Alex Krycek was dead!

Make no mistake about it; he was as dead as a doornail. He'd never figured out what was particularly dead about a doornail; dead as a coffin nail he could understand. He looked around the bar, enjoying the soft music as he watched a group of men dancing together slow and sensual. Some were dancing inches apart; some were clasped tightly in each other's embrace, heads on shoulders, arms around waists; others were just milling around, cruising each other, hoping against hope that they might find someone - anyone - who would ease the loneliness of the night. He felt at home here amongst his people. They were not his people, of course, for Alex Krycek was dead.

He drummed his fingers against the bar and looked around once more before getting up and going behind the counter to pour himself a Vodka Tonic. He couldn't taste it any more, but the feel of the cool glass in his hand and the slow burn down his throat was comforting - almost normal.

His thoughts drifted back again to Mulder. Damn him! After the sham of that trial he had begun hanging around him more often, following him from place to place, although he hadn't appeared to him.

After his death, he was puzzled that he had awareness -  more puzzling still was this kind of limbo he was in, with Mulder the only person he was able to see and occasionally talk with. He knew nothing of gods or devils or heaven or hell, having never - not even once - seen them. Over time he felt a burn in his body; the feeling was as it had been when he was first infested by the Oilien. He started hearing it speak to him; not in words so much, but in feeling. And to his amazement, he found that when he concentrated hard enough, parts of his body would materialize in corporeal form. This had shocked the hell out of him at first; but then, Alex, being Alex, he began to think what he could do with it.

The sounds in his head had been loud that first night, and before he knew what was happening, his new hand had materialized in front of him. He'd looked at Mulder sleeping in his bed and saw the sheets tent from the older man's erection. If he'd been completely materialized, one would have seen the impish grin on his face. He took what he could get though. He crept slowly over to Mulder's bed and slipped his hand under the sheets. Mulder spread his legs wider to give him more access.

When Alex wrapped his hand around the erect cock, Mulder groaned. He moved his own hand down to feel the hand enfolding him and rubbed it up to the point where it just didn't exist anymore. God Alex, that feels so good, he said, totally used to dealing with the weird and the fantastical. Alex pumped him hard, and Mulder groaned louder, thrusting his hips up in rhythm with Alex's hand. Mulder pushed the sheets down to his thighs so he could look at the disembodied hand doing its best to make him feel so great. This only seemed to make him hornier. Come on, Alex, harder. Alex complied with such a furious pace that he feared he might hurt the man. When the eruption finally came, it was a quiet and peaceful one.

The blissed-out look on Mulder's face was a joy to behold.

The voices in Alex's head became louder - more like a buzzing in his ears. All of a sudden, his whole body was corporeal, fully formed, including the new arm. He was naked, of course, which didn't seem to surprise Mulder in the least. Having a naked, dead man in his bed who could talk and jack him off so royally didn't seem to cause Mulder any alarm, either. This is one man, Alex felt, that he would never be able to figure out. They'd been together since that night, and all Alex had to do to appear to Mulder, was to concentrate on the buzzing in his ears. It made him feel a little more kindly toward the Oilien - at least it had been good for something.

"They allow you to do that here?" A very sexy voice was speaking, apparently to Alex.

Krycek turned to look at the man who was tall and shy and boyish and as sexy as hell.

"Not usually. You can see me?" Alex asked, not able to keep the surprise out of his voice.

The man looked confused and stunned by the question. "Doesn't everyone?" Alex didn't answer.

Alex smiled for him. "Not usually. You're the first."

This didn't seem to ease the other man's confusion at all. Nonetheless he held out his hand to Alex. "I'm Ben...David Fisher," he said. "Come here often?" He asked. As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized how trite and banal and overused the question was.

"You're new to this, aren't you, David? Alex took David's hand in his new one and shook it firmly. "I'm Alex Krycek. I'm new in town."

David sat down on the stool next to Alex and just stared at him as though he was mesmerized by the emerald green eyes. "Yes, very new to this."

"Can I get you boys anything?" The bartender asked, looking straight at David.

"Sure...two of whatever he's having." David pointed at Alex's glass. The bartender glanced at Krycek, seeing him for the first time that evening; looking at his glass, he smiled nervously.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't remember serving you at all...I must be losing my memory."

"No problem," Alex said, "it happens to the best of us. Vodka Tonic."

"Thanks." The bartender muttered and moved away to fix their drinks.

"So what do you do, David?"

David looked nervous. "I usually don't like to tell people when I first meet them."

"Why?"

"It freaks some people out."

"It can't be that bad. You're not a serial killer, are you, David?"

Alex's thoughts went again to the last time he'd been with Mulder. What was it about new parents? It was nothing but 'William this and William that' and an endless parade of baby pictures. Finally Krycek could take no more; he'd bitch-slapped Mulder and then materialized here.

"...are you sure you want to know?" David's voice brought Krycek back to the present.

"Yes, I would."

David smiled, and Alex felt that that smile was only for him. It made his companion look so very boyish and desirable.

"I'm a funeral director. I own my own business...with my brother."

"Oh!" Alex replied. "You see lots and lots of dead people then."

"Lots and lots," David replied, seemingly slightly upset, obviously thinking that his chances with this gorgeous man were slipping away quicker than an ice-cream cone in the Arizona heat.

"That explains a lot."

David's eyes grew as large as saucers. "Explains a lot!" David took his drink and started to get up from the stool. "I told you it freaks people out. I'm sorry to have bothered you." Alex could clearly see the disappointment in the man's face.

"No, stay." Alex put his hand on David's arm so that he couldn't get away.

"It explains a lot, David, because I'm dead. Please sit."

"You're what?"

"Dead, David, dead. Have the dead ever talked to you before?"

Without hesitation, David replied. "Yes, they have. Often." David rubbed his hand over the worn leather covering Alex's arm. "But I've never been able to touch them before." David paused, seemingly trying to choose his words carefully. "Alex, I don't believe you."

"Look at me," Krycek commanded. Without a moment's hesitation, Alex's clothing changed into the dark suit he'd been wearing the night he was murdered, and a gory hole, seeping blood, appeared in the middle of his forehead." The macabre apparition took David so completely by surprise that he started choking on the drink in his throat.

"What in the hell was that?"

"A picture's worth a thousand words, David. Believe me now?" As quickly as he had changed, he switched back into his leather jacket and jeans.

David thought a moment. "Yes, yes I do."

"Do I frighten you?"

The funeral director rubbed his hand sensuously over Alex's cheek, feeling all the contours of muscle and bone. "No, Alex, I don't think you do."

"Want to get out of here?"

David threw a couple of bills on the bar to cover the tab, took Alex by the hand and led him to the door.

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