, too far under your skin to examine
without revealing things about your own tangled psyche that you can't ever
learn without destroying yourself.
You had me pulled to your chest with a clenched handful of my shirt, in a
bizarre parody of a lover's embrace—another irony I'm just not up to
appreciating right now. The venom in your voice was the same as ever, the
fevered litany of questions nothing new—why, why, why, like a kid whose
parents have inexplicably confiscated a favourite toy. That thought actually
triggers a brief chuckle—the problem is really my inexplicable removal of a
parent. I sober—it's not really funny at all—but I guess dealing in death
for so long has removed my respect for it. I've seen close-up the final
moments of enough lives to know that death isn't dignified, and is seldom
peaceful—it's pleading and tears, the stench of blood, sweat and terror.
But despite the now-familiar mind games, this time was different. This time I
could see right into the anguished depths of your beautiful hazel eyes, and I
realised that you didn't understand, couldn't ever understand what I had to
do, and why. I think you would have less difficulty believing that the alien
invasion was actually a day trip for extraterrestrial high-schoolers than
that all I ever wanted to do was keep you safe. Striving to keep ahead of
the hunt in order to protect you, I think I always knew that you would be the
one to bring me down.
I can't keep on when I know there will be no reward, no pat on the head, no
'Good Alex' and redemption at the end of the day, not even to keep you from
harm. I hope that this act will bring you some of the peace you crave, but
perhaps it will just add to your burden of guilt. You're too intelligent not
to realise that our meeting today was what led to this. Though I love you,
some crabbed, vindictive part of me, the same part that lets me be the killer
I am, is glad to have this small revenge. Enough. The grip is cool in my hand
as I slowly turn my gun towards myself. Now it's time, time for that final
flare, time to turn to ashes and dust. Time to see the barrel from the other
side.
END
Hmm. It occurs to me that killing Krycek in my first RatB fic is a less than
100% foolproof plan for winning friends and influencing people, but it's
really not my fault—the muse made me do it. Honest.
Bad muse, bad.
The Other Side
by Revenant
The insipid late-autumn sunlight is dissected by an ancient venetian blind as
it enters the room. Sighting along the softly gleaming muzzle of my gun, I
watch pale ribbons of light glide slowly across the floor, occasionally
distorted by a festering pustule straining up under the timeworn linoleum. I
have performed this action so many times, but this time there is no-one; no
innocent, no corrupt player, on the other end of the barrel.
