Mulder beat me, hated me, craved me, owned me, patterned me in his own
image. Bruises of blue, purple, green and yellow all the colours of his
need, his loathing.
He separates the fox from his soul. Fox was a child, a boy unable to
help his sister or spare her suffering. No solace, no saviour he. Only
human. Weak. Mulder is different. Strong (he thinks), quick enough to
find the truth (he hopes), just overawed enough to hide from it (I
know). For I am the truth he ignores so earnestly.
If he'd only shot me when I turned my back, when the chance was his,
kissed me, dismembered my hopeless form. Then I could have coped. But
no...he couldn't even raise a fist. After everything I've done for him,
done to him. What do I get?
I get to die.
Captured—not a part of me that didn't feel the blade pass by. Each
stab the faithless touch of unrequited love. They didn't even bother to
ask the usual questions. You see, many things have I destroyed in my
soulless nights, my drifting days—but never him. At least, I refuse to
hurt him again. He is my weakness and my strength, my joy and my sorrow,
my pleasure and my pain, my unrestrained damnation. So long his
protector, now the role is as natural, as much me, as the smell of
damaged leather on my wretched skin. Fitting they say, that I now lie
broken on his couch, darkening blood pooling like gravy around a prime
steak.
My visions shred me piece by piece.
Darkness shifts. Shapes approach as I raise my head from the arm of the
couch. Aliens? Come to save my soul, save my torn arm. I see it now,
witness what one of the figures carries. My arm. (I hear laughter.) My
ex-arm. Fingers wriggle their repulsion, the truth that my flesh hated
me, needed to be rent away, lest my infectious psyche spread its
disease. Complicated movements and the two morph to one. My arm attached
to its body (only lent to me) in sync, in time, in sense, in pain. It almost suits it.
My hand slaps my face. As hard as I would punch myself, but not as hard
as he likes to.
"Mulder?" I whisper through hysteria born of flesh and need. Shall I
laugh myself to death? Idiocy was always a strength of mine.
Another slap. I mumble something only angels hear.
"What?" A voice asks, almost tender in its ministrations.
His voice (the only one which ever made sense) strokes my eardrums,
knocks my brain down my throat, nearer to its current ruler. Peril swims
between the world and I, shifting lines darken the view.
Potent fingers grasp my jaw, dissolving my flesh, stripping it all away.
They leave me bare, exposed. The hand forces me to look, to see him, my
Mulder. My saviour. Come too late to keep me here.
I murmur his name through the smog, struggling, aching to touch
something inside him. 'Twas not all in vain, he's here, here with me,
for me.
I still believe in him.
Pain stings my cheek. Please make it stop. Does he not see my wounds?
Does he wish he'd caused them himself? I guess he does.
Just want to sleep now. Place my head on his sharp suited lap; take its
deceptive softness and its secrets to the grave.
"Krycek!" he shouts. Tugs my hair, pulls my head up. Not a mean feat
considering its abject shortness. I couldn't bear the thought of him not
running confused fingers through it long ago, so I severed the anguish.
I bet he liked it longer, but wouldn't allow himself even a moment of
indulgence. Yes...yes. That's why he isn't touching me, why he never
touched me. Apart from the obvious betrayal of course. That and the one
which exceeded even his patience, my malice against a woman I'd barely
met but knew so well—Scully. An old chestnut to line our bed. He
allows me the touch of his fists, of his punches. He may enjoy watching
me bleed, twisting my skin, flaying me bare. Perhaps he would wear my
skin as a trophy, limed and bated, flawed only by the wounds above my
heart.
I am completion. I am his happiness and his despair. Despite my
transgressions. Despite myself. But the great god Mulder doesn't need
that. Neither do I. Too much is unnecessary, inconsequential.
I can hear him roaring, issuing orders to his precious Scully. She
doesn't seem to want to touch me, instead she mutters unconvincingly
into her phone as Mulder rants on about an ambulance. I wonder if it's
even switched on. No matter, even if I'm dead, he'll still be mine. At
the end of my day, she doesn't believe. She never had the faith in him
that I do.
I scream a little as he grabs my shoulders, shakes me, spies the vodka
they left as it nestles between my legs. It's not enough I have to ruin
his couch, I have to do it drunkenly. Is nothing sacred?
He reaches for the bottle. We both know it's too late. Save the body,
perhaps, but the mind already too far gone. My pain dissipates. No flesh
shall be spared. His hand lingers on the bottle, a crooked wrist rests
against me, takes a feeling chance as my consciousness plays its last.
Some things just aren't meant to be.
The bottle moves; his warmth vanishes. Glass shatters against the wall
like hail over a bleached sea. Each splinter fights to be the first to
fall. What patterns Mulder could make on me with them. I'm sure I smile.
Hands on my shoulders, shaking. My head flops back and forth, my neck
refuses to hold. Would Mulder still touch me if they took that away? Cut
it off. Would my brains sprinkle like the glass?
Then...
"Krycek?" He sounds worried—a barely controlled shriek in his tone.
How sweet! "What the fuck happened to your arm?"
He hasn't seen me in the light since Russia.
Hands scramble, desperate to remove my fading jacket, my warm, flaking
leather. He holds me, removes it, and sees what used to be my wholeness.
Oh, my God. No sound, just the words moving his mouth. I can hear Scully
grinning from here. He knows. Recognises what he did to me. A smile
washes me clean. The guilt and satisfaction on his face are almost worth
dying for.
Almost...I wanted him before I died. Just the once.
His body slumps, his hands take his weight, my chest theirs. His
forehead dips, touches me. I've seen that look before, given it a few
times. The one that says I want to touch you but I'll hate myself if I
do.
His tears dampen my chest. I want to ask why, but there's really no
need. I know the truth and he never allowed himself to wholly believe,
to put his stricken fate in my shredded hands.
Flesh pushes me aside so he can sit. He sniffs. I laugh. The pain
reminds me I'm alive. Alive and in his arms, where I was born to be. He
wipes his nose on the back of his hand, like a kid watching his
favourite toy being torn form his yielding hands.
The beating again, not ashamed to punch a slab of dying flesh. My corpse
will look pretty, bruised, forever infected with his pain. His art will
make me immortal.
"You bastard," he screams, then quieter. "Don't go...not yet...we never
had the time." I swear the walls rattle at the intensity. They sway and
shimmy in the distance, in the dark where death seduces life. For a
moment I regret that I'll never see this again but realise I can take
his abused soul with me to rot at my side in a filthy hole. "Don't leave
me...you're the only one who knows." He wipes his nose on a sleeve
speckled with my blood. Eyes red rimmed like a demon in flight, like the
demon that stole my arm. He's wrong, I'm not the only one, just the only
one he trusts. A pity he'll never see the sights I have to show him.
Blackness descends on me. I'll just close my eyes for a little while. My
fingers find his face, touch his lips, and grasp his hair a little too
hard.
"Alex?"
Soft, as if the very act would strike me down. My head falls to one
side. I'm so tired, so cold. If only he would warm me. Then the moment
comes. I waited an eternity for this. His damned lips brush against my
cheek, like a drooping flag against its pole.
I hear her feet on the hardwood floor, irregular as my slowing heart.
The air changes, contact shifts. I think he strokes me. A sniffle in my
ear, a draft on my neck as he buries his face in my sodden hair, pulling
me closer than his own skin.
"Mulder." I manage my mantra one last time.
"Fox," he whispers, "my name is Fox."
Severance
by Mord
I watched. I waited. I took it all. He'll never be whole again. Neither
will I.
