I wake from the dream, again, not so much coming fully awake as sliding into the
night like a pool of warm water. I blink, once, twice, and when I raise my hands
to my face they come away wet. So, again, and who is here to hold my head, to
chase away the ghosts of an endless night?
No one. No one at all.
And so I stand, feeling the light fall breeze pass in through the open bedroom
window and raise light goosebumps on my naked body, and I want very much—very
much—to cry. But I don't, I swallow the feeling like some new and exotic
poison and stoop, drawing on a thin pair of white cotton boxer shorts and a pair
of black jeans. Into the bathroom, passing the thin green of the digital clock
on the microwave that reads 2:14 a.m., and when I slick back my hair and raise
my dripping face my eyes are red. Good, crazy Mulder, crazy fucking Mulder.
Chasing ghosts. Chasing dreams. Chasing eternity, always, forever, reassurance.
Love.
Lies.
Sleep is impossible, so it is a black leather jacket over my bare chest and
outside, lacing up my black boots before the door. The night is cold and I
shudder, as much in internal pain as outside chill. This feeling is too big to
contain; empty schoolyards, basketball courts, the lonely sound of an engine on
the highway at 3 a.m. There is nothing left for me, not Samantha, not "the
truth"—we are all, all of us, players. Greater men than I have said it. The
task is staying alive once you know you're useless. Keeping going, trying to
find a reason, a justification, a purpose. Does someone love you? Do you love
them? It only takes a second, a moment, to lose something that you thought was
forever.
What is it? Is it existential angst? Or something less noble, the feeling that I
died over there in Tunguska but I'm still breathing, and if God was going to put
me through that, bring me back, that there damn well better be a reason? What
child have I saved, since I've been "alive"? Who have I stood in the way of,
stood up to? And yet it's not even that, it's merely a huge blackness, something
swelling, rising in me that nothing can contain. A becoming.
I light a cigarette—a habit I've picked up again, for better or worse—and
lie back, looking at the stars. They're beautiful, really, and to quote someone
from a long time ago, I never really take the time to look at them anymore.
Great vastness, power, everything beyond our imaginings. Breathing out cigarette
smoke and turning my head, I can see the new mill, with its flashing lights to
ward off aircraft and its huge, dark bulk against the sky. Purple smoke and
light, flaring, and I think of Spender and Dad and their alien invasion, and I
wonder: Did they ever, ever , really think that it would be so close? The end
of the world, the flaming sky, smoke and fire. Did you ever see an abandoned
baseball field, little league, set against a backdrop of smoke and fire and
orange light? Imagine the juxtaposition. The end of the world, in technicolor,
and it was me , the prodigal son, that was supposed to stand in the way of
that. Who was supposed to "fight the future". But tonight, with the dream still
so fresh, I see myself as nothing but meat. Meat for the machine. Little Fox,
what can I do? Can I stop it? Can I die with dignity? I am afraid, so very
afraid, of being alone. That is my worst nightmare, and what might be
different if people knew?
Cigarette clenched between my teeth, I shake off the urge to put my fist through
the window and slam back into the house, forgetting the hour and the neighbors.
I smash my way into the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and things go flying
every which way—razors tumbling into the sink, toothpaste. I ignore everything
- what I want is on the top shelf. I grab it and storm into the living room,
fumbling with the radio until I have my cassette player on and going full blast.
To drown out the voices.
"One—nothing wrong with me... something's got to give... let the bodies
hit the floor..."
Back into the bathroom, under the stark glaring fluorescents, and I have opened
the box and am smearing my face with white greasepaint; turning myself into a
walking corpse. Over and over, smearing out the lines, laying it on thick, and
when my greasy hands have finished they toss the box to the floor and reach for
the tube of black lipstick. I had these things before, when I went to confront
Kolyai, had them for image's sake but now they are survival. I am thinking about
nothing except death, and sex, and the invasion, God fucking damn it. The
invasion. Their invasion.
When I am finished my hands are filthy but I don't bother to wash them; instead
I take a final drag on the cigarette and look at myself in the mirror. The
walking crow, crazy fucking Mulder. The undead. Face white as a corpse's, a
clown's, black lined mouth and eyes like a zombie in a movie. Only this isn't a
movie.
"I say I'm dead... and I move."
I walk into the center of the room and the feeling is everything, and I can feel
myself getting hard, pulsing, so I spread my arms and arch my head back,
screaming to the room and the night and the ghosts of everything past:
"HERE I AM!! COME AND GET ME!! I AM BILL MULDER'S SON, HERE I AM, COME THE
FUCK FOR ME!!"
The door rattles and I jump in spite of myself; I knew he was coming, knew it,
so why should I jump? I move behind the door, and when it swings open I leap
behind him and get an arm around his throat, slamming the door and dragging him
into the darkness before he can get his good arm up and to his gun. He is fast
and good—damned good—but I have the edge and the element of surprise.
"...what..?" he begins.
I let him go and he stands in the center of the room, staring at me. I know that
look, and I wait.
"Mulder, Jesus," Krycek says. "What the hell have you done to yourself?"
"...why?"
"You look... dangerous." He licks his lips. "You look hot. Like a... like
a black panther that's broken its chain."
"Costumed, Alex," I tell him. "It's the end of the world."
"You crazy fucking..."
He doesn't have a chance to finish. In a moment I have leapt at him, across the
room, and in one motion I am on my knees in front of him and my Colt .45 is
jammed into his stomach. I hear him curse softly in Russian, but he doesn't push
me away. I can tell I am smearing makeup on the front of his black jeans, but I
don't care—I can feel him stiffening, his dick pushing against the front of
his jeans and throbbing urgently. I brush my lips across it, tugging, breathing
into his crotch, and I whisper:
"Do me, Alex. It's the end of the world—fucking do me. Do me hard ."
He doesn't need a second invitation.
In a rustle and a whirlwind of motion I am on the floor and his mouth is at my
neck, kissing, nipping, and he has pulled my jacket off and pushed my gun aside.
I feel him sliding out of his jeans, tugging at mine, and suddenly I am naked,
bent over the couch in the dark, on my knees and waiting for him. Like a
supplicant. Submitting.
"Fucking do me," I hiss. "What are you waiting for?"
"All this, I seek, I find I push the envelope to the line, make it, break it,
take it..."
His body is hot, his muscles hard, and he shoves my legs apart and hovers over
me, panting. "Mulder, Mulder, crazy fucking Mulder," he mutters. "Oh, God, Jesus
Christ." I feel the tip of his dick against my ass, teasing, and then suddenly
in one motion he thrusts into me. It is hard, and hot, and I scream without
words, scream like the end of the world. He pulls back and then he finds a
rhythm, sliding into me, slamming, and with each thrust I scream again, his
name, curses, muttered obscenities between my teeth. There is no lubricant and
he is going hard and it hurts, and I hear myself telling him to hurt me, hurt me
more , go harder , don't stop . Again, and again, in and out and then deeper
still and I howl until my throat is raw, feeling him convulse against me and
suddenly the black hole is gone, swirling, gone in a rush of pleasure and pain
so great it wipes everything from my mind except the throbbing, aching orgasm. I
hear Alex grunt against me, and then go slack.
"Crazy fucking Mulder," he whispers.
I roll over, a foot or two of carpet separating us, and look at him. God, he is
beautiful, and I catch my breath and realize that I am crying.
Alex. Dear Alex, beating me out of myself. Hurting me. Taking me. Letting it
all go.
My eyes are wet, smeared with black like a cartoon nightmare. And inside is
raging, raging, and a sorrow too deep for words, too deep for death. I roll
over, my body damp, and the black heaviness of my Colt .45 slides into my hand
like the kiss of an angel. I squeeze the grip, open my hand and close it again.
And then I raise the gun.
"I love you, Alex," I say, softly, so softly. "It's all coming down."
He looks at me, still breathing hard, his eyes suddenly wide and more naked than
he'd ever have wanted them to be. God, he's beautiful, like his own black
panther, too slick and too good. Too brilliant and too handsome. Flame and fire
and the end of the world, flames on the baseball field and dying children. He's
too good. Too good for that. Inside me is a black hole, dark, raging, swallowing
everything. Invading .
"Mulder..." Krycek begins, moving toward me, but too slowly, too slowly. He
knows, I think, he knows, God.
"Resist or serve, Alex," I say. "It's over ."
And I pull the trigger. The explosion is deafening in the tiny room.
The moment
I come back to myself sprawled against the couch, my legs spread, my naked body
splattered with crimson droplets. Black and white and red all over, and who is
the joke on this time? I just killed Alex Krycek. I think of the way he
moves, the way his body felt against mine. Meeting him in the alley, the
bathroom in Hong Kong. All the times, all the times I saw his eyes in the
mirror. Everything I wanted, everything I always wanted and couldn't have. I
saved him, really, I saved him from Tunguska, I saved him from Kolyai and I
saved him, damn it, from the end of the world. He will be remembered. Walk-ins.
Alex fucking Krycek, the beautiful god of sex and guns and death. The man who
made me an orphan. I loved him.
I roll my head back and pick up the gun from where it lies, and whisper my
goodbyes to Alex, to life, to my father. To Scully. Resist or serve. The black
hole is everywhere, swallowing everything, and it has all swirled into a kind of
peace. I can't live, now, of course, my God, my Christ, I've done it. I've
saved them. There is nothing more I can do.
The gun in my mouth, God, I loved him, and I taste gun oil and the splatters of
his blood. I am Bill Mulder's son, and here is where I save myself. I am only
human, after all. Sweaty and slick, naked, I lie there and close my eyes. Flames
and fire, and what else is beyond? Something better. I know it. I learned it
from Samantha.
I hear nothing more.
Costumed
by Fox Mulder
"Memories overtaking me
I try to face them but
The thought is too much to conceive..."
moment
the moment draws
the moment draws out forever
and forever
and ever
and ever.
"I can see it in my mind—
I can see it in their eyes
It's close enough to touch it now
but far away enough to die
...click, click—
boom."
