When the lid came free in his hands he half-stumbled backwards before
recovering his balance on the
slippery street. Underfoot was a treacherous mixture of ice and slush
and gravel and garbage, and his
once-sturdy hiking boots were well-worn now, their thick soles cracked.
Wetness had begun to seep
through. He wiggled his toes automatically as he set the lid down and
bent forward over the lip of the
garbage can. He knew what the cold could do.
Sniffing, testing, he shook his head, but dug quickly through the contents
anyway. It smelled wrong,
unpromising, too clean. He'd be better off fighting for scraps behind
that Chinese restaurant two
blocks down. But halfway down his hands found a familiar shape: a white
take-out carton bearing a
familiar red logo. To judge by the weight it was at least half full
and when he fumbled it open he saw
that there was sauce mixed in with the rice, sweet and sour, cooled
into jellylike firmness. His mouth
watered.
Then he looked up abruptly, checking the distant sky over the narrow
alley. Nothing there, only
clouds. He stowed the carton in a clumsily sewn-on inside pocket and
put the lid back on the trash
can, trying to hush it into silence. As he wrestled it down he heard
a car roll slowly past the mouth of
the alley and he froze, huddled down where he was for long minutes.
When only silence followed he
eventually straightened up and moved to get out. It was only hunger
that had driven him to walk into
a cul-de-sac—hunger, and a dislike of fighting for his food.
At times like this, he wondered why he had chosen to stay in this area.
It wasn't that he loved the city
so, or that he felt most at home here. It wasn't indifference to the
greater danger. Here, more than
anywhere, he ran the risk of being seen, of being known for who he
was. And the winters were so
cold, he thought, a thin shiver of amusement threading its way through
his mind, so damn cold.
He slowed down, taking greater care as he approached the corner, the
larger street, and so it was
that the attack didn't take him completely by surprise. The hands that
grabbed for him couldn't get a
good grip, and he twisted and kicked, without knowing who he fought
against, and tore himself free,
and ran. His worn soles found almost no purchase on the icy sidewalk
and he was clumsy, stiff with
the effort to keep his balance and move forward as his terrified heart
dictated. Footsteps pounded
behind him, hard wet sounds. The take-out carton banged against his
thigh, a prize he would gladly
lose to be free of his pursuer. He fumbled with buttons as he ran,
wrenched the coat away from his
shoulders, flung it off and behind, hoping to cause a stumble, a distraction,
praying it was nothing
more than competitive greed that chased him.
The air leaped on him, tearing through his sweater, his shirt. He heard
a muffled curse from behind.
When he sucked in another deep breath it bit at him, deep inside; the
temperature was dropping,
tonight the slush would freeze to ice again. Putting on a burst of
speed, he almost believed himself
free, when a hard, heavy body slammed into him and redirected him,
driving him into the nearest wall.
Georgetown brick; it knocked the air from his lungs.
Hands wrestled his arms back. He struggled wildly, scraping himself
against the bricks, but his
attacker was stronger and had better leverage, trapping him in an armlock
and then cuffing him so
easily that he almost sagged forward in despair. The length of another's
body against his own held
him and breath was warm against his ear. "Mulder." It had been so long
since he'd heard the name
spoken, he almost didn't recognize it as his own. "Mulder, you look
like shit."
He focused on what was directly in front on his eyes. The edge of a
brick. Crumbling mortar. "When
you go underground," he said softly, "you gotta learn to live with
the rats."
"Yeah, but at least I didn't swear off soap forever."
Spun around by strong hands, he found himself staring into a strange-but-familiar
face; the same
green eyes, the same almost delicate mouth, offset by a new scar, a
thin white line down the left
cheek. It had started to snow again, large white flakes like damp feathers
floating down to cling to
them both. Krycek was in uniform, and Mulder nodded at the insignia
before snow settled over them.
"I see you've been promoted," he said blandly. "Congratulations."
"Come on," Krycek said, and tugged him forward. Mulder saw a car parked
farther up along the
street and realized it was the same one he had seen from behind the
garbage can. Krycek had come
back for him on foot. "Mulder, move."
"You can kill me just as easily here," he said, and then tried to tear
himself free and run again. Krycek
jerked at his cuffed hands and kicked his feet out from under him.
He went to his knees first, a jarring
shock, and then fell forwards; only the grip Krycek still had on his
hands kept his face from hitting the
ground. A knee dug into his spine.
"We're getting out of here," Krycek informed him. A gloved hand covered
half his face, nose and
mouth. At first he tried to hold his breath, but when he finally sucked
in air he felt a dusty, gritty,
chemical smell, and then all he had to struggle against was darkness.
Waking, he found himself curled almost fetally in the passenger seat
of a car, huddled around the
seatbelt. The thought of Krycek pulling the seatbelt around his unconscious
body was at once
humorous and unsettling. He felt lonely without his coat. Soft music
trickled from the speakers, half
hidden by the purr of the engine. The heater had been turned up high,
and the warmth released what
the winter had kept in check; now he could feel the rank, sour smell
of his own body. Turning his
head, he saw Krycek, relaxed, both hands on the wheel. Both gloved
hands. Mulder blinked, and
twisted upright.
At his movement, Krycek glanced towards him. "Don't try anything," he
said.
Mulder noticed that his hands were cuffed in front of his body now.
He shrugged. Looking forward
he saw that they were on a narrow, twisting road, going through a densely
wooded area. So he had
been unconscious for quite some time. It wasn't snowing here, but the
gray sky was growing darker.
He leaned back against the headrest, eyelids sinking drowsily down
again. It was the warmth that
seduced him. He hadn't been warm for such a long time. "Where are you
taking me?" he asked, not
really expecting an answer.
"Here." Krycek turned right onto an even narrower road. It was well
kept and even, though, and
bordered on one side with a neat fence. After about a quarter of a
mile the road ended as Krycek
drove up in front of a large house, gravel crunching darkly under the
wheels of the car. There were
lights in several windows. Off to one side, Mulder saw a fenced-in
pasture, a barn, some other
buildings. He glanced quickly at Krycek, judging the other man's state
of attention, the distance to the
woods, the limitations the cuffs would impose on his movements. "We're
going in, Mulder. Don't be
difficult."
Krycek got out of the car, and Mulder scrabbled at the door handle,
pulling it and getting the door
open just as Krycek came around to help him. He got out and shivered
at the wind biting into him.
The sweater was ragged, the shirt full of holes. Mulder drew breath
to speak and then he turned his
head and saw, over by the corner of the house, two short figures. A
boy who looked at him calmly, a
girl with long dark braids, bundled up against the cold in a thick
warm jacket. He stiffened and took a
step that way; Krycek's hand on his arm brought him up short and he
spun around, anger blazing
through him. "You son of a bitch."
"They were a gift, Mulder." Krycek pulled him towards the door, guiding
him up the steps, holding
him still. He discovered to his shame that his knees wanted to give
out on him, that he was trembling
all over. "A gift I wasn't in a position to refuse at the time. Come
on in."
Inside, his first confused impressions were of warmth and elegance.
It was a beautiful house; the
rooms were gracefully proportioned, with high ceilings and large windows,
and furnished in good,
verging on expensive, taste. Whoever lived here favored light colors,
and pale wood, and simple
decorations. Mulder followed Krycek through a hallway, up a flight
of stairs, past open doors. He
saw thin gauzy curtains, shelves crammed with books, an overstuffed
chair draped with a woven silk
shawl, a framed Hokkusai print on a wall. The smoothly polished parquet
under his feet seemed to
reprove his boots.
He was being led somewhere, and he could only imagine to whom Krycek
would bring such a gift.
When Krycek finally stopped, Mulder found himself gripped by another
bout of nauseating fear, and
his legs trembled again. He hated that fear in himself, hated the pathetic
thing he had become, and he
tried to lock his knees and raise his chin and watch without a shiver
as Krycek put his hand to the
door in front of them. "I hate you," he said conversationally, thinking
it might be his last chance to say
it.
"You're filthy," Krycek said, and opened the door. The tiles on the
floor were black; the walls were
tiled with white, interrupted by a band of pale aqua at about the height
of Mulder's shoulder. There
was a huge bath tub, an open-fronted cabinet holding fluffy aqua towels,
a toilet with a wooden seat,
a wicker clothes hamper, a sink, a full length mirror. All of it was
as unreal to him as stepping into a
photograph, a magazine advert for a kind of life he could barely remember.
"You stink, Mulder. Get
clean."
Relief made him giddy. "You expect me to take a bath like this?" He
raised his cuffed hands and
shook them, rattling, at Krycek. Krycek only smiled and pulled his
gun out, and Mulder faltered and
took half a step away before he saw the small key in Krycek's other
hand. Krycek's other, gloved
hand. He stood still as the cuffs were unlocked; then he walked over
to the tub and bent down, put
the plug in and turned on the hot water. Turning around, he saw that
Krycek was sitting on the
wooden toilet seat, gun held loosely but comfortably in his right hand.
"I need to piss."
Krycek rose to his feet again and gestured him forward with a small
ironic smile. Mulder flipped the
seat up and fumbled with the zipper of his pants, encrusted with grime
and far from cooperative. He
was aware of Krycek, behind him now, probably leaning against the door,
was aware of eyes on
him. Then he turned his head a few degrees to the right, and forgot
about Krycek watching him. The
full length mirror threw his reflection back at him with a clarity
that didn't care about the time he'd
spent hiding. What he saw was a walking scarecrow, a stick figure of
a man wearing dirty, tattered
clothes, with lank hair falling over his eyes; shoulders hunched against
the cold, against expected
blows, against prying eyes; a rough beard showing traces of gray. He
was so taken aback by this that
he almost forgot what he was doing. This wasn't someone he knew. This
wasn't Fox William Mulder.
No one would know him for who he had been.
"The nose," Krycek said, answering an unspoken question. "It's very...
distinctive."
The sound of the flushing toilet almost covered his, "Fuck." He kicked
his hiking boots off and bent
down to peel away two layers of socks, checking his toes as he did
to make sure they weren't
frozen, weren't numb. As he straightened up again he pulled the sweater
over his head and dumped it
carelessly on the floor. The shirt, too, and then he paused and walked
over to the tub and checked
the water temperature. "So how's life in the military these days? Is
it hard work, hunting for
dissidents?"
He didn't glance back at his clothes, but he did wonder where his coat
was, if it had been left behind
on a snowy street, if he would ever see it again. It was too short
for him, but it had belonged to
Frohike and so he'd kept it, as a reminder of the first death he'd
witnessed as the new world order
was implemented. By people like Krycek.
"Grueling." Footsteps against tile, and then Krycek's voice was much
closer to him. "I think we'll have
to issue nose filters in the future." Gloved fingertips ran down his
side, and he flinched. "Mulder, I
used to think that if you had one flaw it was that you were too skinny."
"You don't like my new look?" He glanced over his shoulder at the neat,
clean, well-muscled,
uniformed man who had once been his partner, who had briefly been his
lover. "Post-apocalyptic
anorexia. I thought I might set a new fashion."
Krycek shook his head. "Not with that beard." He touched a finger to
it. "Ugliest thing I've ever seen.
Between that and the stink, you have to be the least successful hustler
in DC. I heard you were selling
your ass on the street, but it looks like that was only a rumor."
Shoving his pants down, Mulder found himself laughing, roughly. "I've
sold every part of my body
that anyone was willing to pay for, except my kidneys. Is that what
this is all about? Better get on
with it, I charge by the hour."
"I never thought of you as the kind of guy who'd whore for a living."
"No?" Mulder stepped out of the pants, leaned forward and turned off
the taps. Steam rose up from
the tub, and he picked up a bottle of bath salts and dumped a generous
amount into the water. It
would take a while for him to soak the grime away. "I haven't been
quite as successful at it as you, of
course."
The water was hot and he hissed as he stepped into it, his toes curling
in mingled pain and pleasure. If
Krycek was going to kill him, he would at least die clean and warm,
a prospect that had seemed
more and more remote as this winter wore on.
"You've been selling yourself too cheap. You should have left the city,"
Krycek said, steadying him
with one hand as he sat down in the tub. "Heard anything from Scully
lately?"
"No." Mulder let himself sink down under the water, emerged snorting
and coughing. It happened to
be the truth, although he wasn't sure if Krycek would believe him.
All he knew was that Scully was
out west somewhere, she and Byers, leading the armed underground resistance.
"I'll have to speak to
the postman, I don't even get my junk mail." She had been angry at
him as they parted, unwilling to
understand his reluctance to turn guerrilla.
"There is no junk mail in the new republic," Krycek said gravely. "The
people who used to tell you
you were already a winner were the first up against the wall when the
revolution came."
"Has anyone ever told you your sense of humor sucks?"
"You used to say it about once a week." Krycek straightened up and stepped
away from the tub. "I'll
go get you something to eat. Don't drown."
"That uniform's gone to your head. I don't take orders from you." Mulder
ducked down under the
surface of the hot bath water again and didn't come up until Krycek
had left the bathroom. He
stretched thoughtfully and wiggled his toes. They were not a pretty
sight. He'd lost two toe nails
getting his foot run over on a street corner a couple of months earlier,
and the broken toes had healed
crookedly. The remaining nails were black with accumulated dirt, cracked
and ugly. Looking at his
fingers, he noticed a few similarities, although his hands were marginally
cleaner.
Mulder sighed, and reached for the soap and the soft, wood-backed brush.
He started with his feet,
then worked upwards along scrawny legs, prodding at the muscles with
his fingers. He could still
run... it was the winter that had made him slow and awkward. At least
he hoped so. Flakes of dead
skin worked loose and floated in the water. He finished scrubbing his
thighs, and cupped a thoughful
hand around his genitals. Krycek was right; he hadn't turned many tricks
lately. Krycek was wrong;
he hadn't exactly set out to make whoring his new profession. It had
just been, from time to time, a
way to make money. Not recently, though.
Working the long-handled brush over his back turned out to be the nearest
thing to absolute ecstasy
he had experienced in... years. Mulder found himself whimpering with
pleasure, and bit his lip hard,
not wanting Krycek to hear. He scrubbed and soaped, soaped and scrubbed,
and spent long
luxurious minutes working shampoo into his beard and the tangled mess
of his hair. As he tried to run
his fingers through it, they caught on the knots and he was startled
into a soft little 'ow' at the pain.
He leaned forward and turned on the taps again, and pulled the plug
part-way up, letting the dirty
water drain away to be replaced by more, clean, hot. Steam drifted
through the air. Mulder picked
up some more bath salts and dumped a generous quantity into the tub,
viciously hoping they were
expensive and difficult to get. When the water around him was clear
again he pushed the plug back
down with his toes, and started over again with the soap and shampoo.
Krycek came back in as he
was brushing at his toenails. A wave of cooler air rolled in with him
and Mulder slipped down as far
as he could into the water until the bathroom door closed again.
"I've got some food for you." Krycek knelt by the side of the tub, putting
down a tray. Freed from his
own stink, Mulder found his sense of smell almost back to normal again.
There was toast, he thought,
and eggs. Scrambled eggs, he discovered a moment later as Krycek offered
him a spoonful. Without
thinking he opened his mouth, accepted being fed. Bite of toast, spoonful
of eggs, the spoon and the
toast both held in firm, strong, black-gloved hands.
"Do you sleep with those gloves on?" he asked through a mouthful of
toast, then shook his head, "I
don't want to know." This was too strange as it was; he was lying here
in the warm comfortable
embrace of the water, being fed by a uniformed major of the army that
had sworn to kill him. Next
came a mug of hot chocolate, strong and sweet, with a dash of something
alcoholic in. He drank it
down eagerly.
"What happened to your paranoia, Mulder?" Krycek asked softly. "What
if I'm drugging you?"
He laughed. "I'm naked in your fucking bath tub and you've got a gun.
It'd be a waste of good drugs.
Was that the last of the toast?"
"I can make you some more later." Krycek moved the tray aside and straightened
up, going to the
bathroom cabinet and rummaging for something that clinked against a
metal edge.
"You could make me some more now." He watched Krycek's back, wondering
how far he could
push this before he got killed... or how long this dream would continue
before he woke up. When
Krycek turned around again there was a gleam of sharp metal in his
hand and Mulder jerked upright,
sending a hot scented wave over the edge of the tub. He glanced around
for something, anything, that
could be used as a weapon.
"I'm going to cut your hair," Krycek said, ignoring Mulder's sudden
tension. He pulled a towel from a
shelf and came over to the tub again. Mulder looked at the scissors
and then subsided back again,
slowly. There was something else in Krycek's hand too, something he
couldn't see clearly. Krycek
put the towel over the corner of the tub and perched there, almost
behind Mulder, putting the
scissors down with a soft clatter. Craning his neck to see, Mulder
found his head gripped and turned
forward again. There was another sound that he identified as leather
falling onto damp tiles. Krycek
had taken his gloves off. He shivered.
"What if I don't want my hair cut," he said.
"I don't think you understand," Krycek said, leaning forward, speaking
softly and intimately as his
fingers tugged at the nape of Mulder's neck. "I'm going to cut your
hair." Sharp gliding sound of
scissors. He held still and watched as the cut off tangles and snarls
fell into the water around him.
There were more silver threads mixed in with the brown than he had
expected. Krycek's hair was still
smoothly, evenly dark and all the creases around his eyes looked like
laughter. Mulder was well
aware that the lines on his face now spoke of pain.
"Are you happy?" he asked.
The hands touching his head stilled. He held his breath, certain that
in the next moment, scissors
would stab into his flesh. Then, with a quiet exhalation, Krycek went
back to work, shearing the
sacrificial lamb. "I had help," he said. "Langly helped me find you.
He's working for us now."
Mulder closed his eyes. "You're lying," he said. Langly had disappeared
the day Frohike died.
Fingers threaded through his hair. The fingers of Krycek's left hand.
He shuddered despite the hot
water. They both fell silent while Krycek cropped his hair into short,
brutal order, shorter than he'd
ever worn it in his life. Mulder breathed in the smell of the bath
salts, comfrey and wintergreen, and
the more subtle and undefinable scent of Krycek and Krycek's uniform.
God, how he hated that
uniform. Hated Krycek touching him with that hand.
"If you say so," Krycek said finally. The grip on his head shifted and
Krycek was cutting his beard,
close to the skin.
"Hey." Mulder tried to speak without moving his jaw. "I need that. It
keeps me warm."
"Shut up." The scissors kept moving. He shut up.
Krycek leaned forward and managed to shear off most of the beard on
the left side of Mulder's face;
then he got up and moved, seating himself on the narrow edge of the
tub facing Mulder instead, and
continued. Mulder glanced down nervously at the moving scissors, then
closed his eyes. The terror of
this intimate touch was exhilarating. It had been so long since he
had truly felt anything, beyond
hunger and cold and misery. The points of contact where Krycek's fingertips
held his jaw steady
burned through the remains of his stubble, into his skin.
When Krycek put the scissors down, Mulder chose not to open his eyes
just at first. He smelled
something else, something casually familiar that he hadn't been in
contact with in a long time. Not until
it touched his skin did he realize it was shaving foam... no, not foam
out of a can, but soft lather from
a cup, applied with an equally soft brush. It covered the lower half
of his face, the underside of his
jaw, the beginnings of his throat. Raising his eyelids at last, drowsy
with the heat and the beautiful
terror and the gentle touch and the comfort of not being hungry, he
saw Krycek's right hand, holding
a razor. Not a safety razor, but an old-fashioned straight-bladed relic
of the days of demon barbers,
its handle black and worn under Krycek's fingers, its blade narrow
and well honed.
It was just too good, too perfect. He wanted to say something but couldn't
find the words for it.
Instead he met Krycek's eyes, and deliberately tilted his head back,
just a fraction, baring his throat.
And Krycek smiled a very small smile, and steadied his head again,
and began to shave him.
That, too, was good. He had meant what he said, that he needed the beard
to warm his face on
winter days like this one and even more during the long winter nights.
It offered some protection from
the elements, although it was annoying when tiny icicles formed in
it. And shaving was a bothersome
business that always made his face itch. But this, this was good, this
close and skillful touch. Some of
the pleasure owed itself to his delighted fear, and to his body's reaction
to unaccustomed comfort.
But it was nevertheless good. He had the sensation of being prepared
for something, and it dazed him
just slightly, made him easy under Krycek's touch, pliable, yielding.
His mind drifted. He thought about Scully, as he hadn't done in a long
time, and that led him to think
about Byers, of course, and that led him to think about Langly, Krycek
had to be lying about Langly,
and about Frohike, and a morning when his life had changed so suddenly
and absolutely that it
amazed him the sky hadn't been a different color since then.
When Krycek finished, leaned back, and looked at him, he felt naked
as he hadn't done when he'd
taken his clothes off. He set his jaw, and met that assessing look
with one of his own. "Well? Do I
look fabulous?"
Krycek's voice was dry. "That's not the word I would have picked." The
familiar green eyes
gleamed, though, with something that could possibly be humor. It was
an uncomfortably attractive
look; it made him look real and human and understandable. "You should
rinse off."
Clumps of hair floated in the water, clung to his shoulders, his neck.
Mulder wanted to protest,
perversely, just for the sake of refusing to do what Krycek told him
to, but then he pulled the plug
with his toes and leaned forward to turn the water on and switch it
over to the shower. Krycek got
up and took the towel with him as he stepped away from the tub. Standing
up to sluice himself off,
Mulder felt unaccountably self-conscious again. The removal of dirt
and hair and beard had changed
him and left him unprotected. He wouldn't put it past Krycek to have
done it deliberately.
When he turned the water off and stepped out of the tub, Krycek was
just standing there looking at
him. Mulder pulled a towel from the shelf and began to dry himself
off, his skin pebbling now that he
was out of the hot water. His fingertips were wrinkled, and he was
delighted by that, rubbing them
softly against each other to feel it better. "You always knew, didn't
you," he said, briskly towelling his
hair. "That we'd end up like this, one of us a successful traitor with
a house in the country, the other a
fugitive with deplorable personal hygiene."
"God, you're thin." Fingertips drifted over his ribs, down over his
abdomen to settle for a moment on
a sharp hipbone. He emerged from the towel to glance warily at Krycek.
"I think there's some left
over pot roast in the fridge."
He wanted to think of a smart comeback, but his mouth was watering.
The toast and scrambled eggs
had barely put a dent in his hunger. His voice was rough as he asked,
"You got something I can
wear? Or do you want me to walk around the house naked?"
"I wouldn't mind," Krycek said, "but you look cold." Now those fingertips
stroked upwards again,
drawing a line over his torso, teasing the goosebumps, finishing by
flicking over one tight nipple.
Mulder jerked slightly, more from surprise than anything else. "I'll
get you some sweats."
Krycek turned away and walked out of the bathroom, and Mulder finished
drying himself. Looking at
the full length mirror again, he saw someone almost recognizable, someone
not too impossibly far
removed from the man who had once worn Armani suits and chased aliens.
He couldn't stop a small
whuff of laughter from escaping at the thought. It seemed like a faraway,
childishly innocent game, as
sweet to the memory as sunny afternoons of playing hide and seek with
his sister, long, long ago.
He was still trying to decide whether or not he ought to wrap a towel
around his hips before Krycek
came back, when Krycek did come back, opening the door again to toss
sweatpants and a thick
fleecy sweater at him. Mulder pulled the clothes on wordlessly. They
gave him more bulk, made him
look even more like his old self again, and he wondered if that had
been Krycek's intention. He
glanced at the man standing in the doorway, the man he'd once called
Alex. "Pot roast?"
"If you want." Krycek turned and walked away, clearly expecting him
to follow, so he did. The floors
were comfortably smooth under his bare feet, and the carpets, when
he crossed them, were soft.
Krycek led him downstairs to the kitchen. No sleek modernity here either;
wood, tile, marble counter
tops, a large table at the center of the room, its top slightly scarred.
A fluffy, flat-faced cat came
padding quietly around a corner, stopping by the refrigerator to meow
its demands. Mulder crouched
down and offered an outstretched hand, and the cat butted its head
against his knuckles in a friendly,
hungry fashion. He buried his fingers in thick fur. Nothing like a
Persian in winter.
Krycek opened the fridge and pulled out a plastic container and a tin
of cat food. The cat abandoned
Mulder's caresses as soon as its bowl was filled, and he straightened
up again, knees creaking, to
watch Krycek pile food on a plate and put it in the partially concealed
microwave oven. Even cold, it
smelled good. Hell, the cat food smelled good.
He looked at the back of Krycek's head and sought for something to say.
The sudden change in his
circumstances, from cold, dirty and hungry to warm, clean and not quite
so hungry, had thrown him.
He had been less than himself for a long time, with nothing on his
mind but survival. This situation
would have been tricky enough even had his mind been clear; he wondered
just what Krycek had
poured in that hot chocolate, and how much.
"Sit down," Krycek suggested, gesturing at the table, so he pulled out
a chair and sat. Krycek turned
around and leaned against the counter, and they looked at each other,
eyes meeting for a moment
that lengthened, turned from encounter into scrutiny into staring contest,
until the abrupt beep of the
microwave broke them apart. Taking the plate out, Krycek brought it
over to the table along with
two forks and handed one to Mulder. "I assume you still remember how
to use this."
Mulder took the fork and looked at it thoughtfully. "You stab people
with it," he said. "To check the
color of their blood."
"That's right." Krycek started to eat, and after a moment, so did Mulder.
It was good. It was very
good, and not just because he had spent so much time without real food.
He wondered briefly
whether Krycek was sharing a plate with him to reassure him about not
being drugged, but it seemed
a minor issue compared with the way the food tasted in his mouth. The
sheer luxury of it, the hot rich
flavors of sauce and meat exploding on the tongue... it seemed to him
he would be able to live on the
memory alone for months.
The cat finished its dinner long before he did, and came to rest over
his feet, a large living fur slipper,
giving his toes an occasional raspy lick. It had started to grow dark
outside while he was in the
bathroom, and when Krycek finished eating he got up to turn on the
lights, causing Mulder to blink
and squint for a moment as he finished what was on the plate.
Putting the fork down, he looked up at his—captor? Host? "Thank you."
Krycek smiled a little, barely more than a quirk of the lips, yet it
seemed genuine enough. "There's
more—I can heat it up for you if you want."
Instead of pointing out that he was perfectly capable of operating a
microwave oven, he leaned back
in the chair and said, "I appreciate the thought, but you don't have
to fatten me up before you hand
me over. Or are they coming here to get me?" He glanced out the window;
the darkness was
unbroken by headlights, he could hear no car engines.
Krycek hesitated for a moment, as if caught between several possible
movements and reactions, and
then ran a hand over his hair. "I thought—" His eyes flicked towards
Mulder, away again. "I thought
you could stay here for a while."
"Here." Mulder spoke the word as though he'd never heard it before.
"Stay here a while." He looked
at Krycek, who was leaning back against a different counter now, with
blank incomprehension. "You
want me to—"
"Yeah." Krycek came closer, with a slow menacing step, but then he just
took the plate away and
went to put it in the sink. Carefully pulling his feet out from under
the cat, Mulder stood up and took
a couple of steps in that direction. He thought he was prepared, when
Krycek turned around again,
but the look in the green eyes silenced him. "It's time for you to
get off the streets, Mulder. If you're
still doing it for money, I'll pay you to stay."
His mind could come up with no appropriate phrases for a situation like
this. He had thought long
ago, with tired and despairing humor, that he was living in a surrealist
play; then the streets and the
seasons had stripped him of fancy and complex similes, leaving him
pared down to sheer animal
survival instinct leavened with the occasional flash of insight. There
was no brightness in him now, and
very little understanding of how it could have come to this, how anything
like this could be happening
to him, to them both. He had finally given up trying to make sense
of it, and Krycek's words only
proved to him how right he had been.
"I thought you were married," he said.
Krycek looked at him blankly. "I am. What does that have to do with
anything?" Stepping closer,
Krycek touched him again, curving a hand around his neck, thumb stroking
his cheekbone. Reflex
and memory made Mulder move along with that touch, move closer himself.
When his eyelids
dropped and his gaze lowered, he saw Krycek's uniform, as if he needed
another reminder of who
and what this was.
"And a good servant of the state," Mulder went on. "I'm a known enemy
of the new government.
Wanted dead or alive, isn't that how it is?"
"No one would find you here," Krycek said, his voice a shade huskier
than before. "I wouldn't let
them take you." The grip of his hand tightened, and he leaned closer,
lips brushing over Mulder's
mouth and then pressing harder.
Mulder didn't even try to resist. He opened his mouth to the kiss, returned
it, and Krycek's heat
poured into him, filling him with the awareness of wanting and being
wanted. His body reacted slowly
but surely to this and he felt his cock twitch in the loose sweatpants.
How long had it been since
anyone had touched him with desire? He couldn't remember. And this
man—this man—
They kissed for a long time, standing there in the kitchen. The cat
grew bored and left to pursue its
own interests. Mulder wrapped his arms around Krycek and held on tight,
while random words
swirled in his head. Reality. Truth. Trust. Traitor. Regret. It was
Krycek who stepped back
eventually, drawing a steadying breath. He went over to the fridge
again and pulled out a bottle of
white wine—Californian, Mulder noticed, something of a rarity these
days—and opened it, then took
the bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other and led the way
out of the kitchen.
Mulder followed, not even considering any other alternative. He glanced
around as they walked
through the house and back up the stairs again. There were lights on
in several of the rooms, but he
didn't see anyone else there. Many things spoke of comfort rather than
absolute luxury, and there
was a lived-in feeling to the place that sat oddly with Krycek's uniform
and reserved air. They went
past the bathroom this time and into a bedroom. It was relatively spacious,
dominated by a king sized
bed draped in pristine white covers. A folded quilt in shades of blue
and gray lay at the foot. The
wallpaper was chilly white with pale gray stripes; apart from the bed,
there was only one piece of
furniture, a hope chest standing under the window.
"So are you paying for this or not?" he asked Krycek's back.
There was a soft clatter of glass and then the sound of Krycek pouring
wine into the glasses he'd put
down on the hope chest. "If you want me to."
"I want you to take that goddamn uniform off." Mulder accepted the glass
Krycek handed him and
sipped very carefully at the wine. He'd never been much of a drinker
and now of all times he needed
a clear head.
Krycek looked back at him, and then put his glass down and began to
undress, his movements slow
but very matter of fact. He let the uniform fall on the floor, carelessly,
not even in a single pile,
scattering the pieces as he stepped closer and closer to Mulder. Mulder
waited, and when Krycek
had peeled off every layer, down to the skin, his eyes went to the
left shoulder, to the arm.
It wasn't quite a scar, or a line, more a subtle change in skin tone,
something that could conceivably
be explained away as a trick of the light. Except that he knew that
wasn't what it was. His hand rose
up to touch it, but stopped a few inches away, and he used the movement
to put his glass away and
begin to shrug out of the sweater instead. Krycek helped him, hindered
him, stroking up his back and
pulling the sweater over his head. It fell to one side and Krycek pulled
him close, brushing lips over
his cheek and down his throat.
"I missed you," it was barely more than a whisper. "I missed you, Fox."
No one else had ever spoken his name like that—as though it were at
once description and insult and
endearment, a gentle taunt, a mocking term of affection. And for a
brief moment the years fell away
and he could feel once again what it had been like to embrace this
man for the first time and give in to
a rush of desire he had known, even then, to be sweet, irresistible,
and irredeemably stupid.
He pulled away with slow reluctance to take the sweatpants off, and
when they were both naked
they hesitated for a second and then fell on the bed in a tangle of
arms and legs and panting breaths,
clutching at each other, hands gripping in bruising caresses, mouths
open to kiss and lick and bite and
curse. It was a wild, intense wrestling match, and when Mulder finally
found himself on his back,
pinned down with his arms held over his head, he was breathless and
aroused and filled with endless
sorrow.
"I'm out of practice," he said.
The fingers of Krycek's left hand against his mouth stopped any further
words, and he flicked his
tongue out to taste them, to try to find a difference there. Fingertips
trailed slowly down his throat,
over his chest and belly, showing him his skinny, miserable, maltreated
body and at the same time
gilding it with a beauty Krycek seemed to feel more than see.
When those fingers brushed over his cock, he jerked violently, instinctively
trying to fling himself
away, and at the same time he grew even harder. Krycek looked up to
meet his eyes. "You always
were kinky, Fox," he said, affection and resignation warring in his
voice. Then he let go of Mulder's
arms and moved down, brushing a light kiss against the belly button
before taking the erect cock in
his mouth.
Mulder cried out, a muted, breathless little sound that would have embarrassed
him if he had been
able to think of anything beyond the sensations Krycek was drawing
out of him with lips and tongue
and fingers. He tried to find something to hold on to, anything, and
finally tangled one hand into
Krycek's hair and bucked up into that hot mouth. Krycek, unfazed, didn't
even choke, just followed
his movements and sucked harder.
All he knew was that it had been too long, and he couldn't hold back.
Mulder desperately tried to
fuck Krycek's mouth, to push himself deeper into the pleasure he could
barely believe in. A strong
hand dug into his hip, kept him under control. His heart was racing,
and he wanted to cry and scream
and break things. The feeling was sharp and clear and far too intense;
he sobbed once, briefly, and
then he was coming so hard it hurt. It overwhelmed him, but it was
over far too quickly.
Breathing in quick shallow pants, he let go of his bitten lower lip
and tried to find himself again, to
achieve some measure of inner balance. He pushed himself up on one
elbow and looked at Krycek,
who was leaning back with a satisfied air, moist lips slightly parted.
Mulder wished for a moment that
Krycek would just pounce on him and take him, fuck his ass or his mouth,
use him and throw him
away, but that wasn't going to happen.
He sat up, running his hands down Krycek's body, stroking and teasing.
The cock leaped eagerly
under his touch and he pushed Krycek's legs apart to settle between
them. He kissed the shaft,
licked at the head, then worked his way down again slowly to bite the
inside of the thigh. Krycek
made encouraging noises as Mulder pushed his legs up. It was easy to
know what to do, what would
please. He licked along the curve of Krycek's ass and then dipped his
tongue into the crack, teasing
lightly back and forth before concentrating his efforts on the dark
rose of flesh that begged to be
tasted. Mulder worked his tongue around it, licking in broad strokes
and then blowing cool air on the
wet skin, listening to Krycek's heavy breathing.
This was familiar, this touch, and so was Krycek's response, shivers
and soft moans. He knew
Krycek was stroking himself, pumping his cock slowly, and after a while
he heard a tormented cry,
"Fox."
Mulder pressed closer, sucked harder, pushing with his tongue at the
clenched opening. He heard
Krycek's breath catch, felt the acute tension of muscles under his
hands and then the convulsion, the
shaking climax. When he was sure it was over, he planted a light butterfly
kiss on the perineum and
uncurled himself into a half-sitting position, looking at Krycek, who
lay quite still with his eyes closed,
a glistening spill of semen trailing across his belly. Moving up quietly,
Mulder settled down to one side
of Krycek and wasn't surprised when Krycek reached out for him, eyes
still closed, and pulled him
into a loose embrace.
He lay there quietly with his head on Krycek's right shoulder and waited
as the other man's breathing
slowed down and grew more peacefully regular. With his eyes half closed,
he couldn't see much
beyond an expanse of smooth skin. He felt calm now, as calm as a lake
in winter, frozen through.
Moving one hand with sluggish slowness, he dipped a finger into the
puddle in Krycek's navel and
brought it to his mouth, tasting it thoughtfully. It was the same,
the taste he remembered.
It didn't take long for Krycek to fall asleep. Mulder felt the arm that
curved around his back grow lax
and eventually slide off as Krycek's breathing changed. He waited a
while longer before he moved,
very carefully working himself free enough to brace himself on one
elbow and reach out with the
other hand to drag a pillow towards them. Looking at Krycek's sleeping
face, he committed it to
memory, the mouth, the square chin, the scar, the long lashes, the
shape of the nose, before sliding
the pillow over that face and holding it there.
He hadn't known what to expect. At first it was strangely easy, and
he almost relaxed, when
Krycek's body suddenly spasmed and began to fight for air. Mulder leaned
forward, holding the
pillow fast with all his strength. He knew that if Krycek had been
awake from the beginning, he
would have failed. As it was he could only hang on. One of Krycek's
hands, the left hand, dug into
his shoulder, nails gouging his flesh, but he didn't let go. Mulder
closed his eyes and wished he could
pray, and eventually, after a time that seemed terribly long, the struggles
grew fainter, and finally
ceased.
For a long moment he just lay where he was, to make certain, perhaps,
or because he couldn't move.
Not until the muscles in his right arm began to cramp did he release
his grip on the pillow and pull
away, leaving it in place.
Mulder propped himself up on one arm and looked at the body, this body,
this dead body. It was
beautiful, but he'd always known that. He trailed a finger from the
throat where no pulse was beating
down the center of the chest, brushed over the few downy hairs there,
and choked on sudden vicious
pain, folding over to press his face against Krycek's chest again.
"I'm sorry," he gasped, and felt a rush of ugly tears heat his face
and sting his eyes. "I'm sorry, Alex,
I'm sorry!" He fought the sobs, fought the urge to simply break apart.
The inevitability of it, that it
should have come to this, terrified him. He pressed closer to Krycek's
body and worked a hand
down to hold his own cock, erect again, stroked it rhythmically and
tried to find himself in the feeling.
"Alex..." It was like making love to both of them, one last time, more
tender than they had been able
to be with each other. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears trickling down
his cheeks, and remembered a
younger and more innocent Krycek panting and moaning underneath him.
"Alex!"
When he came, his semen mixed with Krycek's on Krycek's stomach, and
he drew his fingers
through the wetness of their combined essence, joining them forever.
Mulder swallowed hard, and
wiped his nose carelessly on the back of his hand. He looked again,
one final time, legs and hips and
the beautiful cock, soft now, belly and chest and shoulders smooth
with muscle, arms... that damn
arm. His eyes narrowed. He wished he could cut it off, free Krycek's
body from the alien presence,
and for a moment went far enough to entertain the idea of finding that
razor in the bathroom. But he
realized it wouldn't be right.
Instead he pushed himself upright and slid off the bed, starting to
get dressed. The uniform felt strange
and wrong and terrible on him, and he shivered. It didn't quite fit,
it was too loose, of course, but
when he put the fleecy sweater on underneath the uniform coat it wasn't
so bad. And Krycek's shoes
were the right size, or as near as made no difference. Dressed and
ready, he walked out of the room
without looking back, and headed down the stairs.
Mulder made a detour through the kitchen, picking up a six-pack of soft
drinks, half a loaf of bread
and a piece of cheese, and then he went outside. The car was still
parked right in front of the house,
and the keys were in his pocket. He got in, disoriented for a moment,
before reflexes took over and
he adjusted the seat and the rearview mirror, put the key in the ignition
and turned it. Of course he
remembered how to do this. And the lights were on in this house, and
the front door was unlocked,
and he was going to leave. Leave, and go west.
The car moved forward smoothly, its headlights slicing through the night.
Looking in the rearview
mirror to make sure it was angled correctly, Mulder saw them again
standing by the corner of the
house, the two children, perfectly still, their eyes gleaming and dark
and full of a calm, terrible
knowledge as they watched him drive away.
The end
In The Bleak Midwinter
by Torch
His fingers were stiff with cold, and he fumbled; the garbage can lid
rattled and the metal echo
seemed to fill the alley and rise straight up towards the gray heavens,
a call for attention he
desperately did not want. He huddled deeper into his coat and held
his breath, wrestling with the lid,
biting his lip as if that would make his search silent. The winter
air slid down the back of his neck, in
under the ragged collar, rolled icily down his spine; he shivered and
breathed out in quick, frightened
puffs of steam. A few drops of blood trickled from the second joint
of his right index finger, where
callused skin was cracking from the chill and the exertion.
