TITLE: Not Enough Love in the
World
NAME: Mik
E-MAIL:
ccmcdoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: M/K
RATING: NC-17. M/K. This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. So, if
you don't like that type of thing - STOP NOW! Forewarned is
forearmed. Proceed with caution. Of course if you have four arms you
can throw caution to the wind.
SUMMARY: A heaping bowl full of schmoop, with a dollop of angst on
top.
ARCHIVE: Only with my permission.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist .
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: This is an AU, very vague spoilers for
multiple episodes, nothing current.
KEYWORDS: story slash angst Krycek Mulder R
DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Alex Krycek, and all other X-Files characters
belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox
Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is
being made from their use. I'd rather say that they really are mine,
but I've been advised to deny everything.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is out of order in the Actual Miles series. It comes after Everyone Knows, which is still languishing on my hard drive. But ... what the hell, it's the holidays.
ADDITIONAL AUTHOR'S NOTES: Idepheus really existed, I just misspelled his name. But ... what the hell, it's the holidays.
ADDENDUM TO ADDITIONAL AUTHOR'S NOTES: Tommy's Burgers is a culinary landmark in Los Angeles. Everything on the menu consists of grease, sodium and sesame seeds -- even the coffee. Somehow you don't seem to care when you're burning your lip on chili cheese fries at two in the morning. I don't think they have them in Virginia, but ... what the hell, it's the holidays.
If you like this, there's more at https://www.squidge.org/3wstop If you didn't like it, come see me, anyway. Pet the dog.
Not Enough Love In the World
by Mik
Two men should not watch Shakespeare In Love, regardless of their
sexual orientation, unless there is at least one female present to
absorb the sticky sentimentality.
Unfortunately, we did not know this and when, on a rainy Saturday afternoon we found ourselves desperate for diversion (after all, we were too tired for more sex and the neighbors complained the last time we played football ...) we caved in and watched the video Scully had lent me over a year ago.
Slumped on my sofa, our feet propped carefully on the coffee table amid several dead Coronas, we sloshed our way through Paltrow and Feinnes and thees and thous and lofty prose. I'd had nearly all I could take when I heard him sigh next to me.
"Yeah, it's getting a bit thick, isn't it?" I agreed, before sending a look his way.
His expression surprised me. Rather than looking ready to hurl at the next profession of their doomed love, he looked almost ... wistful.
I nudged him, snickering.
He sighed again, a strange low sound of dismay and disapproval. "Straight couples do romance better," he said, but not as if he was talking to me, more as if he was informing the world at large, and wanting to know what the world was going to do about it.
I snickered again.
He glared at me.
"What?" I demanded in wounded innocence. "I'm not romantic?"
He gave me a very direct look. "You couldn't be romantic if you tried." He sat forward and fumbled for the remote. "And that surprises me. You always seemed so sensitive." He gave the remote a poke and the television went silent. "But you're not, not really. Not about anyone else."
"Hey, that hurts!" I protested, but he ignored me, struggling to stand. I gave him a little push and helped him to his feet.
He looked back at me. "Okay. Say something romantic."
"I ..." I faltered in the intense green heat of his eyes. "What? You mean like that?" I pointed to the darkened screen.
He began to collect empty beer bottles. "You don't always need to quote Shakespeare." He shrugged. "Besides, with you, I'd really expect some obscure poet from the fifteenth century, who died in prison for writing love letters to another man's wife."
"Idepheus."
"What?"
"Greek poet, but it was the fourteenth century and he --"
He made one of those Charlie Brown `I can't stand it' groans and went into the kitchen. A moment later, he returned. "Mulder ... do you love me?"
My breath stilled in my lungs and then came out in a protracted sigh that sounded something like a death rattle. "Umm ... Fiddler on the Roof?" I responded in an unnaturally high voice.
His mouth sort of hung open for a moment. "What?"
"Do You Love Me ... wasn't that a song in Fiddler on the Roof?" I waited a minute. He wasn't smiling. "Wasn't that what you meant?"
"No." He reached for the last couple of bottles.
"What was the question?" I asked, stalling.
He shot me a dark look. "Fuck you."
"I would love to." I touched my chest. "But after this morning and last night ..." I could see he was really getting pissed at me. I decided I'd better lower the shields. "Well, in answer to your question ... um ... yeah, I love you, Krycek." I paused, coughing slightly. "Um ... Alex." The incredible thing was it was true. It had been true since ... since ... well, probably forever.
"How much?"
"Huh?" Not fair! Don't make me quantify something I can't comprehend.
"How much do you love me?" His gaze was unwavering, unnerving.
I looked away. "Oh, don't go all female on me, Krycek," I complained. "I said it. Isn't that enough?"
"Is it?" He took the empties back to the kitchen.
I followed him because I almost felt as if those two words were a lead and collar. "What are you getting at? I love you. I said it. What else do you need to know?"
He was neatly lining up the bottles on the counter. "We're in a very difficult and dangerous relationship. It would be nice to know you love me enough not to toss me to the wolves if things get too dicey."
Good point. "Well, yeah, sure. That goes without saying."
He turned around and looked at me, very directly, pinning me to the doorframe. "Just this once, say it."
"I love you ... a lot." I shot him a helpless look. "I love you ..." I looked around and saw the Don Henley CD case on the table. I flicked over the song titles in my memory. "There's not enough love in the world to express how much I love you," I finished triumphantly.
He snatched up the CD case and shook it at me. "That's NOT what that song's about, Mulder."
"Well ..." I was stumped. I was never good at this kind of thing. In fact, I have always been notorious for not saying the right things. "Just because that song isn't about how much I love you, doesn't mean the sentiment is wrong."
"Love isn't a sentiment, Mulder. It's not an emotion, it's not a feeling. It's ... it's ... a state of being."
"Oh ... kind of like Ohio?" I held up my hands. "Okay, okay ... I'm sorry. I'm just not any good at this kind of thing. I'm not romantic, you're right. I'm not a poet. I'm a scientist. I just know facts. The fact is ... I love you."
His expression softened slightly. "It stopped raining," he told me. "Wanna' play some basketball?"
"Who are you and what happened to the Love Judge just standing here?" I demanded.
"You made your point, Mulder," he said, going to the closet and digging out our jackets. "You're not romantic. Wanting you to be won't make it so." He tossed the basketball at me.
It gnawed at me all the way over to the schoolyard. There had never been anything that I wanted to do that I couldn't figure out eventually, why was this so hard? Why was it so hard to expose myself to him, to anyone? And why couldn't I find the words? Words have always been my stock in trade. I should be able to come up with some flowery little expression to convey my feelings for him. But nothing would come.
I played halfheartedly. Ordinarily I could wipe the asphalt with his butt. Not this time. I kept starting sentences that began `I love you like ...' and stalling. Angrily, I let the ball fly, and missed the netless hoop by a foot.
"Sloppy, sloppy," Krycek crowed. He handled the ball with surprising skill, given he had only one usable hand. That's why I'd never cut him any slack on the court. Dribbling around me almost tauntingly, he asked, "Mulder ... do you love me more than pizza?"
"Oh, waaaaaay more than pizza," I assured him.
"Do you love me more than a super deluxe everything on it, double pepperoni pizza?"
"Oh, well ... hmmm ..."
He checked me with his shoulder as he rushed the hoop and sank one effortlessly.
"Ow," I protested, rubbing my shoulder. "Yes, yes ... more than a super deluxe everything on it with double pepperoni."
"Do you love me more than cereal?" he asked, chucking the ball at me hard.
"Yes," I answered confidently. "I can say without hesitation, I love you more than cereal." I let the ball go, and again, missed by a mile.
He caught the ball before it hit the wet pavement. "Even Lucky Charms?"
"With or without the moons?"
"Bastard," he said distinctly and twisted around to hook the ball over his shoulder and through the hoop.
I hit him right in the middle of his back, and pulled the ball out of his reach. "I love you more than life itself," I said solemnly.
He was just about to roll his eyes at my pithy remark when he narrowed them instead. "Even Cinnamon Life?"
I grinned at him.
He responded with his middle finger. And charged for the ball. "I love you more than Tommy's chili cheese fries."
I held it up over my head. "I love you more than ... my first cup of coffee in the morning."
"Wow!" he said with feeling. "I love you more than ... vodka shots on a cold night."
I shot from the side of the key and it sank through the hoop with a metallic whine. "I love you more than ice cream on a rainy day."
He was in my face, the ball in his hands before the hoop stopped reverberating. "I love you more than new car smell."
"I love you more than new gun smell," I countered.
"I love you more than ..." He let go of the ball with a grunt. "... fresh cut grass, apples in autumn and nickel jukeboxes in diners."
I knocked him out of the way and pulled the ball down when it banged against the backstop. "I love you more than Christmas trees."
He charged me. "I love you more than champagne at midnight on New Year's Eve."
I skipped out of his way and let the ball sail over his head. "I love you more than chocolate melting on my tongue after hot coffee."
He jumped and tipped it away from the hoop. "I love you more than driving with the top down on a summer day," he grunted as he hit the ground.
"I love you more than ..." I stopped, helpless. Overwhelmed.
"Yeah?" He was practically dancing in front of me, his eyes bright, his cheeks flushed, his breath little puffs of mist trailing up over his wild hair. "What, Mulder? What's the most fantastic, memorable feeling you've ever had?"
I paused for a moment. "I love you more than our first kiss," I answered.
"Ohhhh ..." It was all he could say but suddenly I felt more powerful, more brilliant, more talented, more ... more shakespeare than Shakespeare. I felt ... romantic.
I picked up the ball that had slipped from his hands. "Let's go home."
Later that night, while he slept, I climbed out of bed and found the Don Henley CD he had given me. I pulled out the lyric sheet and read it. He was right. That's not what that song was about. But the song was about us. Our relationship was just as doomed as Paltrow and Feinnes. An impossible situation. And there's not enough love in the world to make it right.
- END -