When We Were Innocent
Fandom: The X-Files
Category/Rated: R
Year/Length: ~2075 words
Pairing: Mulder/Krycek
Spoilers: Oh yeah - for Ascension - and Duane Barry, I suppose
Disclaimer: None of these boys are ours - no money made here - no copyright infringement intended.
Summary: Agent!Alex - need I say more?
Author's Notes: Huge thank you to Teri and Pic for the beta. This was written for Pollyanna's XF Lyric Wheel. The song lyrics are at the end of the story.
"Make sure he gets home safely."
That's what Skinner said to me. I swear to god - word for word, that's what he said.
So, I did. After all, I was supposed to be this eager-beaver green agent. As such, I'd certainly follow a direct order from my superior.
Right?
Right.
So, anyway, I managed to get Mulder out of there. I planned to take him home, dump him on his couch and hit the road. I had important things to do. Critical decisions to reach. A shower to take.
That'll teach me to make plans. I should have known, what with Mulder being involved, that it was wasted effort.
We only got as far as the damned parking lot, for heaven's sake, when he started to kick up a stink. He wanted to drive. Can you believe that? The asshole wanted to drive, while his eyes were so close to shut that I kept thinking that I should knock on his forehead to get his attention before speaking.
I looked at him, standing there, right in my face as usual, and contemplated punching him in the gut just to get him to behave, but it wouldn't have been fair. Okay, he's my size, but he's at least 20 lbs lighter than I am - and I work out with weights. He swims, but it ain't the same in a brawl. Besides, he'd just lost his mommy...
Well, maybe that was a bit unkind, but you know what I mean. You've seen them together, haven't you? You know how they were. It sure wasn't a love affair, whatever it was. She clucked over him like a mother hen, and he gave her the runaround like a brat.
Anyway, as I was saying, he wanted to drive. I contemplated violence, but managed to resist it. Yay for me! Instead, I said, "You want me to quote you all the statistics that support the survival of the fittest? I'm talking the Darwin Awards here, Mulder. You'll be asleep before you know it. There's no way I'm going as a passenger in a car that you're driving tonight, and A.D. Skinner told me to get you home. Houston, we have a problem
He squared up. He even raised his fist, but in the end, he was too damned exhausted to do much more than posture, so I got to drive. This was a good thing.
So, there we are in the elevator in his building, and the damned man is swaying, dead on his feet. The stupid sucker couldn't find his key, and then he couldn't get it in the lock. As I handled those tasks for him, I began to worry that he'd want to go to the john, and ask me to find his dick for him.
But, I digress.
In we went, and I steered him to his couch. The damned thing always smelled kinda like a camel to me, but that seemed to be where he did all of his quality thinking, so I dumped him there and turned to go.
That's when he suddenly started to cry. Bang went my chances of just shoving him through the door and running.
My first instinct was to run for the hills. I don't deal well with tears. Never have. Whether from a woman or a child or a man - I just don't understand the whole crying thing. I mean, what's the point? Aside from giving whoever or whatever caused the pain more leverage over you, they only cause red eyes and a stuffy nose.
But, Mulder, being Mulder, didn't cry quite like anyone else - not like anyone I'd ever seen, anyway. No sniffles, no sobs - just this dreadful blank face covered with big, fat teardrops.
I wanted to tell him everything right then and there.
I didn't, though. Nope, I was a good little henchman. Kept my mouth shut.
Couldn't quite bring myself to leave, though. Instead of pretending I hadn't noticed a thing and sliding on out the door, I moved closer to him and put one hand on his shoulder.
What a mistake that was! The foolish man immediately attached himself to me, both arms wrapped tightly around my waist, face buried at my beltline. And those damned tears continued to fall.
Well, shit. This was not a good thing. Not at all.
I stood, frozen with helpless surprise for several heartbeats, then slowly - seemingly of their own accord - my own arms lifted and closed around his shoulders.
How was I to resist? I'd wanted him since I'd first seen him, rumpled and cranky, arrogant as a king while I stood, a supplicant seeking his favor. He was so beautiful, and had been so unattainable until now, wrapped in his cocoon of self-absorbed anguish. This sudden lowering of his defenses was as frightening as it was welcome.
What to do? I was there to betray him, not to succor him. My instructions weren't to assist; they were to destroy. He was to be ground underfoot.
So, of course, at that moment I turned and left him to bear it alone, right?
Wrong. I fell to my knees, supplicant again, and held him to me, inhaling the fragrance of his shampoo, feeling the prickle of his beard drag against my own rough chin, and I couldn't resist. I just had to know, just this once, how he tasted.
So I kissed him.
His lips were soft for a man so stern and driven. His mouth was like a fruit, soft and sweet, to my tongue, and his arms clung to me as though I were his love. For a moment I could believe that he and I were a possibility. I believed that I could have the world and he would share it with me. All I had to do was hold him, and tell him what I'd done. I could defy the old man if he were to be my prize.
Then he leaned back, pulling me to lie against him and my body screamed that this was now, that it was all I could ever have, and that I'd best take it while I could. There would be no tomorrow.
I rubbed myself against him, and my mouth sucked on his as though I could draw him into me. I couldn't think, save of him. I wanted him so badly. You understand, don't you?
Of course you do. Go on, admit it; you'd have done exactly the same.
I'd dreamed of this. Fantasized the perfect first time between us. And, damned if I wasn't on his nasty old sofa, humping away like a teenager getting lucky for the very first time in the back seat of dad's car.
Shit. If this was gonna be the only time, I absolutely, positively *did not* want it this way. As lovely as a bit of frottage may be under certain circumstances, I knew myself well enough to know that I'd be living on this encounter for many years to come. I wanted more to remember.
A lot more.
With great self-control, I managed to raise my mouth away from his, almost giving in when he groaned piteously and tried to pull my lips back to his. Difficult as it was, I resisted his hands and rose up on my arms to look down at him.
Oh man. He looked ... I don't think that even my imagination, talented though it is, could have ever envisioned him looking like this.
You know that he hadn't shaved for a while - I told you that. It made him look vulnerable, young, as though he were a kid who was lost. In a way, I guess he was.
He lay there in his silk suit, crumpled and stained by the activities of the day. His tie had gone, I don't know where, and his shirt was open at the neck. He looked... Oh, God! He looked edible. His lips were parted and his eyelids drooped with hazy lust as his eyes followed me. I tried a couple of times, to tell him the things he needed to know, and all I could manage once my voice was under my control again was, "Goddammit, I love you."
Possibly not the best thing that I could've said, you may think. Looking back now, I'm inclined to agree, but at the time it somehow said itself, and I was merely the conduit through which my emotion flowed. Even as I was telling him of my despicable love, I was unfastening the buttons of his shirt, pushing shirt and jacket alike off his shoulders to lay bare the smooth chest, covered with a sprinkling of hair, rosy nipples like pomegranate seeds to invite my tongue.
The sight of him made me groan.
I lowered my head to feed on him, trembling hands tugging at his belt and stroking his belly even as I licked and suckled at him. He didn't protest, he pulled me to him and his fingers combed through my hair, dislodging the careful styling and making it flop forward over my forehead to trail over his skin, causing a shiver as it passed.
Soft sounds, sighs and moans, the sounds of mouth meeting flesh and breath that grew faster with every minute, filled the silence as I managed to open the fastenings that held his trousers closed. My body somehow achieved meltdown. My heart thumped painfully and he writhed.
"Alex, please..." his voice sounded desperate, but maybe I remember it wrongly. I know that I was in dire need, and perhaps I'm projecting when I think back. I drew away, shivering at the loss of his touch.
"M-Mulder? Do you... Do you have a bed?" I was tugging at my own clothing as I spoke. My buttons wouldn't unfasten, so I ripped them free. The shirt would be so much history. I needed to feel him skin-to-skin and know that he was mine for an hour.
An hour was all I could ever have. What a pathetic piece of flotsam I am, to care about that single hour.
As it turned out, he did have a bed. 'Course, if he hadn't identified it as such, I'd have never suspected that anything remotely resembling a bed hid under all of the assorted crap. By the time I got it cleared off I had regained a small measure of my control. Oh, not enough to actually leave, as I should have done. I did get both of us undressed, though. And I'm still damn proud of that.
Through it all, Mulder stood quietly watching me. I couldn't read his expression. I'd never seen it before tonight - nor have I seen it since. He looked so young. And lost. And, strangely enough, I could see hope lurking in his hazel eyes when they met mine.
I still cringe to think of it - that hope. He thought I'd make him forget for a short time, we'd sleep the sleep of the satiated, then don our white hats and ride off to save his precious Scully. When, all the while... Well, you know as well as I do what my true agenda was with regard to that woman.
Lower than pond scum, that's me. But, hey, it's all a part of my charm.
Enough of that shit. Back to the good stuff.
Slowly, I removed his clothing, stroking each centimeter of flesh I uncovered along the way. Once he raised his hands as if to help me, but I gently lowered them back to his sides. A subtle release of tension and a soft sigh of agreement were his only responses.
Okay, at this point I will admit that I'd never bought into all that shit about the difference between lovemaking and fucking. It was a matter of semantics, I thought. Yeah, yeah, I know - go ahead and laugh at me. I was a fool. No longer, though. Nope, I know now.
That morning I learned that there were indeed vast differences between the two. I'm of two minds about having gained that knowledge, actually. Conflicted, you might say. You see, while I will never forget the feel of his body, the taste of him, the sounds he made, I live in fear of never experiencing it again.
So, finally, there we were - me and Mulder, naked in his bed. It was enough to take my breath away. And he was just lying quietly, waiting for me to do something. One of the strangest things about the whole encounter was the sudden and absolute knowledge that came over me at that moment. I just *knew* what to do, how to touch him, what words to use, to take it all away for a brief span of time.
I never thought I had it in me. But I did. Oh yeah, I did indeed.
Propping myself up on one elbow, I leisurely stroked his body from hairline to knees, noting and returning again and again to those places that drew the best responses. And, let me tell you, Mulder is one sensitive SOB. He gasped and moaned and twitched in a most gratifying manner. The heat from his body intoxicated me. Sinking into his body was perfect, it was right, and we moved together in a sinuous synchrony that took words, voice and even breath, and shattered them until there was only pounding blood and terrible intimacy.
I touched his skin with the reverence of an artist shaping clay, and he arched for me, presenting himself to me for worship. His heat surrounded me, and his eyes dazzled. His mouth... oh, God, his mouth...
The thing I remember most vividly are the kisses. I don't usually like that degree of intimacy. A quick fuck is all I want and then I'm out of there, but this was different. His lips were like magnets, drawing mine, until I lost myself in kissing him.
When at last we lay together, sated and complete, he closed his eyes, and I thought that he had fallen asleep until I stirred. As he opened his eyes again to gaze at me, I knew that this was the final moment of my dream. I kissed him once again, deep and hard, and then walked out. It was the hardest thing I've ever done.
"Alex? Alex, can I borrow your car keys?"
You know about the things that happened. You know what I did. My heart leapt to the sound of my name, even as my conscience derided me.
"Why, where are you going?"
Not the brightest thing I could have said, but I was thinking on my feet of clay. Even as I prevaricated, he was insisting, "There's someone I've got to see."
"Yeah," I said. "But we're scheduled at O.P.C..." Inside, I was screaming, no! Don't! Give me one more day.
"I know, just give me the car keys please." Implacable fate. He never would compromise.
As I handed him the keys to my car, I could feel my resolve slipping away. I stood and watched him leave, knowing that I should chase after, tell him everything. The Cigarette Smoking Man's words came back to me, "You have no rights, only orders to be carried out. If that doesn't suit, we'll make other arrangements." Well did I know the arrangements that he would make, and yet, I thought, I have to do something.
"I love you," I murmured to the empty air. Then I turned to go back to my apartment and gather together the proof that was going to convince my beloved of the plot against him. "I would forfeit all my lives to get just one right for you."
I left the Hoover building and walked into hell.
They were waiting for me. I didn't know how they... he knew. The bastard must have had a camera in Mulder's apartment. One that I hadn't known about.
And that, as they say, was that. Goodbye Mulder. I knew full well how he'd react to the cigarette butts coupled with my disappearance. The word 'betrayal' would be flashing in his mind like a neon sign.
That was when I decided to just go with the program. It was my own fault, after all. I'd let the smoking bastard seduce me into this in the first place. I'd put off telling Mulder the truth until it was too late.
So, I just went along. I told him I'd been following his instruction - "Gain Mulder's trust" - that was what he'd said. And, I had, to my everlasting shame. Not my fault they'd pulled me out too soon, I told him.
Thought he bought it, too.
I really was a fool. A blind fool. An innocent fool.
But, don't you worry. I'm a survivor.
In the end, it's what I do best.
Innocent from 'Something Like Human' by Fuel
Satan, you know where I lie
Gently I go into that good night
All our lives get complicated
Search for pleasures overrated
Never armed our souls
What the future would hold
When we were innocent
Angels, lend me your might
Forfeit all my lives to get just one right
All those colors long since faded
All our smiles are confiscated
Never were we told
What the future would hold
When we were innocent
This prayer is for me tonight
This far down that line and still ain't got it right
And while confessions not yet stated
Our next sin is contemplated
Never did we know
What the future would hold
Or that we'd be bought and sold
When we were innocent
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