As we pulled away, the tires screeching on the pavement, so loud in this quiet
neighborhood, I tried hard not to think about what had just happened. About what
Fox Mulder would find when he entered that bathroom. When he saw what had
happened to his father. What I had done.
Luis shot me a glance as I shoved the gun back beneath my jacket with perhaps
more force than was entirely necessary. "Problems?" he asked.
I shook my head and turned to look out the window, tried to slow my breathing.
God, I hated it, hated this. Hated what they made me do, what they had turned me
into. I should have refused when we got here, when Luis told me who the target
was, that Mulder was here—in the house right now, talking to him, talking to
his father—should have taken my gun and shot him instead, the mercenary
bastard, rather than the man I had been sent to kill. Mulder would never forgive
me for this. He would never forget.
He never forgot anything.
But even if I had gotten the drop on Luis there was nowhere for me to go,
nowhere that I would be safe, no place where they couldn't find me in the end. I
lived only on their sufferance now; they provided me with money, with weapons,
with a name and a purpose and a future. Such as it was.
One-handed, Luis pulled out his cell phone and called in as he drove, as he
reported that the goal had been accomplished—terse words, giving away nothing.
No emotion at all. He nodded then, silent for a moment or two, then put the
phone away. He glanced at me, casual to the extreme, before concentrating on the
road again.
"Mulder?" I asked.
His expression didn't change, though somehow I sensed he was annoyed with me.
Or, at the very least, disgusted by my curiosity, my need to ask. "Still at the
house," he said. "Myers will follow him if he leaves." I could almost hear the
unspoken words—not that it's any of your business.
I looked away again, slid down further in the seat and laid my head back. It
wouldn't have taken that much of an effort to kill this man; I had disliked him
on sight. Disliked and distrusted him from the second they put us together. That
he had put us together. Not that it was a far leap to distrust those I worked
with. After all, they distrusted everybody.
It certainly didn't make for much job satisfaction.
Especially in times like these.
I didn't want to kill, but that's what they had me doing these days. Now that my
cover had been blown with the FBI, with Mulder. Cleaning up their messes. Being
their bully-boy. Working in the dark half the time, working for the dark.
Six months since I had last seen Fox Mulder. Since I had been his erstwhile
partner. Since I had slept with him and he had discovered who and what I was and
I had vanished, become one of the faceless, the nameless. Only a finger on the
trigger. Fodder for their endless games.
Six months and then I was sent to kill the man's father. It would have been
ironic in a way if it didn't hurt so much. If I hadn't known how much it was
going to hurt him.
"Alex," Luis said, his voice low, just a hint of that accent I could never quite
place. "I'm going to drop you off at a motel, all right. I've got an errand to
run. Then I'll be back. It'll be a couple of hours."
I nodded. "Yeah, okay."
As if I actually had any choice.
Half an hour later, Luis pulled into a small town and dropped me off in the
parking lot of a motel. He barely waited until I had gotten myself and my bag
out before swinging the car away again, picking up speed quickly. I watched as
the taillights vanished into the night and then turned and walked towards the
office, feeling suddenly tired, more tired than I really had a right to.
Somewhere off in the tangle of trees and unmown grass beyond the motel was the
sound of crickets, more distantly the rush and roar of a big truck passing by on
the highway half a block back. The paving was cracked beneath my feet, the
buildings in bad need of a paint job. The "a" in Vacancy was out, a black hole
against the scarlet glow of the rest of the sign.
I was home, at least for this evening.
The screen door complained as I pulled it open, let it slam shut again behind
me. The room beyond was cramped, the red and grey flecked carpet worn and dirty,
and it smelled stuffy. A bulletin board was attached to the closest wall, almost
invisible beneath layer after layer of flyers and ads of all kinds, some looking
to date back a few years. Just next to it a Coke machine stood, a hand-written
"Out of Order" sign taped to the front of it. There was a scratched and much
battered-looking grey file cabinet just beyond the main counter, a withered
looking plant sitting on top of it and a big orange cat next to that, half
curled up around the pot. It opened its eyes as I came in, gave me an
inscrutable look from golden-green eyes, and then closed them again. An old
radio was on the counter, tin foil wrapped about the tops of its ears, the loud
refrains of the Guns 'n Roses tune "Welcome to the Jungle" pouring from it.
I rang the bell on the counter, then rang it again when nothing happened. The
cat hadn't even opened its eyes.
I hit it a third time, hard as I could.
"All right, all right," a voice said then. A tall thin man came into the room,
his t-shirt cut off at the shoulders to display a long line of tattoos. His hair
was sheared off short, shorter even than mine had been in the Bureau, and his
face was sunken in at the cheekbones. His mouth sullen.
"Two rooms," I said. "Singles if you got em." Damned, if I'd share a room with
Luis if I didn't have to, if it was left up to me. "Just for tonight for now.
Adjoining, please."
"Yeah, sure," he said. He pulled out a bedraggled book and spun it out in front
of me. "Sign there. Name, address, so on. You know the drill."
"Pen?" I asked.
He flipped that to me as well, then turned and pulled down a couple of keys. On
the radio the Guns 'n Roses tune ended, crashing to a halt, and was followed by
a song and a band I didn't know. The lead singer sounded like he was in pain,
his voice cracked and pleading. I filled out the book, using our latest cover
names—good American names, even for that foreign bastard—and spun it back to
him along with the pen. He didn't even look at the book.
"Rooms 5 and 6," he said. "Pool's closed. Ice machine's around back. Forty
dollars a day. Out by noon. No pets. No long distance calls. Pay channels,
extra. Wanta stay another day, let us know by ten." It was a monotone, mumbled
out as if he had learned it all by rote.
I handed him the cash and he handed me the keys, hardly glanced at my face in
the process. His nose looked like it once been broken. Broken and badly-set.
"Thanks," I said and turned away.
"Coupons for Li'l Sizzler Steak House and Joey's Pizza on the board," he called
after me, as if he'd belatedly forgotten an item on his list of things to say. I
wondered how much they kicked back to the motel's owner for that little bit of
advertisement.
I let the screen door slam again as I walked back out. The air outside was
fresh, growing a little cool. Another car pulled in as I went across the parking
lot, an old red Camaro with rust all around the wheelbays. There were two guys
in the back, while the driver had his arm hanging out the window, the other
draped over a blonde girl. Another girl was crammed in next to her, an open
bottle of beer in her hand. The same song that had been playing in the motel
office was blaring out of their speakers, cranked up almost to the point of
distortion. The car roared into a parking spot behind me, then sat there with
the engine revving.
"Fuck, man," I heard one of them yell. Another one laughed.
I walked away from them, following the line of doors until I got to room number
five. Number six was right next to it, a corner room. I decided to let Luis have
number five.
I opened the door, having to jiggle the lock a little, and flipped on the light
before stepping inside. This room had the same flecked kind of carpet, but it
was grey and brown instead. It looked just as dirty, though, just as worn. The
bedspread on the double bed was also in brown, brown with little white flowers
on it. At least, I hoped they were flowers. A couple of nightstands stood to
either side of it, a television set on a wide corner shelf attached to the wall,
a green upholstered chair in the opposite corner. There was one dresser and one
picture, a bland yellow and green and white painting of a field and a farmhouse.
A door next to the television stood ajar, revealing a hint of a pale blue tile
floor.
I slipped inside and closed the door behind me, made sure that it was locked.
Flicked on the lamp on the closest nightstand. The additional light didn't help
the look of the room; the wallpaper had torn in places, was stained in others.
It also did nothing for the stale smell that the room had, the mingled odor of
cheap cleansers and beer and cigarettes. Most of all cigarettes. No doubt, it
was engrained into everything here—the drapes and the bedclothes and the
carpet. Just a little bit of my boss everywhere, what a surprise. What a fucking
surprise.
I tossed my dufflebag on the bed and sat down next to it, pulled off my jacket
and threw it at the chair. The remote for the t.v. was on the nightstand next to
the lamp and I picked it up and hit the power button. After a second, the t.v.
came on, the colors off into the red a little too far, displaying some car
commercial. The sound was low and I turned it up high, letting the noise wash
over me, hoping against hope that it would serve to keep my head still. Keep my
thoughts—my regrets—at bay.
And I had thought all my illusions gone.
I pulled myself up on the bed, leaned back against the headboard, and took out
my gun. I would have to clean it, to wipe away all traces that it had been
fired. That I had used it to kill. Standard practice. Eliminate the evidence.
Hide the fact that I had murdered an old man—not an innocent, surely, not even
with what I knew, what pieces of it they had seen fit to tell me—but still I
had laid him out in his own home, his own bathroom, for Christ's sake. Killed
him with one shot to the head, as I had been taught. Clean and concise. Just
what the policemen and the papers, even more so the papers, liked to call an
"execution style" murder. As if they could know anything about it. As if they
had a clue about who really ran things around here, who really ran their world.
On the t.v. the commercials ended and a sit-com began. I flipped channels and
finally found what looked like a movie. I let the remote fall and took out my
kit, began pulling my gun apart. Perhaps unfortunately, it didn't take much
thought anymore, certainly not enough to occupy me. To keep me from replaying
that moment in my mind, to keep me from seeing it.
From seeing him open that medicine cabinet, slam it shut again. Seeing the
bottle of pills on his hand, the look on his face. Tiredness and despair and
perhaps even a touch of shame. An intimate moment—Mulder's father alone with
his guilt—with the naked truth writ all over him, the truth he was attempting
to tell his son, the truth I would have to kill him for. With that same son
waiting in the other room, close, so close. Too damn close. I had almost been
able to feel him there, his mind fogged by the drugs they had been feeding him,
that brilliance dimmed and drowned. Leaving only rage and sullenness and
mistrust. All the bad parts of him and none of the good.
It was a shame. It was part of the plan. Not that I had been told all of it, of
course; that had not changed no matter how much more closely I worked with them
now, worked for them. For him. The cold-hearted close-mouthed old bastard.
I couldn't believe them, of course. I didn't dare believe all that they had told
me. After all, lies were their life's blood, denial the bones they gave others
to gnaw on. They could quite easily lie to me if it served their purpose. They
probably already had. But what they had told me was so fantastic, so damn
improbable, that some part of it had to be true. Problem was, I didn't know just
what... a genetic project going back generations, back before such things had
supposedly been known to exist, experiments that involved the hybridization of
humans and... well, that was the part I was the most unsure about. The part I
wasn't sure I believed, no matter what my one time partner had thought about
such things.
Not that it really mattered if I believed or not when it came right down to it.
As long as I did my job. As long as I recovered the property they sent me to
recover, killed the men they told me to kill. Helped maintain their "plausible
denial."
So I would get back the missing tape with its top secret files. So I would kill
an unarmed man, a defenseless man. Fox Mulder's father. Murder him as I had
murdered poor pathetic Duane Barry, the whipping boy of the universe, the one
who had given them Scully to play with, to experiment on. Mulder had almost
taken the dive for that one, but he always seemed to land on his feet no matter
what and, instead, it had been my own cover that was blown, my position that was
compromised, my life screwed. Not that it had exactly been wine and roses
before.
I reassembled the gun and loaded it again, laid it down next to me on the bed.
On the t.v., a series of gunshots went off, shockingly loud in the room, and I
winced away from them before I could stop myself. Hurriedly, I reached for the
remote and shut it off again. But the silence that followed was almost worse.
"Shit," I mumbled. I threw the remote back down and let out a long breath.
Dragged in another and tried not to gag at the smell of old cigarettes. God, I
was so tired of that smell, of that man. I let my head go back until it hit the
wall, slid down a little until the top of the headboard was digging into my
shoulders.
I closed my eyes, then opened them again as I saw Mulder's father fall once
more, saw his blood on the bathroom rug, the pills clutched so tight in his
hand. He had worked with them, with him, years ago and they had ordered his
death with no hesitation, no compunction. Far less would they pause if they'd
thought I'd betrayed them or might someday betray them or even if I chanced to
know something that they didn't want me to. If they thought they had to fear me.
As they had, quite obviously feared Mulder's father, feared what he would do now
that his son was on the verge of discovering his involvement with them, with
their plans. Though it did explain more clearly to me why my boss had not
listened to me when I'd suggested that we just off Mulder himself.
Perhaps there was a chink in the man's armor, after all. A weak spot. For the
son, if not for the father.
Slowly, I let myself sink down further, sink down until I was lying full length
on the bed. The ceiling overhead was off-white, cracked in spots and stained on
one side from where it must have rained in once or twice. The bedside lamp
couldn't quite drive back all the shadows from the room, could only keep them at
bay in the far corners.
It had been dark in Mulder's apartment too. Dark and more intense than I had
expected. More personal.
And it would never happen again, could never happen again, which made it all the
poignant now. Not that I had, to be honest with myself, expected that it would
turn into something more, something long term, but I hadn't known at the time
what would be that final straw, what the turning point would entail. One shot to
break the future. For me and for Mulder.
I closed my eyes again and, this time, I saw Fox Mulder instead. The long
soulful planes of his face, those expressive lips, those eyes. So deceptively
bland at times, then turning, transforming, glittering at you with his own
certain blend of wry humor. So flat and hard when he was angry, when he was
afraid for his partner. And then the blaze, the flash, as he gave way to the
world he kept so well bottled up inside him, the hungers and the passions he
would deny if he could. The heat that he feared would destroy him.
And it had certainly burned me, threatened to consume me. Brightened my own dark
places and made me afraid. Of myself and of him.
But, God, I wanted it again. Wanted him. Even if he killed me afterwards. Even
if he put my own gun in my mouth and blew the back of my head off like I had his
father. It would be worth it, wouldn't it? To have him again if only for one
night, if only for a few damn hours for that matter, no matter that he hated me
for it afterwards. That he just damn well hated me. And then he could do
whatever he wanted to me, kill him, hurt me, do what it took to feel vindicated.
All so that he could believe justice had been done. Or vengeance at the very
least.
Fox Mulder, perpetually ass-deep in conspiracy theories and ghosts and the
strange and unexpected. The unexplained and the unexplainable. Living alone in a
cluttered room, in an uncertain land. Living on the edge. Sometimes too fucking
close to the edge. And they had seen fit to drug him, to make him even more
unstable. A truly frightening proposition when you thought about it. Not that I
wanted to think about that; far more, would I prefer to consider the short time
we had spent together, how good it had been, how amazingly good. And how very
painful at the same time. I would like to remember what it was like to not be
alone for once—alone in the dark and in the cold, restless and remote, running
on empty—and instead what it had felt like to be with someone who understood,
at least in some ways, what that same darkness could drive you to. What it could
do to you. To those around you.
They would frame him for his own father's death if they could, as they had tried
to hang Duane Barry on him. I doubted it would work, though—he and Scully were
just too smart for that, too lucky—but it wasn't part of my job to think. Or so
I had been told often enough.
Told and threatened when I dared to ask questions, to hint that I might dispute
their decisions, their orders. I didn't doubt that's why they had seen fit to
stick Luis with me, a cool and vicious son-of-a-bitch if I had ever seen one and
I'd seen quite a few. In only a couple of hours he'd be back and we'd likely
have our new orders and it would go on. Until either they or Mulder killed me. I
had betrayed them both, after all. Betrayed each one for the other and no one
could last like that. Nothing and no one could last...
Pain knotted itself abruptly inside me and I turned over on the bed and curled
up around myself, curled up around the hurt. Desperately, I closed my eyes even
tighter, then when that didn't work, pressed the heels of my hands hard into
them. Pinwheels of black and white flared across my vision, flared red the
longer I pushed. Red on white.
Like blood on a white carpet.
"Fuck." I let go of my eyes and rolled off the bed, knelt there next to it, held
onto it, and stared at the walls around me. Walls that seemed to be closing in,
closing down, the cigarette smoke thickening, strengthening, trying to drown me,
to suffocate me. The shadows had become even darker, almost living things, and I
fought not to cringe away from them. From what I suspected they held—a tired
old man, sick and sad, a young man bent down over him, his face betraying a
grief so close to madness it almost made no difference.
Finally, I buried my own face in the bedspread and tried to block it all out, to
get myself back under some semblance of control. I had killed before and it had
never hit me like this, never hurt me like this, and I couldn't afford to let
it. Couldn't afford to fall apart now, especially since they were watching me,
evaluating me, judging me. It would be a fatal mistake.
Slowly, slowly, I got my breathing back under control, shut out my panic, shut
it all down. Finally, I raised my head from the bed and stood up again, stood up
straight. "I really don't need this shit," I said, but there was no one was
there to hear me. No one there to care.
I walked into the bathroom then and flipped on the light, deliberately closed
the door behind me. It was much brighter in here, though no less grungy, with
just a sink and a toilet and a tub. A dark blue shower curtain was pulled back,
revealing water-stained tile and a paper-wrapped bar of complimentary soap set
in the corner. A couple of cream-colored towels were draped over a bar next to
the toilet. At least there was no rug on the floor here, just plain blue tile, a
little cracked in spots, a little worn.
I went to the sink and a man looked back at me, stared at me from the mirror
just above. His eyes were bloodshot, weary, a trifle accusing. Almost as
guilt-stricken as my victim's had been. Almost. Still, if Luis, let alone that
old bastard I worked for, saw me now, saw what in my eyes, they would put a
bullet in me in a moment. And there would be no Agent Scully to try and save me,
no Mulder to grieve. I couldn't afford that look. I couldn't afford it all if I
was to live. If I was to live...
I clutched at the edge of the sink as my hard-won control cracked like the tile
beneath my feet, cracked and fell apart and allowed the pain to rise again, to
pour out into me, fill my eyes, my heart, my throat, pain like black water,
choking and cold, so cold. My stomach rebelled and I fought not to be sick, not
to try and spew that pain out of me, somehow knowing it would just make it
worse. "I didn't want to," I heard someone mumble, heard a broken voice plea.
"You have to know... I didn't want to."
I choked on the last, my fingers tightening on the chipped enamel sink. My knees
threatening to give way, to send me down. Tears burned behind my eyes, tears I
couldn't allow, and I raised them again to the mirror and looked back at the man
there, looked at myself, hardly able in that moment to recognize the image. No,
I couldn't be like this. Not for anyone. Not even for him. Ruthlessly then, I
blinked the tears back, pushed the pain down and down, forcing it deeper and
deeper inside me. Carefully crushing it, compressing it into something as tiny
and helpless as I could make it. Close it up. Lock it down. Kill it off.
It seemed to take a long time, but finally I managed to straighten again, to let
go of the sink. I met those eyes and they were my own again, my face calm and
hard and expressionless. The pain only a hard little ball inside me now,
something I could deal with, could live with. But the sheer effort it had taken
made me feel shaky as hell, almost hollow inside as if I had actually thrown up.
It wasn't a pleasant sensation, by any means, but still it was one that was at
least manageable.
I turned away from the sink and the mirror and began pulling off my shirt,
suddenly needing a shower above all else. Not only would it wash away the
residue of the gun I had fired tonight, but it might help wash away the memory
of why I had fired it; I would strip myself down like my weapon—disassemble,
clean, reassemble, reload—wipe away all record of what I had done, what I had
been used for.
It was only when I had stepped in under the water, hot as I could stand it, that
I remembered that I had left my gun out in the other room. A laxity that I
couldn't afford, one that clearly warned me again that I was letting things get
out of hand, out of control. Letting myself get out of control. I considered
going back out for it, then instead found myself reaching for the soap instead,
unwrapping the cheap white bar from its cheap white paper.
It lathered up just fine, though, and I washed myself thoroughly, roughly, then
worked some the lather up into my hair. Scrubbed it across my face. Then,
slowly, found myself stilling and stopping, my face still full of soap. I found
myself listening, straining to hear over the sound of the water. I realized that
I felt watched, felt I wasn't alone anymore.
Moving quickly, my heart racing a little now, though I felt somewhat foolish at
the same time, I pulled back a corner of the shower curtain and peered out. Soap
stung at my eyes and I had to swipe at them to see. The tiny room was empty
though, as I had expected, untouched. Just my pile of clothes on the floor, the
mirror starting to steam up.
But there could have been someone there. I would have liked there to be. Someone
angry and hurting and half out of his mind. Someone who would have picked up my
forgotten gun from off the bed where I had left it. Who crept into the room with
that same gun outstretched, staring at the figure moving behind the shower
curtain as if to imprint the image into his mind forever. His mouth twisted, his
eyes blind.
I pulled the curtain closed again and stuck my head under the spray, felt it
beat down on me. Felt it trying to force its way into my head. My skull suddenly
felt too small, too constricting, my body distant as some strangers. Familiar
and not familiar. The soap that had gotten in my eyes still burned, but I didn't
touch them, didn't try to wash them out. Instead, I stood there beneath the
spray and imagined it. Imagined it all...
The scrape of the shower curtain hooks as it was abruptly pulled back. The cold
hard feel of the gun barrel as it was shoved up against the back of my head. An
arm coming around my throat, half choking me, yanking me back against my
attacker. The gun digging harder and harder as he snarled my name, as he cursed
me. As he swore that he'd send me to hell, slowly, painfully.
And then he would push me down, make me kneel in the rush of the water, kneel at
his feet, one hand twisted hard into my wet hair, the gun never wavering from
the back of my neck. And I would wait for the moment, for the impact, the bright
flash and the hot confusion. For the water to carry my blood away, wash it down
to blackness.
A moment that never came.
Instead, the hand would abruptly drag me around, make me scuffle and almost slip
in that too-narrow space, and there he would be in front of me. Those hazel eyes
cold as the man himself was hot, burning up, feverish with drugs and grief. Cold
and deadly and determined. Those lips parted as he panted in the streaming room.
His own hair damp at the edges, his shirt plastered down the arms with spray,
stained in front with his father's blood.
Just the lip of the tub between us.
And I would recognize the look in his eyes as they changed, as they turned from
one kind of deadliness to another, and it would scare and excite me at the same
time. And perhaps he would read that in me as well, in my own eyes, because he
would step back and the gun would lower, lower to point directly at the point
between my legs. His head would go up, tilt to one side, and those eyes grow
haughty. They would look me over, a caustic look, measuring, considering.
Nothing of kindness there, nothing to be able to hold on to. Though, deep down,
I would see bleak disbelief, savage hurt that I had gone so far, had done this
to him. That I had actually murdered someone he loved.
A savageness he would give in to as he suddenly leaned forward and took my chin
in his fingers, those long fingers, and held it bruisingly tight. As he used his
grip to force my head up, to make me look at him fully. To be able to see
nothing but those eyes. "You son-of-a-bitch." So empty, so full of feeling.
With a rough twist he would push my face away then, would let go of me, and the
abruptness of it almost make me fall. Then he would back away slowly with that
gun, my gun, still pointed directly at me. "Get out."
I would do as he asked, as he ordered. I would struggle to my feet, my legs
almost shaking with fear, with reaction, and step out of the tub, out onto that
slick tile. I would stand there, waiting and wary, the water dripping off me,
trying not to look directly at him. Trying not to look at anything. Feeling
immensely vulnerable. Even more naked than I actually was.
Then he would be coming towards me again, coming at me, and his fist would take
me high across the cheekbone. Both a dull and a shocking pain at the same time,
knocking me to one side, slamming me up against the edge of the sink. My hipbone
impacting hard. I would have to scrabble to stay upright, my feet slipping on
the wet tile. But he would be on me again in an instant, forcing me to bend over
the sink, forcing my face up against the steam-damp mirror. And his face would
be so close, too close. The gun moving to press against the back of my neck
again, grinding in, helping to hold me there. Forcing me to hold still.
Anger and something more, something darker, flickering in those hazel eyes as he
bent even closer and kissed the side of my face, ran his tongue across the curve
of my ear. Suddenly, bit down hard enough to draw blood.
I would try to get away then, get away from him, but he would slam me back, hard
enough to crack the glass beneath my cheek. Black pinwheels sparking, sickening
dizziness making me wilt and he would half hold me up, shift around behind me.
Press his free arm across the back of my neck as he began to run the barrel of
the gun down the line of my spine, down and down until it was between my legs.
And he would kick them apart with practiced ease, allowing freer access,
allowing the barrel to go deeper, to finally press up against the back of my
balls. And I would feel them trying to climb back up inside me. Would feel him
move in again and kiss me, my shoulder blade this time, kiss and then bite,
scrape his teeth down my skin.
He would pull his arm away from my neck then—sure that the gun would insure my
submission—and twine those fingers into my hair, pull my head back from the
broken mirror, back far enough so that he could do the same to my throat. Hard
kisses, bruising, a choking, painful, pleasant sensation. "Hands behind you," he
would whisper, almost hiss in my ear, then give another bite, a little softer
this time, as an emphasis.
The metal would be cold as he clicked the cuffs on me, cold and far too tight,
sinking into my wrists. He would shove me back up against the front of the sink
when he was done, again an emphasis more than anything, demonstrating my
helplessness. That he could just throw me around the room, hurt me, kill me, do
anything he wanted to and there wasn't a fucking thing I could do about it.
That I deserved it. Deserved it all.
Then the gun barrel would pull back, slowly, so slowly, and I would be left
alone there, half-bent over the sink, and I would see his image flicker in the
shattered glass. See him step back and begin to undo his jeans, shrug them down
over those slender hips. Would see just a hint of his cock, poking out from
beneath the hem of the bloody shirt he was wearing. And he would catch me
looking, catch me watching, and those lips would turn up a little. Not a grin,
not a smile, not anything pleasant in the least.
He would step back towards me and catch at my cuffed hands, twist them up behind
me, high across my back, high enough to hurt. And his cock would slide down to
where his gun—my gun—had been, slide and delve down over water-slick skin, and
it would be hard and hot, blood-hot, fever hot. I would try to struggle again,
to get away from it, from him, but he would only bend me over further, down
until my chest hit the top of the water faucet. And he would force my legs even
further apart.
Lean over me—hot skin and damp shirt—and press that cock up against me, press
it into me. Work it into me. Slight pain at first, then stronger and stronger as
he pushed harder, pushed in despite the resistance. The gun coming back up as I
fought to squirm away, pressing into the side of my neck. "Shhh," he would
whisper, pausing. "Don't tell me you don't want it. Cause I know that's a lie. A
lie like all the others."
I would try to say his name them, but it would come out half-strangled as he
suddenly slid the barrel of the gun across my throat, forced my head back up.
"Not a sound. Not a word." And then a sharp thrust and all the rest would have
proved preamble, simple teasing, because he would go in hard, go in deep, and
blinding pain would tear me, make me want to scream, but I would swallow down
the sound, choke it back. Tears stinging at my eyes. The metal of the faucet
digging into my chest, bruising my ribs.
He would withdraw a little, withdraw and thrust again just as hard, and I would
feel something more give. Feel him sliding up even further inside me, filling
me, breaking me. The gun barrel a line of fire across my throat, holding me to
him. Holding me for his cock. Yet another push, even more dreadful than the
last, and then he would pause again, pause there, his legs trembling a little
against mine, panting, his balls firmly pressed up against me, his cock huge and
burning hot, blunt liquid steel. Marking me, possessing me, making me pay.
Finally, he would began to move again, slow thrusts, long and brutal, as if he
had to touch every part of me, scrape every place raw. And would I bite back the
gasps, hold them tight inside me, feel them piling up, a great wall of pain and
fear and humiliation. A vise on my heart, closing tighter and tighter with each
push, each slap of his balls against me.
And then he would move faster as the way grew easier, slick with what I dimly
realized was my blood and I would feel it on my legs as well, a heat and wetness
on my thighs. And the gun would be moving, falling away, as he slowed and
stopped to shift around behind me, trying to get a better angle, trying to get
up inside me even further. As if he desperately wanted to punch himself right
out the other side. To murder me with his cock.
As he started up again—working me even harder, pushing me, punishing me,
grinding himself into me over and over—and I would smell him, his arousal, his
bitter anger rising around me. Would smell blood and sweat, my blood and his
fathers mingling, his sweat covering me now, fever sweat, acrid and strong. The
pain of it all not as sharp now, but only making me feel the penetration more,
feel every inch of the cock reaming me out, relentless, unsparing, entirely
uncaring for any aspect of my own comfort.
But, a moment later, I would hear the gun clatter to the floor as he abruptly
let it drop, as he reached for my own cock instead with that hand, circled those
long fingers around it and began pumping it. Forcing it from its pain-withered
state to one of almost instant hardness, rough strokes, timed exactly to the
rhythm of his own thrusts. Exacting a different kind of revenge on me, making me
participate in my own humiliation, my degradation. But it would feel so very
good at the same time—touch, need, hunger, heat rising, straining and pulling
taut—just because it was those fingers, it was him doing it to me. Using me.
Each push claiming me as his to keep, to kill, to punish. Each withdrawal a
promise that he could take me at anytime, could have me whenever he wanted, and
I hated it all. Hated him. Wanted him.
And he milked me tirelessly, with exquisitely precise and cruel strokes,
catching me on the knife's blade between increasing pleasure and lingering pain.
All too quickly sending me right up to the edge.
And I would feel the change in him as well, feel it gathering in him, feel it
gathering in myself, sharp and burning, and he would withdraw almost all the
way, then come back at me again. Drive me up onto the edge of the sink, down
into his own tight grip and his fingers would be slick now too, though not with
blood.
As he said my name again, a mournful and breathless sound this time, and it
would be that more than anything that sent me over—a brightness that tore me
apart, that made me cry out when nothing else had. And he would go in the next
instant, spilling his fever inside me, his rage, his resentment, gasping as it
all came boiling up out of him. Grasping me hard to him, flesh and blood and
bone. His fingers twisting my cock as if he would twist it right off. Sending an
additional explosion through me, violent, exhilarating, hot and cold at the same
time. Leaving me weak and shaking, only his arms keeping me from falling, his
cock still fully buried inside me.
His cock buried inside me...
I raised my head, breathing hard, and felt cooling water lash across my face.
Felt it rain into my open mouth. Wash the last sting of soap from my eyes.
Still, my hand shook a little as I reached out, slammed off the shower, and
leaned my forehead against the tile wall. As I closed my eyes again, feeling
drained and heavy and hopeless. Still feeling a ghostly echo of pain, of
pressure—of him—inside me yet. A feeling that scared the hell out of me as
much as it felt good, felt right. As if he had really been here, had turned up
to kill me, to rape me, to fuck me blind.
And, God, I had come without even touching myself, without touching my cock at
all.
I wanted to laugh, but instinctively knew that it would only make it hurt more.
Still, a strangled sound escaped me anyway, echoing loudly in the tiny room,
rebounding off the cool blue tile. Pathetic, I was so fucking pathetic. That was
all. Pathetic and lonely and fucked in the head. Mulder would never touch me
again after what I had done—at least in any way that I would enjoy—and I just
damn well better get used to the idea. And fantasizing about it would only make
it worse, make the reality more dreadful.
I lifted my head, sucked in a deep breath, and pulled back the shower curtain in
one swift motion. Still, I was a bit surprised and perturbed with myself to find
I was somewhat disappointed everything was exactly as I had left it. That there
was no angry man waiting to greet me, to threaten me, to make me pay.
Not that Mulder would do anything other than shoot me given half a chance, given
even less than that. It was no more than I deserved.
Grabbing one of the towels, I brusquely dried myself off, before going out into
the other room to get a fresh set of clothes. After the pent-up heat of the
bathroom, it was almost cold and I dressed quickly, then glanced at my watch.
Somehow well over an hour had passed and I needed to pop outside soon, be on the
lookout for Luis. The man could be impatient sometimes, or maybe it was just
something I brought out in him. It was likely that after we had spent even more
time together, getting in each other's faces, he would be more than happy to
kill me if it came down to that, or even if it didn't.
If only I made friends as easy as I made enemies my life would be a little less
troublesome. But I had always seemed to just have an art for pissing people off,
eventually and inevitably. Problem was, the enemies I made these days had guns
and knew how to use them. How to get around what few remaining scruples they
had. And when they played, they didn't play fair. They played to win and damned
how they got there. Who got screwed over on the way—me, Fox Mulder, pretty
little Agent Scully—the innocent and the guilty alike.
I caught myself shivering again and nabbed my jacket from off the chair,
shrugged into it. Slid my gun back into its holster, the weight familiar,
comforting. I picked up the keys and opened the door, looked out into the
parking lot. The Camaro was gone, but the man who had signed me in was sitting
on the curb outside the office, his long legs sprawled out in front of him, a
girl sitting next to him. I recognized her as the one who had been drinking beer
earlier, crowded in the front seat of the car with the couple. They kissed as I
watched them, the man pulling her half onto him in the process.
I looked away, was about to go back into the room, when another car smoothly
pulled into the parking lot, barely slowing down to take the turn. It wasn't the
same car we had had earlier, but Luis was driving it, those sour eyes pinning me
as he swung up alongside the curb, squealed to a sudden halt right in front of
me.
He rolled down the window.
"You're back early," I jumped in before he could say anything and was rewarded
with a frown, a shake of the head. A slight victory, but a victory.
"Change of plan," was all he said, though. "Get your things and get in the car.
Mulder's heading back towards D.C."
"Where?" I asked. "He wouldn't dare go back..."
"Probably his partner's place. He spoke to her, told her what happened. Now get
going. He's got a headstart on us."
"Okay, sure," I said and went back inside. Quickly, I stuffed my old clothes
into my dufflebag and went back out, leaving the lights on. Leaving the keys to
both rooms on the nightstand. Knowing the man, Luis wouldn't care at all to wait
for me to turn them in and they would find them soon enough in the morning.
I had barely ducked into the car when he pulled away, picking up speed before we
had even left the parking lot. He made the turn to the highway even faster and
soon the road was pouring away beneath us—just the flash of red taillights in
the night, the flare of lights as we roared past the other cars, deeper
blackness all around us, waiting just beyond the broad splash of our own
headlights.
I watched it pass for a while, then cranked down the window a little for some
fresh air, for the feel of it brushing across my face. It was cool, almost cold
at this speed, but at least it helped clear my head a little, helped get rid of
the last lingering smell of cigarettes from the room I'd been in. Or maybe just
from my own head. Not that it wouldn't come back in the end, no doubt when I
could least stand it, but at least for a little while I could imagine myself
free of it, of him. Imagine ditching Luis at the first gas station we stopped
at—maybe strangling him first or maybe just leaving him there with styrofoam
cup of black coffee in his hand, the key to the men's room dangling helplessly
in the other—and taking off on my own, driving and driving down the long roads,
the long night. Past quiet rest stops and bustling truck stops, parking lots
like electric pools in the darkness, silent fields and woods, the occasional
house with its own soft warm windows gleaming in the night. Avoiding cities,
avoiding people. Avoiding everything. Just driving until the road ran out in
front of me or I ran out of gas, whichever came first, and then getting out to
walk, just to keep going, just to get away.
Not that I could escape myself and there, I knew, lay the problem. The
foolishness of it.
Besides the fact that they would find me and kill me, of course.
Next to me, Luis reached over and turned on the radio—a rustle of static and
just a hint of music intermingled—and then played with the dial until the
station came in as clear as it probably would. Not that I could understand the
words anyway, though I thought it sounded like Spanish. He turned the sound up,
far too loud for my tastes at the moment, then took the car around a slower
moving vehicle with quick precision.
A couple of kids stared at us from the backseat of an old station wagon.
And though I was starting to feel a little chilled again, I slid the window down
some more and laid my head back against the seat, closed my eyes, and tried to
tune it all out—Luis and the music and what I had done in the past and what I
might have to do in the future, anything but this single solitary moment.
Anything but the cold and the wash of air over my face. Soon enough, far too
soon, we'd be back in D.C. and I would have to face him, face all of them, the
least they could do was spare me a couple of hours beforehand.
A couple of hours and the memory of what I had felt in the shower of that shitty
little motel.
It was all I had anymore. It would have to be enough.
"Did you kill my father?"
The words echoed over and over, pounding into me as I ran, as I fought for
breath, fought not to just lay down and die right there. I could taste blood in
my mouth, still feel the force of his blows deep inside my body, feel his fists
on me. My cheek burning from where he had thrown me up against the wall of his
apartment building.
I shouldn't have ditched Luis, let alone gone anywhere near Mulder with or
without orders.
Fuck it, I should have damn well known better.
Because Mulder had been out of his mind, vicious, frantic, beyond caring for
anything but his rage, his loss. And much as I had expected it—had known to
expect it—I hadn't really expected it, after all. Hadn't been able to handle
it.
He had taken my gun from me as if it was nothing, as if I were nothing, and I
hadn't been able to raise more than a token protest. Couldn't even begin to try
and stop him, to protect myself.
And he had almost killed me right then and there; only his precious Scully had
managed to stop him from doing just that. With a bullet, no less—and, God, I
couldn't have done that to him, no matter the need—but, at least, it had
worked. She had saved my life for the time being, but what did I care for that.
What did I care for anything. How could I care...
Something I had hardly known existed had been crushed inside me when he slammed
me hard to the hood of that car, when he shoved my own gun into my face, when he
screamed at me over and over. Those furious hazel eyes tearing me apart, hurting
me in ways I had never even begun to suspect that they could, pain far worse
than any kind of physical attack, leaving me weak, empty, a great gaping hole
inside me.
"Did you kill my father?" Though it wasn't really a question. Though he somehow
already knew the answer—knew and didn't want to know and didn't want to
acknowledge any of it—just as he knew he was going to pull that trigger in the
end whether I gave him an answer or not. Whether I died with a lie or the truth
on my lips.
Not that I found I could have admitted it, even as I laid there beneath him, his
arm hard across my throat, as he yanked me off again, only to knock me back to
the ground and kick me. As he ignored Scully and her warning and began to
squeeze that trigger at the last. I was going to die anyway—die at his
hands—so what did it matter if I did, finally, tell him the truth... except
that it did and I couldn't and, despite my fear, some part of me wanted him to
end it, end it right there in that alley. Better the devil you know, or maybe
the one who knows you. Better it be done for good reason and cause and even in
honest rage than in bland indifference, like snuffing out a cigarette butt in
some much-abused ashtray.
I stumbled and my arm caught a low wall a glancing blow, bone-numbing, sick pain
shooting through it up to my shoulder. It spun me to a halt and I felt myself
folding, sinking down to the ground. I bent over, gasping for breath, holding
onto my arm. But the pain of it was nothing compared to the dark that was inside
me now, emptiness beyond belief, the knowledge that all I had left was what they
had made me, what they wanted me to be. Leaving me crashing through the night,
hardly able to see where I was going. Leaving me broken and battered on some
sidewalk in the middle of the night.
Not that I had anywhere to go, that was the worst of it. Nowhere but down and I
was going to find out, wasn't I, if the inevitable road to hell was a slow one
or a fast one. And, this time, there would be no one there to catch me, to hold
me if only for an hour or two, to lend me forgetfulness in a silken mouth.
I wish I could hate him. It would certainly make things easier.
I wish I could have him again, even if it was truly rape this time, pain and
only pain he offered me—no fantasy, but a bleak reality. Payment in kind.
"I'm going to kill you anyway..." I heard his shattered voice again, saw his
eyes, his hate, and buried my own face in my hands. Slumped back against the
wall, pressed my head hard against its rough surface. But I couldn't keep it
out. Nothing could.
"Did you kill my father?" Yes, Mulder, yes I did and damn you and damn myself, I
would do it again if I had to. Do the whole stinking thing—go to you, kiss you,
seduce you, lie and betray you, murder someone you loved and let you almost
murder me. It was the way things were, the way I was, and there was no other way
forward anymore and no way back and pretending otherwise, no matter how
pleasurable for that rare moment that it lasted, was just sick. Sick and
suicidal and just plain stupid, and God... Scully, why did you have to go and
interfere? Why did you have to stop him?
I wouldn't have.
Guilty Pleasures
by Garnet
I pulled the trigger and watched the old man fall, watched him crumple to the
floor, his pills still clutched in his hand. A moment later, I dove out the
window and ran for the car where Luis was waiting for me. My back-up, if I
didn't do the job right, if I failed. Not that there could have been any way for
me to fail.
