"...mother saw you as another version of herself—a sexual manipulator.
Predator
even. Trouble in tight jeans..."
Profiling him. Mulder's way of buying time, he guessed. Hoping that the
urge would pass. Like the urge would ever pass. But in a weird way it
wasn't bad. Was right tonight to sit on the low, brick parapet of the
abandoned movie house, cradling steel and listening to Mulder reel out the
story of his life. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof—good enough for a
life made up so much of lies.
Something right about Mulder's voice, too—flat as a Pueblo Indian. And
wasn't this what the Pueblo did when someone died? Chanted out their life
so that the universe would know exactly who had left the world?
Or was he making that up? Mulder could tell him, he supposed, but he
really didn't want to know if it was otherwise. Let this, at least, be
right tonight. Let it be enough to let him go. He slipped the muzzle back
into his mouth; tongued the bore lazily, tasting oil. Impatience wormed
under his skin
//Get on with it, Mulder. Get to the fucking end.//
but Mulder had found a groove in his teenage years, was lingering.
"...too pretty for your own good. Your father was military, right? Army.
He wouldn't like that. Beat it out of you, maybe. Or maybe just ignored..."
//Aw, Jesus, Mulder—adolescence was a bitch for everyone—move on //
He certainly had. Hadn't thought about the base in years. The
Albuquerque sun, little box houses, the distant 'ho' and 'hum' of sergeants
giving orders, the muted crack of rifle fire...
"...blowjobs to Daddy's troops behind the barracks..." No, that wasn't
right. Alex frowned.
"Artillery range." he corrected, letting the gun slide out of his mouth.
"What...?" Mulder looked stunned.
"I gave blowjobs up on the artillery range, not the barracks. A little more
privacy out there."
// because—you know—you wouldn't want the Colonel to run across one of
his nice, right boys with a cock stuck down his fag son's throat Might
break his fucking heart.//
The artillery range had been a perfect world apart. Dark. Quiet. Romantic
too, in a way; down on his knees in the damp grass under the stars. All
those hard bodies, the smell of gun oil and cordite in the air. And every
time, wondering if this was what it felt like to be loved. Yeah, loved.
They loved him good those right, white army boys.
And how many had there been that lovelorn August night? Five? Fifteen?
//...holding him, turning him—face in the dirt and they split him open
like unripe fruit and spat on him when they were done...//
Oh God—done. To be done. Gone. Quiet in the head. To find an end to
this fucking, fucking, motherfucking pain...His hand clenched convulsively
on the gun and he slid his thumb over the hammer, cocked it. Felt the tick
of the bullet sliding into the chamber at the corner of his mouth.
"...Alex?" Mulder's voice, from a long way away through the fog. Then
Mulder's hand on his knee and the sudden warm rush of breath against his
face: the press of soft lips on his lips. The gun between them.
He opened his eyes. Wide hazel eyes looked back—way too close and
glitter-bright. Mulder kissed him for real then—soft mouth opening
against his mouth; tentative slip of a curious tongue across his bottom lip
to the blank place where the gun barrel rested. It made him smile.
"Want to go together, lover?" he murmured into Mulder's open mouth.
"Okay," Mulder whispered back and, still kissing and kissing, he brought his
hand up, gently wrapped his fingers around Alex's hand. And then just as
gently pushed the gun to the side and down.
To his own dull amazement, Alex didn't—couldn't—fight as Mulder pried
his fingers from the trigger and the grip. Instead he let the gun go, heard
the click as Mulder eased the hammer back in place, the clatter as he tossed
it to the side. Then Mulder wrapped warm arms around him, pulled him close,
still kissing, kissing—gentle kisses like angel wings; like sweet, juicy
cherries fed to him by hand from a white china bowl...
//cracking, fracturing like bone under a booted foot//
...and Christ it hurt to cry this hard—to let go long, sick, wrenching
sobs that tore their way up from the rubble where his murdered
fifteen-year-old heart lay buried. Where the stone walls he'd built around
the grave were shattering, the cornerstones of his foundation falling in
upon themselves.
And yet somehow, there was Mulder holding him together while he cried,
whispering above the storm. "Shh...shhh, lover..." and "We're going
together, okay? Wherever you need to go..."
The End of Pain
by The Spike
Alex let his eyes fall shut, let the gun slide out of his mouth. The muzzle
traced a spit-slick path under his lower lip. Mulder kept on talking, soft
and low:
