Alex sighed. He moved carefully closer to the animal and held his hands out in
front of him. He would have to try to get it out of there, out of his room. Not
even beginning to try and guess how it got in there in the first place, Alex
knew he had to do this as slow as possible, coaxing the animal out from under
the chair. He didn't feel like doing any more chase-and-catch games tonight, all
he wanted was to go to bed, so he would probably have to talk the animal out of
there. But how? How does one actually talk to a dog? He decided he had to try
something, and said, in what he hoped would be a non-threatening way.
"Here, puppy! Come on, let's get you out of here. Come one, co..."
The puppy had back further into the corner as Alex approach, hiding behind the
leg of a chair, and now he sat still and watched Alex approach without making a
sound. The big eyes look frightened, and the whole posture of the little dog
told Alex that it wasn't about to come out of there on his own. He would have to
drag it out.
Bending down towards the leg of the chair, he wondered briefly if the dog would
try to bite him. Animals did that when they where frightened, didn't they?
Humans did too, sometimes.
"Please don't bite me, puppy," he continued to say in the same calming
high-pitched voice. "Because if you bite me, I'd have to shoot you, and I really
don't want to shoot a puppy in my own place. No, I don't, and you don't want
that either, do you?"
This wasn't that hard. You just talked to it like you would to someone who was
too frightened to understand what you said and who you had to calm down by body
language alone. Like most people with a gun to their head acted.
Calm, soothing reassurances. Slow, careful movements. Easy.
He reached the puppy and felt fur against the tip of his fingers. He also felt
the dog tense in every muscle it had. But still it didn't move, and Alex
wondered briefly if it had been running from dangerous hands all of it's short
life. Maybe it was tired of running and had finally lost any desire to do so.
Well, he could sympathize with that. He felt his fingers get a stronger grip on
the tense little body. Now all he had to do was pull it out of there.
That would probably take more cooing. "Okay you," Alex half-sang to the animal
as he started to—slowly—pulling it along the floor out from behind the
chair. "Now let's see what you really look like. It's nothing to be afraid of,
nothing at all. You just..." The puppy was almost all the way out now. "...stay
still and don't bite and none of us will..."
Suddenly, the dog made a loud squeaky sound and both it and Alex jumped two feet
into the air. He lost his grip and the puppy used it's little paws to paddle
across the floor and under the bed as quick as it's little legs could carry it.
When Alex bent down to peer underneath the bed, he saw a trembling body and huge
pleading eyes peer back at him.
He sighed. Deeply.
"Okay," he said softly. "Okay, listen, this is what we will do. I am tired and
you obviously are too, so what do you say we both sleep on this and try to
figure out what to do tomorrow morning? Sounds alright?" The animal's only reply
was to lie down on the dusty floor with its head on its paws and miserable eyes
fixed on Alex. Alex nodded, as if he had just been given an affirmation. "Good.
Well, good night then."
As he went to bed and put out the light, he could hear the dog breathing in the
dark under him.
The next morning Alex got up and made breakfast. For a moment he thought the dog
might have let itself out during the night, but when he bent down to look under
the bed, big and awake eyes met his. He shrugged and finished drinking his
coffee.
The dog stayed under the bed all morning, and when Alex put on his jacket and
shoes, he heard it shuffle around a little on the floor. When he turned his
head, he saw the animal poke its head out and eye him warily.
"That's right," he said, smiling at the sight of the dusty head. "I'm going out.
You behave while I'm gone, okay? No parties or anything." He snickered to
himself. The dog just stared at him, at his lips moving. "And if you need to,
you know, go, you just get your ass back the same way you snuck it in here,
okay? See ya!"
He left. Still smiling to himself.
It was well into the night when he got back. The apartment was pitch dark, but
as he kicked off his shoes he knew he wasn't alone. Years of being on the run
had made him develop an intuition for those things. He had learnt to trust his
own instincts. It was the only way to feel safe. He stopped in his track and
listened for a second. So the dog was still there. Oh well.
He walked trough the apartment in the darkness and into the kitchen. In the
light from the refrigerator he took out butter, ham and a coke, and then began
spreading the butter on a couple of slices of bread.
Suddenly he felt something touch his left leg, and when he looked down the dog
was sitting beside him, nose only inches from Alex's jeans-clad leg. He looked
down at the animal for a couple of seconds, bread in hand, and during those
seconds the dog leant forward again and touched his nose lightly to him.
"Hey..." As soon as he spoke, the dog drew back and hunched down, as if he
expected to be hit. He was obviously still scared, small body all tense and
trembling, but his hunger must have made him braver because he didn't run away
when Alex reached down and held his hand out, two pieces of bread in his palm.
"You hungry, puppy? You want this?"
The dog stiffened, but then it took a step forward and put his nose into Alex's
palm, immediately gulping down the bread. "Yeah, you must be starving. Want
more?"
Alex gave the dog all the bread he had taken out for himself, he didn't feel too
hungry anyway, and when every bit was gone, the dog proceeded to lick his hand
clean from crumbs. Alex couldn't help but smile as the wet tongue tickled him.
"Was that good, huh? I bet it was."
Now he felt how tired he was, and he stretched and yawned. "Okay. Time to go to
bed."
The dog followed him back into the other room and looked at him as he stripped
and got in the bed. Alex turned underneath the warm blanket and met the huge
eyes, still uncertain but at least not starving anymore. He made a decision.
Patting the bed beside him, he said, "Wanna sleep in the bed? Huh? Better than
the floor, isn't it? Come on!"
The dog kept looking up at him, but didn't move. Alex sighed and turned the bed
light off. "Fine. Good night."
He had almost drifted off when he felt the mattress dip and a small fury body
curl up next to him. There was a sniffle and a puff of air on his arm, and he
smiled a little and fell asleep.
The puppy was still in his bed when he woke up the next morning, and he
carefully patted the small head, played a little with the soft ears, and thought
about that.
For the next couple of days, the puppy slept in Alex's bed, ate from Alex's
hand, and licked his hand after every meal. Alex even got a plastic bone that
made squeaky sounds, and watched the puppy play with it for hours on his hard
wooden floor.
One night, he lay awake stroking the puppy's soft fur and listen to it yawn and
make a content sigh, and he thought I have a dog.
Huh.
Crash!
The sound of something breaking and shattering on the floor was heard throughout
the apartment, and then a door slammed shut and there were a couple of thuds, as
if someone was punching something hard a couple of times.
"You fucker!"
"Mulder, I..." Another thud was heard, followed by a painful gasp. And then
another.
"You didn't think I would find you, did you? You little piece of fucking shit!
You low-life cock-sucking scum, I'm gonna..."
"Mulder!"
Alex wasn't sure what had happened. One minute he had been sitting on his bed,
getting ready to get undressed, playing fetch with his dog, and the next he was
on the floor himself, half-leaning against the wall, lips bleeding and head
ringing.
Fox Mulder was standing over him, coat on, hands still clutched in fists,
staring down at him.
Alex swore. He couldn't believe he had let his guard down enough to be caught
like that. And by Mulder of all people. Fuck! This was not good.
"Alex Krycek," Mulder said, as to emphasize Alex's thoughts. "Your ass is mine."
Alex tried to clear his mind, which was no easy task with his head hurting like
that. Was Mulder there to kill him? Put him in jail? Drag him off to Skinner's
apartment again? What?
He saw the look in Mulder's eyes and decided he was there to kill him. "Mulder",
he said, wincing at the pain in his back. "Mulder, I can give you information.
Think about this. I show you what..."
But Mulder wasn't looking at him anymore. He was staring down at the floor,
where Alex now noticed the dog was standing, staring angrily at Mulder, teeth
bare and a low growling continuously coming out from it's throat. Alex thought
dizzily that the little thing probably couldn't scare anything as big and well
armed as Mulder, but felt a sudden happy flash at knowing it would try its best
to. Because of him. Wow, I think I have made a friend in the animal world, he
thought, almost having to suppress a giggle from escaping him as he watched
Mulder carefully take a step closer to the dog, which didn't budge.
The damn dog really loves me, Alex thought. And it's a real brave little fucker
too.
Mulder was standing still on the floor, peering down at the dog, then turning to
look back at Alex's bleeding and crouching form, and asked, "You have a dog,
Krycek?"
Alex had to take a couple of deep, painful breaths before he could answer, his
ribs hurting like hell. "Yeah, you know, for protection from bastards like you."
Mulder gave the small, growling dog another long gaze, then took a step away
from it, holding his hands down in a sort of I'm-backing-off gesture. "Shhh,
doggie, I'm not gonna hurt you."
Alex felt another fit of the giggles threaten to break out. "Hm, well, he seems
to worry more about you hurting me."
Mulder gave him a surprised look, obviously thinking the same thing as he
himself did a few minutes ago. "You actually made a friend, Krycek?"
Alex pulled himself up in a sitting position, leaning his head against the wall
behind him. The side of his head was throbbing now. "Guess so."
Mulder seemed a bit thrown, as if the mere existence of something that cared for
Alex made him forget why he had come to the apartment in the first place. Alex,
feeling tired and not wanting to watch this draw out any longer, couched and
said, "Finish it now, Mulder, so you can get out of here."
Mulder was not looking at him when he absently answered, "I'm in no hurry."
"Well, I am." At this, Mulder finally let the dog go and paid Alex his full
attention. Alex smiled what he knew must be a pathetic smile. His face hurt too.
"Don't make me have to sit and wait for it," he whispered meeting the hard brown
eyes above him. He almost added "please", but decided that no matter what
happened, he would not beg for his own end. He decided he wasn't that pathetic,
after all.
Mulder frowned, stared down at him and didn't seem to know exactly what to do.
He tapped the gun lightly against his leg, frowned some more and shifted his
eyes quickly around the non-furnace room as if looking for something. The gun
swayed a little in his hand. It hung low enough to take up the whole focus of
Alex's eye-span. He began to rethink his earlier decision. About not being
pathetic.
Then Mulder said, in a tone which almost sounded conversational. "So...What's
its name?"
Alex closed his eyes momentarily, wanting the mind numbing pain behind them to
let up for just one second so he could try to make some sense of the situation.
What game was Mulder playing this time? "What?"
"Your friend here? What's it called."
Alex shook his head. "Fuck you."
"That's not a very good name for a puppy."
Alex spat. Repeated the words again, this time in Russian. Mulder raised an
eyebrow and looked down at him curiously.
"You don't want to tell me?"
Alex swallowed, winced and again wanted Mulder to shut the fuck up and just end
it. He was tired. What was Mulder talking about now? Couldn't he see that Alex
was hurting and waiting and could he just get on with it?
Mulder rolled his eyes a little. "Don't tell me it's Fluffy or something!"
"W-what?"
He rolled his eyes some more. Alex felt his face heat up. "It's Alex." He
finally mumbled, trying to wipe some blood off his lower lip at the same time.
It hurt like hell. Mulder snorted beside him.
"You named your dog Alex? Like yourself?"
The tone in his voice just helped to piss Alex off even more. He wasn't sure why
it got to him, what he said, but somehow the idea that he was taunting his dog,
and his decisions about his dog, made Alex see red.
"Yes, his name is Alex and could you fucking drop it and just do what you came
here to do. I have no interest in hearing what name you would give a dog if you
had one."
How could he explain it to Mulder anyway? How do you explain the small pleasure
of hearing your own name spoken aloud a few times every day? Even if it was you
yourself who said it?
Mulder looked at him funny again. When Alex tried to shift so that his ribs
wouldn't hurt so much, he took a step back, as if to give Alex room. Then, when
he wiped at his split lip again, Mulder dug out a handkerchief from his pocket
and handed it to him. Alex took it.
Then Mulder sat down beside him. Looked around the small room once more. Looked
at Alex's dog. Looked at Alex.
Put down his gun.
"So," he said, face blank and expressionless. "You have a dog."
Soft
by Black Coffee
It was a dog. Or rather, a puppy, barely a couple of weeks old by the looks of
it. Soft fluffy (though currently rather dirty) fur and big eyes. A pup. Sitting
in the corner, looking straight at him.
