I was scrubbing a section of wall, wondering what the dark grease spot
represented. I couldn't remember if it was where Mulder had crashed into the
wall with a pizza or the time Alex had a nightmare and ran into it after I
had been rubbing him down with massage oil before we went to bed.
Finally finished with the wall, I opened the closet and peered inside,
removing a few cedar chips that escaped from a sachet. Alex came trotting
in, with the vacuum and said, "Hey, I'm getting hungry. I think I'll go get
lunch ready."
Kissing his sweaty forehead, I cupped his face for a moment, just enjoying
the lack of worry in his expression. He looked so young these days almost as
if the man I fell in love with had leapt forward in time, skipping the agony
of the years between. "All right," I said.
His darting kiss surprised me. He didn't often initiate affection since we
all moved in together. I couldn't tell what was going on behind the green
eyes, but Mulder thought that Alex was pretty deep in guilt. He said Alex
didn't feel entitled to be loved. Mulder often understands our lover in ways
that I can't. I don't love him less, but our relationship is different. Part
of it is that Alex feels worse about what he did to me than anything Mulder
has ever accused him of doing to him.
Secondly, I'm not so sure about it, but I think he's less confident of me.
Frankly, he can manipulate Mulder beyond belief. He never could handle me
with so much finesse. Mulder's paranoid, but he's a believer. I'm just plain
distrustful and I'm a skeptic by both nature and training. So Mulder got the
carrot and I got the stick.
I understand Alex's actions now. Haven't entirely forgiven him, but the
connection between us never died. I loved him. I'm not a man who loves
easily and I wasn't good at letting go once I let myself love...not even if
the one I loved kills me. Not even if he brings me back to life and tries to
play me like a puppet. It didn't stop me from shooting him to save Mulder or
pleading with god to restore him to life. If you want to know how crazy our
lives had been, these weren't the most unusual events in our conjoined
history.
You know, I think Mulder meant for us to do some talking which was why he
decided to visit Scully the weekend my lease ended. I don't know why I put
off cleaning the apartment and moving the last of my things out for so long.
Unless it was just the idea of admitting my present lifestyle was more than
just a fling.
I admit I often have a hard time coping. When I grew up, closeted wasn't
even a word you thought about. It was nearly the only choice. I didn't marry
Sharon as protective coloration; I loved her. I don't want anyone to think
that I didn't. I adored her in my own way and we were good together
sexually. My body was never very good at bothering to pick the gender that
turned it on. My mind might say straight and narrow, but my dick and my
heart had other opinions.
Mulder turned me on from the start. He was the bad boy that I had to try to
rein in, but his antics secretly thrilled me. Fox reminded me of James Dean,
the way he handled himself, the way he would smolder. God, Mulder did that
well, all that dark heat behind those topaz eyes. Every once in a while,
he'd rake his eyes approvingly across my body and I thought I just might
have a chance. I always did have a thing for James Dean.
About my other lover...our first meeting was just an incandescent night
after a party. Sharon had thrown me out and I was angry, looking for
something to take my mind off my failing marriage. I went to visit Reno, an
old 'nam buddy. He took me to a party and it was a small one, intimate. I
looked across the room and saw a young beauty clad in black silk and
leather, posing like a centerfold. Guys were elbowing each other out of the
way to get at him. I decided I'd be the one.
My eyes fixed in his direction; I'd stalked across the room like I was a
twelve point stag. I saw amusement in his eyes and a challenge. I muscled
through his admirers and asked him to dance. I'm not much on dancing as
performance art, but I pride myself on my slow dancing. I know just where to
touch, just how to look, and what not to say. I knew the right point to let
our hips touch, to make sure he knew what I had.
It was an old game to him; I could see that, but he seemed to like it. He
liked it later that night too. We spent the night together at Reno's place.
He was good, incredibly good, skin like velvet, kisses so blazing they were
damn near lethal. We spent twelve hours making love. I don't use that last
phase spuriously. What I felt was incredible. It would be a long time before
I felt that way again.
In the morning, he said that he was starting a new job in a month. He
couldn't afford a relationship but he'd always remember me. Thirty days
later, he trotted into my office with that 302 form. He was a cool one; his
gaze merely flickered for a moment before he returned to his officially
bland expression.
I had no intention of picking it back up, but he showed up at my place a few
weeks into the partnership with Mulder. As I had guessed, they had tumbled
into bed with each other. That night, Mulder had given him some big line
about breaking it off...that he had a mission in life and couldn't be
distracted. I shouldn't even have invited him in, but Krycek could look like
a wounded angel. We ended up making love again. It was even better than the
first time, but in the morning, we went our separate ways. Mulder changed
his mind and wanted him back. Sharon and I got back together until that last
time when I signed those papers and freed us both from the endless drama.
Eventually, it was Mulder who needed comforting and I gave it. Alex ghosted
through our lives like a hungry phantom until I put his soul to rest. Like I
said, I killed him...and Mulder brought him back. I remember looking down at
Mulder crouched over him and I said I wished I could take it back. God, I
didn't want Alex dead...I just wanted him to be the way he used to be or the
way I'd thought he was. I was never certain if I had ever made love to the
man I thought was my beautiful young lover or had fallen for a mask that a
ruthless double agent wore.
I remember Mulder screaming, "Don't you dare, Alex..."
Mulder healed him. Put his hands on him and there was something crackling
between them as if all the hate and love had been converted into raw
seething power. Krycek's eyes opened and all the terrible wounds I had
inflicted healed. I stood there gaping. Alex was about half right when he
uttered that insanity about Mulder being an alien.
Both of them were alabaster white...a cross between the pieta and the fallen
gladiator. Mulder slowly slumped, doubling up over Alex's bloody chest. I
wasn't sure what had really happened. Whether Alex's eyes opening had been
just a reflex or really meant something had happened.
This would be a different story if it hadn't worked. Alex lived. Turned out
that we had a lot more in common than I knew. Nanobytes. Nasty little
buggers...Scully's still working on the cure for them. Right now, they are
disabled, but I'll never feel safe for either Alex or myself until they are
out of our bodies.
It took a while before Alex came back physically or mentally. I remember
visiting him in protective custody. It was really a pleasant room, no
visible bars on the windows and polite guards. The sun would spill across
the bed when I opened the curtains. Alex would turn his face away and blink.
I think he was trying to die, but his body was too tough and strong for him.
He was healing, but he was some place so dark that I didn't think he could
come back on his own.
Both Mulder and I tried talking to him, telling him about the blood tests,
about the treatment that Marita Covarrubias had brought to us, which
disabled the nanobytes. His green eyes remained as opalescent as precious
stones and as cold. His face wore a constant weary mask.
Yelling at him only made him look at us with that 'waiting for someone to
finish him' expression.
The doctors said he was getting better. Mulder had healed the damage that
nature could not. Time had taken care of the rest.
I don't know what made me do it.
Walking in, I found him off in whatever dream world he spent the days. It
pissed me off. I took off my clothes and got into his bed, lying on top of
him. He turned his face away again, but I forced it back, my lips ravaging
his mouth, my tongue flickering into his, claiming him. He couldn't pretend
that I wasn't there. If he had protested, I would have stopped, but he
merely sprawled beneath me passively. My lips brushed over each trembling
eyelid, kissed his petite nose, and then found that hot spot under his chin
and to the side of his neck.
He might be able to block my words out, but now I was going to speak to him
in a language to which he would have to respond. My hands mapped the myriad
textures of his skin, his hair, sought out the lines of his body I
remembered so well.
Alex used to force me to fuck him. I'm not joking. He would show up with
that smirk, remind me of the nanobytes and tell me that I had to do anything
he said and what he wanted was to bottom for me. Make me hurt him, pound
into him until he bled. I gave it to him. Scratched him. Bit him. Hit him
while I fucked him and called him names. And he took it all from me. Then
he'd get dressed and walk out my door, turning his elusive gaze back for a
minute to say I had what I wanted, short of killing him. Fucking bastard!
Fucking crazy self-destructive bastard.
Why didn't he stop? It was obvious that he was using Mulder's fist and my
cock to punish himself. Why not quit? Why not let us help him?
Even after I found out about the nanobytes, I didn't understand.
But this time, it wasn't fucking. I made love to him an inch at a time,
suckling in the rich flavors of him, tasting him all, taking him into
myself. My teeth lightly nipped his tender spots as I sucked a morsel of
flesh into my mouth. I could feel him fighting me. No, not struggling, he
was waging an interior battle to remain still, locked away from the world,
but I was resurrecting him. I could feel him trembling. When I looked up, he
was blinking rapidly and his mouth, cupid bowed, always incongruously sweet,
had opened as he took deep gulps of air.
I avoided the obvious places, not even suckling his nipples. I laved the
insides of his elbows, the tender flesh behind his knees. My tongue explored
the hollow of his spine, counted the discs of his back. I even treated his
feet to this rich sensual consumption. They're ticklish and when I suckled
on his toes; he couldn't stand it. His indignant stare glared at me and he
said, "Fuck me. Would you just fuck me?"
It was the longest sentence he had spoken since he regained consciousness. I
looked back at him and grinned...I looked and felt like I was taking
advantage of him. I shook my head and I said, "I don't want to fuck you,
Alex."
My kisses and nuzzling traveled remorselessly onward. I mouthed the knobs of
his ankles, licked the long calves and went onward until I was at the
tender, trembling inner thighs. I kissed the hollows of his pelvis and
worked my way teasingly inward until his hand pushed at my head and I heard
him say, "Make love to me, Walter. Make love to me."
He hardly lasted more than a moment or two in my mouth, but he wasn't
content with that, gasping, "Inside me, please."
It was familiar yet not. I didn't want to be rough. I wanted to lose myself
in making love to him, unhurried, savoring the sounds he made, the scents
rising from his super heated skin. He was on his back, his legs over my
shoulders, his ass enclosing my cock as his head moved against the pillow,
tousling his hair, sweat damping and curling tendrils to frame his sensitive
face. He licked his lips, hissed between his teeth as I hit the right place
for him. He arched, straining to guide me there again and cried out as I
succeeded. By the time, I finished; he was coming with me.
After that, he couldn't retreat back into his dream world. He gave it all up
to us, unraveling the lies and the half-truths, telling a tale only Mulder
would have believed before the events of the last year.
I remember his hand, white-knuckled clutching the rail of the witness booth
as he testified. He was exhausted by the end of each day. I would watch the
faces in the courtyard, expressions of disbelief, expressions of outrage,
and horror. When it was over, he was drained. He'd made his deal well. He
had protection, immunity, and a clean slate. He could go anywhere in
relative safety, but he looked like a lost child. He had no place left in
the world, no one that could understand him, but us.
Mulder made the first move, held out his hand and said, "Alex, you're coming
home?"
When Alex took the hand, Mulder pulled him to him, crushing him against his
chest. I embraced them both and their hands, unevenly matched held hard to
me. At first, we went back and forth between the apartments. Then Mulder
said he and Alex needed a place. Mulder had refused to be reinstated. He had
finished his mission and now he wanted to live again.
I don't know why I stayed except that Kersh had resigned. Never did get
enough dirt on him to take him down, but he looked like a fool at the best.
The president himself suggested that he take early retirement. I filled the
shoes, but let them know about my personal life. I could tell they were
askance about Alex, but I suppose that they accepted my relationships
because Mulder apparently transcended his gender and we were heroes by that
time. Whatever we did was acceptable.
So I was acting director. I refused to accept the permanent appointment. I
wanted to enjoy my life with my lovers in the open and while I was still
young enough to do them justice.
A piece at a time, I had moved into the house that Mulder bought. My
apartment stood empty, a monument to the vacant misery of my previous life.
I paid for it until the lease was up. Mulder found me with the renewal in my
hand. He looked at me and said, "What are you hiding from, Walter? You have
a home."
He was right. I smiled at him and polished my suddenly fogged glasses. I
tore the contract up, two pieces then four and finally I threw the confetti
with which I ended up into the air in celebration.
Happiness wasn't something I was used to holding onto for long. It was
always something that someone else could control. Sharon with her martyred
sighs and sudden rages. Spender sauntering into my life to piss on my
parade.
It was a week after my decision that Roland and Bud came into town. They
didn't know about Alex and Mulder. I said I would meet them at a bar. We saw
the town a stool at a time. Must have hit at least ten places. Last time I
had been this drunk ended up in disaster, but I made it home in one piece,
having the foresight to take a taxi.
I was wiped but not so wasted that I didn't catch Alex's reaction. He was
still feral enough to investigate every odd noise and I suppose the heavy
thud of my weight slamming into the door qualified. I was a genial drunk for
once and when the door opened to let me see Alex standing off to one side, I
was very pleased to see him. I took a staggering step and caught myself on
his tee shirt clad shoulder. Even as relaxed as I was, I couldn't miss the
way he flinched away from me and stiffened. My idea of handling it was to
tilt his chin and press an alcohol sodden kiss on his lips.
A moment later, Mulder was picking me up from the carpet. Krycek's one fist
had sliced the air and connected with my chin. I went down like a stunned
ox. He's strong my Alex. Mulder looked bemused and Alex's back was
disappearing down the hall.
It took a week of constant apologies to coax him back to our bed and he
never did tell me what was bothering him. I think he may have spoken to
Mulder in confidence or maybe Mulder knew from some earlier time. I'm
ashamed to say that the two times I made love to Alex before we became
enemies, there wasn't a whole lot of talking, not with words anyway.
We'd made up, although I hid all of the suitcases. Stupid and immature
right? As if doing that would stop him from leaving me or throwing me out.
Mulder discovered my amusing idiocy when he couldn't find one to pack for
his trip. He just shook his head and said, "Talk to Alex while I'm gone."
Losing myself in work is something I do well. Mulder too. Alex is too
hyper-vigilant to ever lose himself in anything except in making love. He
will forgo his guards in bed but no place else. I had finished the living
room, closet, and bathroom before I realized I was very hungry and that I
hadn't heard from Alex for a long time.
The kitchen was empty. Alex had said he would make lunch. A plate full of
sandwiches stood neatly covered by a square of cellophane. A few vegetables
were in a colander in the sink. There were two peaches. I had picked them
out at a fruit stand. They were perfect, rosy blushes over gold. One bite
and the juices would run down his face. I loved to lick the sweet nectar off
his chin, taste peaches on his lips. Peaches were Alex's favorite fruit.
He wasn't in the bathroom. I thought he might have gone to empty the garbage
and I checked in the hall. Then for some reason I opened the blinds to the
balcony. He sat, pressed up against the rails, his forehead resting on the
cold metal. I grabbed my coat before going out. It was damn chilly out
there. What the hell was Alex thinking, sitting out there without a coat?
A blustering wind howled a knife blade of cold right through my heavy
jacket. The sleet stung across my cheek.
Crouching down, I reached to touch him. He flinched, turning wounded eyes on
me. "What are you doing here?"
"It's cold," Alex said.
"Yeah, I know," I answered, irritation I didn't want to show creeping out
nevertheless. "That's why I was inside."
"It was very cold in Siberia," Alex returned.
I waited silently to hear him out. He'd never said a word about his past,
hadn't even told me whether he was really Russian.
"I was born here, you know. My dad was born in Russia, but his parents
immigrated when he was a teenager. He went back when he was twenty-one and
fell in love with my mother. He was very intelligent, a poet and a
scientist. My mom was a teacher. I barely remember her, just remember she
loved to sing and that everyone said I looked like her. She had green eyes
too and my hair is the same color. He brought her to America, but he was
never happy here. He took us back to Moscow after he finished his PhD." Alex
said.
My lover shivered again and I took my coat off to put it around him. My arms
followed. I said, "So you were raised in Russia?"
"Most of my childhood. When I was four, my dad was accused of spying. I
don't think that was true. They put him in prison and sent my mother and me
to Siberia. When he got out, he joined us at the camp. He used to be so
kind, but when they freed him from prison, he was bitter, moody, and cruel.
He'd hit us, my mom and me, drink too much and hit us. He would lay into me,
call me names, tell me I was a thief and a crybaby," Alex mused. His lashes
lay against his pale cheek like broken winged birds.
Not knowing what to say, I moved closer, felt him stiffen and then relax. I
didn't know what to do. I always left it to Mulder to deal with Alex's moods
just as I left Alex to deal with Mulder's. I wanted to be the bedrock of the
relationship; or maybe I was more frightened of feelings than either of
them. Leastwise, I let them storm around me and picked up the pieces later.
My lips brushed the soft tendrils of his hair as it clung damply to his
skull and down around the nape of his neck.
Sagging back into me, Alex said, "Every day, I used to go to sweep the
commandant's quarters. I was really little, not very old at all. I don't
know why he picked me, just showed up at the hut where we lived and pointed
at me. Next thing I know I was trying to push a broom that was taller than
me around. He didn't hurt me, but he scared me. He would look at me oddly as
if... but he never really touched me. I don't think he did anyway. I don't
remember too much from my childhood. Just that my dad made my mom look at me
every time I came back. I think he wanted to protect me. I think he really
cared. I just kept thinking if I was stronger, brighter, that maybe he would
have stopped yelling,"
I was in way over my head. This was all wrong. I had fallen in love and lust
with someone I thought was a sexy innocent. Then he became my dark demon of
desire. Hell, if I knew what he was to me now; somebody I cared about but
didn't know very well except we knew each other's bodies, knew how to make
each other sweat, writhe, scream even.
Who the hell was this man I was holding? This man shivering in the cold and
dark? I wasn't prepared for this.
Still, I knew enough not to shut him off. I just wished that Mulder or even
Scully were here. I let him settle closer, wondering when I could bring up
going inside. I was getting stiff.
"I was always hungry. There was never a lot to eat. My mom used to give me
some of her food and my dad would get so mad. He kept saying to take some
from the commandant, but I was too scared. Then mama got sick, very sick. It
was TB; can you believe that? Medicine to cure it and all that, but she was
dying. I thought it was because of the food," Alex said, rocking to and fro
in a monotonous self-comforting fashion. I wanted to hold him still, make
him stop that ominous obsessive oscillation.
"One day, I went to my work and there was a bowl of peaches. I'd only ever
had one. They were so beautiful, just like the ones you bought. I swept and
I dusted and I kept looking at them. I convinced myself that if mama had one
of them that she would feel better. I could be a hero. So I put one in my
coat pocket and I ran home. Papa was drunk when I got there. Some of the men
had a still hidden in the woods. Wasted food to make the hooch," Alex
related bitterly.
His lip curled. I knew he never had more than one or two drinks, but I
always assumed that was his self-protective instincts and training.
Huddling in on himself, Alex said, "I went right past him and opened the
curtain to the alcove where my parents slept. Mama looked as if she was
asleep, not coughing for once. I decided she had to eat the peach right away
in case it was missed. I shook her and she was cold. Her hand flopped out of
the bed. I shook her harder and harder. I was screaming at her, that she had
to wake up and eat that damn peach."
The deep shuddering breath he took just seemed to stop. I waited, conscious
of the passage of time, until he exhaled as if his pain was a sharp wound,
deflating his lungs, emptying him out until there was nothing left but the
skin surrounding a vast hollow. He took a gulping breath and I could feel
him shaking.
"She was dead, she was fucking dead and nothing I could do would bring her
back. I sat there and I ate the peach, promising myself that I would never
love anyone again," Alex said, "and I almost made it."
The way he looked at me the meaning was clear. It shocked the hell out of
me. I knew Krycek had a lot of feelings for Mulder. Me? I knew he liked me
to do him. Even after the nanobytes...especially after them.
I loved him, but I always thought he loved Mulder and was in lust with me.
Taking a deep broken breath, Alex made himself turn around to briefly meet
my eyes. He said, "Two years later, Spender showed up and picked out some
subjects for one of his experiments. My dad and I were in the bunch, but he
took a liking to me. I remember him turning my head from side to side and
smiling. The smoke...made me feel like throwing up. When we got to the new
camp, my father worked for them. Spender took me, educated me, supported me
through college, and he...taught me, twisted me, until I thought that the
way he thought was the only way there was," Alex said.
Slumped back into my embrace, his one hand holding my arms tightly to him,
Alex was silent for a long time. I thought he might have fallen asleep and
almost had decided to move him inside when he started to speak again.
"I couldn't find the courage to leave, not after what he did to me for
trying. My dad was careless in the lab. Black Oil got him, but Spender had
replaced him. If I ever wondered what I could have been, he beat it out of
me, not only with his belt, but even more so with his words. I remember him
telling me over and over that he saved me. Sometimes, I even believed him
when he said I was like a son to him. I even used to get him Christmas
presents. Gave him a fucking lighter with his initials the year after I met
you," Alex finished his diatribe with a harsh laugh. I could hear how much
he hated himself for what had happened to him.
There was nothing I could say to make it better so I could only hold him and
rock with him until he relaxed again. Finally, he let me take him inside. We
lay down on the bed together, not to make love, just for him to press his
face into my chest and me to hold him, stroking his satin hair and his soft
skin until he finally slept. I held his weight in my numb arms as a penance
and a privilege.
After he woke, I brought the food into the bedroom and we fed each other
sandwiches and peaches. I kissed the sweet sticky juice from his mouth and
chin and the salt from around his eyes.
"Can I ask you something?" he asked.
"Of course, anything," I answered.
"Can you help me find my mother's grave? She was from Georgia...in Russia.
She used to talk about it, always wanting to go home. Can you help me take
her? You and Mulder?"
"Of course," I promised.
It wasn't easy to get the permits and make the arrangements. I suggested he
might want her moved nearer us, but he said she wanted to go home. Some of
the people even remembered her, the most beautiful girl in the village who
married the American and went off to live in a fairy tale. We didn't tell
them what really happened.
Alex didn't know what Mulder had arranged, but when he saw the grave covered
with peach blossoms, his whole face lit and he kissed Mulder right there in
front of everyone. No one even seemed surprised. I wasn't going to point out
my contribution. It was as gloriously foolish as Mulder's was in all
probability. Alex finally noticed the tiny peach tree sapling. He collapsed
to his knees and touched it with trembling hands and when he looked up, he
was smiling with tears running down his face.
"She's home," was all he said, but I knew he meant that so was he... not in
Russia, but home in our hearts, Mulder and mine.
We walked back to our car, his hand in mine and Mulder's arm locked around
his waist. We'd come back next year in the spring. Maybe there would even be
a peach on that little tree. I asked for hardly cold weather stock, tough,
tenacious, and beautiful just like Alex. I had a feeling it would survive
and bloom.
I don't remember when I got cold.
Peaches
by Ursula
Alex was whistling in the bedroom, a melodious tune warbling unconsciously
from his lips. I had worried that it was a mistake to bring him here...a
mistake to come here without Mulder, but Alex seemed to be fine so far. We
hadn't had that talk that Mulder suggested, but maybe it wasn't necessary
after all. We were getting along fine.
Lyrics
By Amanda Ghost
It was when he would lay into me.
Told that you're worthless from five years old.
Is it part of your destiny? He's
standing next to me. I cannot breathe. When will I have the guts to leave?
Run away from all that is sacred. Escaping the shadows over me. Run away.
You'll never make it. It's all that a child believes. I don't remember when
I felt warm. I was never quite good enough. I only wanted the simple things
like being told you were loved. He's still supporting me but where's the
faith. Looking in his eyes I sense his hate. I never cry for sadness. I cut
off from the pain. I won't forget your madness but I'll forgive you anyway.
He's standing next to me. I cannot breathe. When will I have the guts to
leave?
