Lazarus And The Boogeyman

0. Previously -- Advice to be ignored

Mulder and Frohike sat in Frohike's favorite bar. Mulder was drinking house whiskey and Frohike was drinking Jim Beam.

"You think about things too much," Frohike said. "What you need is to get laid. Just not with your new partner."

"I don't think getting laid will solve any of my problems. And I didn't realize you even knew I had a new partner."

"I have my sources," Frohike said. "But that's beside the point. Getting laid makes everything better. Just don't fuck your coworkers, even if they do look like the delectable Agent Scully."

Mulder laughed. "I don't think it's going to be an issue. I'm pretty sure Agent Scully doesn't like me very much."

"Just remember what I said." Frohike finished his bourbon and ordered another. "Don't fuck your coworkers. It'll all end in tears."

"Yeah, I hear you, man," Mulder said, and promptly put the conversation out of his mind.

Don't feel too sorry for him. He was warned.

1. In the beginning -- the first time with Alex

There was no thought, no self, no other. The first time was all about needs fulfilled and desires granted. Mulder doesn't remember the awkward moments clearly, though he knows that they were there; buttons catching and zippers getting stuck. They aren't important now, weren't important then.

Clothes were discarded or just moved aside for questing fingers and lips. Modesty was a joke. They reveled in each other's bodies, glutting on expanses of taut skin stretched over hard muscle and bone. It was all new and shiny and exciting. Beautiful. Wicked.

Mulder had wallowed in the wrongness/rightness of it all, falling prey to the old cliché of "you only want what you can't have." Even in hindsight the memory is still tinged with the purple and gold and red of lust. Simple lust with no complications like should or shouldn't have.

Skin on skin. Teeth biting sweetly on his thighs. Tongue lapping at his balls. The musty smell of Alex and the salty taste of pre-come in his mouth. Hands stroking ribs/arms/legs/stomach/cock/ass in dizzying waves of sensation.

It's hard to keep it all straight. The feeling is easier to recall, more than the actual events. It was perfect. It was unique. It was magic. It was the beginning, and all beginnings are this way. Then reality intrudes.

2. What came next -- fear and loathing in D.C.

Hating the man you want so much it hurts is a bad situation to be in. Scully was gone. He wanted to kill Krycek. He wanted to fuck Krycek. He wanted to die.

When Krycek showed up in his car, gun in hand, Mulder couldn't stop his heart from leaping traitorously in his chest. He looked at the face before him and tried to feel only contempt, but the face was connected with too much that he still wanted.

"Get the fuck out of my car, Krycek," he said.

"We've got business tonight," Krycek said. Did his gaze flicker to Mulder's lips, or was that just his imagination?

"I don't want to hear a goddamned thing out of your liar's mouth." And stop looking at my mouth.

But Krycek wouldn't shut up. He kept up his cryptic bullshit until Mulder began to wonder if Krycek was giving him a warning about something. But what? Scully was gone. His golden boy was a wolf in sheep's clothing. He was lost.

Mulder leaned his head against the head-rest and closed his eyes. "Cut the shit, Krycek. Just spit out whatever you're trying to tell me before I kill you."

He felt the barrel of the gun caress his jawbone. "That's an empty threat if ever I heard one."

Not opening his eyes, Mulder moaned, "Jesus Christ, just leave me the fuck alone."

He heard a whispered, "Not yet," before the cold gun barrel was replaced with warm lips.

Mulder jerked away. "Stop it."

A hand went to his lap and felt for his dick, already half hard. Krycek's sigh feathered Mulder's cheek. Mulder's erection grew under the clever hand, and didn't falter when he felt a cold "o" of metal on his throat. "Don't think I won't pull the trigger."

But Mulder didn't think he would. That would end the game, and there was so much more to be played.

3. Later -- hard clichés in the parking garage

Hate is the flip side of love. Pain is close to pleasure. These are truisms that Mulder learned the veracity of over the years. Hate and love battled for supremacy within him, but passion remained constant. He and Krycek made love with fists and fingers and teeth and lips. Sometimes he just couldn't keep his hands off of Krycek, and hitting him was the only outlet he had. You took what you could get and ran with it.

Pain is so close to pleasure.

Mulder knew the taste of Krycek's blood from kissing his lacerated lips. He learned from hard experience that human bites take forever to heal. Krycek seemed to never be at a true disadvantage; his boots were hard and his teeth sharp. Being with him was like trying to date a shark. Bloody and painful and exhilarating.

(hate you love you want you hate you)

One night he found Krycek in the Hoover Building's parking garage, skulking, obviously up to no good at all. Mulder had seen red and charged the other man, pushing him against a concrete pillar. He shoved Krycek's face into the rough surface. "How dare you show your face here."

"Fuck you, Mulder. This doesn't concern you."

"You concern me. I should turn you in right now."

"But you won't," Krycek said, trying to sound sure of himself and not quite succeeding.

No. Maybe there were better ways to make him pay. Self-serving ways. Selfish ways. One of Mulder's hands dropped to Krycek's hip and stayed there, caressing roughly through denim. Krycek moaned.

"I want you," Mulder said.

Krycek moaned again, the helpless, hopeless sound a drowning man would make before succumbing to the waves.

"Be my whore, Krycek, and I'll let you leave." The words left a slick, ashy taste in his mouth.

Krycek grunted and undid the button of his jeans and unzipped them. Then he braced himself with head and hands against the concrete. Mulder buried his nose in the crook of Krycek's neck and breathed him in. (still my boy my golden boy always mine) "Mine," he grunted.

"Fuck you," snarled Krycek. "Just get it over with." His fingers curled against concrete.

"Mine," Mulder breathed again against Krycek's damp fragrant skin. His hand stole into Krycek's open fly and fumbled for his cock. It was hard, bless the fucker. Oh yeah. Yeah.

"I hate you," Krycek groaned.

"I hate you, too."

Pain is so close to pleasure.

4. And then -- conversations with a killer

There were some secrets he couldn't share with Scully, so he found himself talking to Krycek in between the fighting and fucking. He was somewhat surprised to find a brain he enjoyed under the layers of sex and lust and hate and disgust.

Life really wasn't fair. You shouldn't like your enemies. There should be a law of some sort, he often thought. The All Enemies of Mulder Must Be Unredeemable Law. Right. It would make things so much easier. It's hard to hate someone that you like. Much harder than hating someone you love.

Farmers chat about crops and the weather. Pimps discuss cops and pussy. Mulder and Krycek discussed death. Talking with him was like sharing with a colleague. It was so easy to slip into a comfortable zone. Too easy. Sometimes Mulder forgot his lover was a killer, traitor, and thief.

"Will you miss me when I'm dead?" Alex asked in a shared Moscow hotel room.

"I'll see you in hell," Mulder replied, staring at a crack in the ceiling. "Christ, I'll be waiting there for you. No way you're beating me there."

Krycek blocked his line of sight, the gentle smile on his face belying his razor sharp soul. "You think so?"

"You're the poster boy for Nietzsche, Krycek. You'll outlast us all."

Mulder shoved at Krycek and Krycek shoved back. After a swift struggle, his lover (his enemy) emerged as victor. He hovered above Mulder, eye to eye, nose to nose, lips to lips. "You think so."

"Can't kill the boogeyman," Mulder said.

"Good answer," said, Krycek, grinding against Mulder's hard cock.

It was hard to remember the poison that ran in Krycek's veins. It was so much easier to close his eyes and slip into a sex-drugged stupor.

Three days later, Krycek sold him out in Tunguska. Then Mulder, furious, and worse than that, betrayed, had returned the favor and left Krycek for dead. Instead, that fucker, who was apparently unkillable, had lost his arm and not his life. He was now a one armed assassin, like in The Fugitive. It should have been funny, but it wasn't. Not at all.

When he finally saw Krycek after the Russian fiasco, he ended up kissing the ugly stump with lips bloodied by Krycek's fist.

'I deserved that,' he thought after the first blow.

'I didn't deserve it that much,' he concluded after the fifth.

After the sixth, he punched Krycek back, which was what the son of a bitch had wanted in the first place. They fought, then they fucked, and it was like old times. Sprawled in each other's arms on the floor, covered in each other's blood, both grinned.

"I hate you," Mulder said, feeling an illicit contentment.

"I hate you, too," Krycek said, and brought Mulder's head down yet another lazy kiss.

4. Sometime after that -- Lazarus wakes up

Mulder woke from death with the taste of Krycek on his tongue. Odd, because when he looked around, he wasn't in the hospital room. Just Scully, his sweet hard Scully, and it was not her kiss that he tasted.

Scully fussed over him and tried to get him to talk about his experience, but he couldn't do it. His not-death was still too raw in his veins. He told her what he could to satisfy her and to get her to leave him alone; that it was like he had been sleeping, and now he was awake. She seemed content with that, for which Mulder was grateful.

Besides, she had more on her mind than just his sorry ass. There was the baby, her baby, supposedly their baby. Mulder had his doubts. Being not-alive then alive again, or dead then not-dead (was there a correct terminology? Scully would know, but he didn't want to ask) tended to make a body cynical and untrusting. Knowing one hundred percent that there were no pearly gates waiting to welcome him into a heavenly afterlife made Mulder naturally distrustful of miracles. If there is no God, then where do they come from?

Mulder found, for the first time in his life (not- death) that he didn't care to know the answer to that question. Not one little bit. Not with Scully curving her hand around her miraculously pregnant belly in that unconsciously possessive way.

"It's our baby," she said. "Isn't that wonderful?"

Mulder made himself smile and not shudder. It took a great deal of effort. More than anyone would understand.

Well, maybe one person would perhaps understand, and Mulder could almost still taste him. Krycek. Would Krycek come, talking razors while looking at him with those warm, glowing eyes? He needed that combination of disregard and obsession, needed it badly, and Scully was not able to give it to him.

Later, when all his friends had blessedly left him alone, he fell asleep, this time into a real sleep with no dreams. When he woke, his room was dark, but nevertheless he knew that he was no longer alone.

"Welcome back to the world, Lazarus," he heard Krycek say as he stepped out from the shadows.

"Did you miss me?" Jesus, it was good to see Krycek again. Too good. Dangerously good. Mulder felt like a junkie being handed a baggie of the good stuff. His heart pounded in his chest and the heart monitors strapped to him picked up the beat.

Krycek glanced at the monitors as he walked toward Mulder's bed, giving them a smug smile. Then he said, "Fuck no."

"Thought as much. Who did that to your lip?"

"Jealous?" Krycek smirked, then grimaced as the cut on his lip split and started to bleed.

"Fuck no," Mulder said. He fell effortlessly into their old pattern of speech: thrust, parry, riposte.

"It was Scully's new partner, and he's one hard son of a bitch. He hung onto my car for far too long."

"Okay, maybe now I am jealous." Mulder smiled, in spite of himself.

"You should be. He punches much harder than you do."

The two of them fell silent and just looked at each other.

"Don't do that to me again," Krycek finally said. "It was a lot of work bringing you back."

"Then it wasn't the anti-virals Scully threw into my system?"

Krycek pulled a face. "Don't be stupid." His hand reached out, hesitated, then stroked Mulder's hair.

"I wouldn't have gotten on that ship if you hadn't have practically pushed me onto it."

Krycek's face clouded but he kept his hand on Mulder's hair. "We do what we have to do. You know that."

"And bringing me back, was that something you had to do, too?" Despite his efforts, Mulder's voice cracked in the middle of the question.

Krycek tightened his grip on Mulder's hair, then leaned down to give him a lingering kiss. "With you dead, there was no one decent to fuck," he said, as if that was all the answer anyone needed.

Maybe it was.

5. And then some -- baby blues

The beginning of the end was an argument, one that didn't go the way one might have expected. It started with a simple question.

"What are you going to do about Scully's baby?" Mulder asked. He both anticipated and feared the answer.

Krycek gave him an odd look. "Not much, I guess. I didn't receive an invite to the baby shower."

"No, not that," Mulder snapped in irritation, not liking Krycek's flippancy. This was hard enough without that to contend with. "Scully's on cloud nine about the whole thing and I don't want to be the one to rain on her parade, but I'm worried about the child."

That was an understatement. Scully was sure her baby was a miracle, and didn't want to question it. Mulder thought it far more likely that the pregnancy was of a more extraterrestrial nature, wrought by all too human hands. Scully didn't want to hear about his theories, however, and Mulder soon learned to keep them to himself if he wanted to keep the peace with her. Nevertheless, someone had to understand. He had counted on that person being Krycek, but now it seemed like that, too, was a false hope. Still, he persisted. If he could make anyone understand his fears, it would be this man, who had seen more than any person Mulder knew of, and still remained sane.

"I think that Scully's pregnancy had some help, and I don't think that it was God," Mulder continued.

"It takes two to tango, Mulder. I thought you were once half of that dance couple."

Mulder scowled. "I've done the math. It doesn't add up."

Krycek laughed. "So that's why you're pissed off. You don't think you're the daddy. You think it's Skinner?"

"Very funny. Look, if Skinner had gotten Scully pregnant, I'd be happy for her. It's just that she keeps insisting that I'm the father, says she has blood tests to prove it, but to the best of my knowledge, that isn't possible."

"Are you sure?"

Mulder glared at Krycek. "I'm sure. Well, pretty sure."

"Let me guess," Krycek said. "You think it's a scary alien baby sent to take over the earth."

Mulder scowled. "Don't trivialize this."

"I'm not. It's just that I've been where you are, about three months ago, when you were still six feet under. I've passed beyond that stage." Krycek gave him a peaceful, yet somehow smug, smile.

"Into insanity?"

"No, my friend, into acceptance. We don't know what the kiddo will bring, but there's no point worrying about it until it happens. And if you whack Scully's kid, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

"Bullshit."

Krycek raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"You've got an angle here, don't you?"

"An angle. I guess you could put it that way."

"I knew it." Mulder felt cold assurance worm its way through him. "You know that baby's special, and not in a good way, and you're going to use it somehow."

"Actually," Krycek said, "I was going for the 'don't let the asshole kill the baby' angle. I'm not a big fan of baby murder."

"That's not what Skinner told me."

Krycek gave Mulder a disgusted look. "I was jerking his chain. I would have thought you'd have the brains to figure that out, Mulder. Skinner, no. But you..." Krycek shook his head and tsked.

"I find it hard to believe there are any depths to which you won't sink, Krycek."

"Fuck you, Mulder." Krycek seemed genuinely pissed now. Morally outraged, even.

Mulder found himself unexpectedly on unsure ground. Krycek seemed to be taking the high road. It would behoove him to follow suit, but Mulder wasn't in a particularly cooperative mood. Especially not with Saint Krycek lounging on his couch, trying 'holier than thou' on for size and seeming to like it. This was not the way this conversation was supposed to have gone and Mulder didn't appreciate it one bit.

"I don't trust you," he said.

"There's a fucking shock," Krycek retorted.

"You've got some sort of ulterior motive here, Krycek. There has to be some reason you're fighting me on this."

"Look, I'm an assassin, but I haven't stooped to killing babies yet."

"Yet," Mulder agreed, goaded in his irritation with Krycek to thrust right back.

"Fuck you. Think about this instead of having a knee jerk 'the alien abomination must die' kinda attitude."

"I can't put the whole human race in danger because of sentimental reasons."

"Jesus Christ, Mulder. And you say I'm cold blooded. Do you really think Scully's unique? There've been dozens of babies already born that are like hers and the world is still spinning. Can you really believe that one child would tip the balance?"

"Scully believes that one child was born and changed the entire world," Mulder said quietly, playing the Jesus card without a trace of remorse.

"Right," said Krycek. "Two seconds ago you said it wasn't God. Now you're hinting that it is. Make up your fucking mind. This isn't religion class. This is real life. Get a grip on reality. You're not going to kill that child."

"You're a fool, Krycek. Or maybe you have your own agenda. You told me that Spender's dead. That means you'd be heir to the evil empire, wouldn't it?"

Krycek threw up his arm in disgust. "What empire? It all fell down like a house of cards while you were taking your dirt nap. There's no goddamned conspiracy. There're just little machines here and there that haven't figured out yet to shut down."

"This is a machine I can shut down," Mulder said.

"Forget it. Forget I said a fucking word. But don't come crying to me, drunk off your ass and miserable, because Scully's cut your balls off in revenge for her baby. I wash my hands -- excuse me, hand -- of the whole thing."

Then he stormed off and Mulder was left with his worries and anxieties and a case of beer. One by one he drank them all, growing more sullen with each sip. He threw each emptied can, with steadily decreasing aim, at his TV screen, pretending it was Krycek's face.

Asshole.

6. The end -- in tears

Mulder sped toward Scully and tried to keep his mind blank, but images kept intruding.

A gunshot.

(Will you miss me when I'm dead?)

Krycek's artificial arm, skittering on the concrete.

(I hate you./ I hate you, too.)

The fallen body.

(It'll all end in tears.)

Mulder refused to cry. He would not cry over Alex Krycek, assassin, traitor, and untrustworthy bastard. Alex Krycek would have sold his mother to the highest bidder. Such men didn't have souls and it was stupid to mourn them.

Right now he had to focus and Scully and the baby and that was it. Hell, that was enough, more than enough. There wasn't room for anything else with all that running through his head. Was Scully okay? Was the baby okay? Did he even want the baby to be okay? Maybe it would be better if the child died at birth. What if it wasn't human? What if...?

Mulder's mind spooled a long stream of possibilities as the helicopter flew to Doggett's hometown of Butt Fuck, Nowhere. It almost worked. Only occasionally did

(Will you miss me when I'm gone?)

slip through.

When he reached Scully, he was initially glad to find the baby looked normal, but was still afraid of what hid under the boy's pink skin. On the flight to the hospital, Scully didn't ask Mulder if he wanted to hold the baby, for which he was grateful.

The obstetrician at the hospital denied his fears (couched in careful questions that nevertheless seemed to puzzle the physician) of the baby's humanity, and something inside Mulder melted and broke free. The baby seemed normal. Maybe there was nothing to worry about, after all.

Just like Krycek had said.

That thought resounded and echoed in Mulder's head, now eased by a decrease in baby-related anxieties. He began to reinterpret Krycek's actions with a feeling of sour horror in the pit of his stomach. Krycek had believed that Mulder wanted to harm Scully's baby. He had tried to keep Mulder from reaching her -- them. Oh, shit. Shit. Krycek had been trying to protect Scully and the baby and even his sorry ass. Fuck. Krycek was dead by Skinner's hand because Mulder had been feeling pissy and had done nothing to stop it.

Dead.

Mulder tried to wrap his brain around that.

Dead. All his fault. Dead.

It was too much.

There had to be some way to make this not be the case. Some way to reverse it. But Mulder saw the hole in Krycek's head replayed in the cinema of his mind, over and over and over.

Jesus Christ.

"Would you like to hold the baby, Mr. Mulder?" a nurse asked.

"What? Yes, of course," Mulder stammered.

It was probably a bad idea. No doubt he would drop the baby out of his numbed arms, and that would be another life he could claim responsibility for. But he took the baby that the nurse held out to him and held him securely. The baby looked up at him with trusting eyes, then yawned hugely and went to sleep.

(It'll all end in tears.)

Frohike had been right. Mulder sat down with the infant asleep in his arms and cried.

The nurse gazed at the small family in the hospital room -- sleeping mother, sleeping son, and crying father -- and smiled at them before leaving the room and softly closing the door.

7. Aftermath -- Lazarus and the boogeyman

Mulder is haunted by his past. Memories plague him as he flees from Scully and William and the normalcy that they represent. Mulder decided long ago that his fate wasn't a normal one and he's not about to change his mind about that now. Besides, there are other considerations.

Mulder is being haunted by more than just his past.

He's been dreaming of fucking and wakes with bite marks and scratches on his skin. Also, despite leaving on the heat before he goes to sleep, the room he wakes to is icy cold and the sheets are damp with semen, but also with what he suspects is ectoplasm. When light touches it, the wetness evaporates instantly.

He asks the hotel manager, but it's clear from the manager's incredulous face that no one had ever complained of room 236, or of any other room in the hotel, being haunted. Not that that is conclusive evidence in and of itself, but Mulder is forced to conclude that it is him and not the hotel when the same thing happens in another hotel in another state two days later.

He has been tempted to call Scully to have her check the X-files for cases of hauntings by incubi, but can't quite bring himself to make the call. It would sound too silly, and besides, he'd have to field Scully's questions about where he is and what he's doing and when he's coming home.

It's too soon to tell her, "No where, nothing, and never," but that's what would come out of his mouth if she were to ask.

Besides, he doesn't exactly want the haunting to stop. He's curious about it from a metaphysical and scientific point of view. Also, it's the best head he's ever gotten. At least since Krycek.

So tonight he waits for the phantom to come. He supposes that it might be a part of his imagination, that the bite marks and scratches might be psychosomatic, but that's the easy, rational explanation. The Scully explanation, if you will. In Mulder's experience, Occam's razor rarely cuts anything.

The man he fucks in his dreams is Alex, still the golden boy with two strong arms, but his eyes are Krycek's, right before the bullet hit his brain. They are dark and have seen too much. The man in his dreams tells him things that have come true on TV.

"There is a war coming," the man has whispers inside his head. "You need to be prepared. I'll help you."

"Why?" his dreaming self asks

"Continuing to live is the price you have to pay, Lazarus."

Mulder falls asleep to that remembered phrase, and doesn't notice when the temperature drops in the room. Spiritual lips kiss cold, sleeping ones. "I'm glad you miss me," a voice whispers silently. The ghost traces spectral fingers over Mulder's face, lingering over his eyes and lips. "You were right. Death sucks. It's hard. Harder than I thought." Mulder moans in his sleep in response to the touch. "I still hate you, Mulder. Do you hate me, too?" Then the ghost slips into Mulder's dream.

"There's a lot I need to tell you," a familiar voice tells him. "There's a lot you still need to do. But first, there's this."

And with arms made solid in Mulder's imagination, he takes Mulder where they both need to go. For the spirit, it is almost like being alive again. For Mulder, it's almost like going home. It's not really enough for either, but for now, it'll do.