"What a wicked game you play
As streams of sweat flowed down his skin,
Alex couldn't believe he'd chosen a car with no air conditioning.
It had been the best looking specimen parked on the street, but Alex supposed
he should have known that the best car in White Trash, Pennsylvania wouldn't
be that great. Between the noisy, sluggish engine and the lack of
A/C in a 90-degree heat wave, this piece of junk hadn't been worth the
two minutes it took to hot-wire it. It also stank of cigarette smoke,
making Alex crave one with a strength he usually spent on more important
things.checked on Mulder, who was still out cold. Even unconscious, the
older man looked uncomfortably hot. Can't have that, can we?
Alex removed the ghastly paisley tie and started to unbutton Mulder's shirt.
The agent didn't have an undershirt on. One button, two buttons,
three buttons... Are we going to stop, Sasha? I'm doing him a
favor. Yeah, he just looks so uncomfortable.
And unconscious, and vulnerable, and sexy...
Whatever. Four buttons, five
buttons, six buttons, seven, eight, nine. He pulled the shirt out
of Mulder's pants and fanned the wet linen out a bit. Alex hovered
over Mulder's bare, glistening chest with his brain a total blank. He
watched one perfect bead of sweat slowly roll down pale skin and bit his
lip. Hard.
Even at 7 pm, the wind that came in through
the four open windows baked him. It didn't feel much different
from the wind that came off the car explosion he'd escaped two weeks ago.
Pushing the accelerator to 85 miles an hour didn't have the cooling
effect he'd hoped for, but he no longer dealt with still, stifling air.
At least the car had a radar detector that worked.
It also, to his great relief, had a working
tape player, and he had cassettes in his knapsack. The only five
radio stations that came in clearly in this mountainous, backwater part
of the state were country/western. That should be illegal.
Alex looked over at his passenger.
Mulder still hadn't come to. Alex saw no signs of concussion when he'd
last checked, but an hour of unconsciousness worried him. In a few
minutes he would try to wake his former partner up.
With all the blows to the head Mulder took,
you'd think his head would rattle when he moved. Alex couldn't help
contributing.
Mulder's head rested on the open window,
so the wind blew through his sweat-damp hair. One of the advantages
of this old car was the sturdy, very well-anchored door handle, which Alex
had looped his former partner's handcuffs around. Alex admitted to
himself that it may not have been very adult of him to kick Mulder a few
times after he'd pistol-whipped him into unconsciousness—it was a waste
of effort to kick a man who couldn't feel it—but at least he'd been kind
enough to take Mulder's suit jacket off before starting the trip. It felt good
returning some of the interest from the last beating he'd taken.
Alex still wondered if he would have been
better off leaving Mulder in the street, but the Consortium, for now at
least, wanted the federal agent alive, which made him both a valuable bargaining
chip and great human shield. Mulder had nearly delayed Alex from
making an escape from the Consortium operatives, so it was only right that
the federal agent made up for it this way.
Alex grabbed his former partner's leg and
shook it. "Mulder!" he shouted.
Mulder came back to consciousness sluggishly,
but his eyes gradually cleared and showed a potent combination of rage
and pain. "Where the hell am I?" he rasped. Sweat glistened
on his skin and made the swollen black-purple bruise on his forehead sparkle.
"You're the one who jumped me."
"You're a wanted criminal, and I caught
you hot-wiring a car." His eyes burned hotter. "And you killed my
father. I'm in the right."
"Whatever makes you happy," Alex answered
sweetly and grinned as Mulder realized that he had been cuffed to the door.
To Alex's shock, the federal agent pulled
against the door handle in a frenzy. The sound of metal striking
metal and leather couldn't hide the small animal noises of frustration
and panic Mulder made. Blood quickly started to well up from his cuffed
wrists, and Alex had the sudden desire to capture one and suck on it.
Instead, he grabbed a hank of Mulder's
damp hair and held the agent's head in place. It was hard to keep
control of him and drive at the same time, but Alex had many talents.
"You should stop that. You're only hurting yourself."
"This doesn't make me happy," Mulder said
dully as the panic started to clear from his eyes.
"Such is life."
"Where are we?"
"Near Exit 29 on I-80 in Pennsylvania.
Mile Run, I believe."
"Why didn't you just clock me and leave
me?"
Alex couldn't help leering. "I have
uses for you."
Mulder's face didn't change as he resisted
taking the bait. "You couldn't steal a car with air conditioning?"
"Oh, shut up." Alex noticed that Mulder
had the oddest expression on his face. "What?"
"I want a cigarette." From the way he said
it, with such surprise and wanting, it must have slipped out by accident.
Mulder looked away.
Alex stared at him, then said, "Maybe we
can do something about that."
"In exchange for what? I'm not playing
this game."
"The only way to stop playing the game
is to die, Mulder. I don't think you're ready for that yet."
After that Mulder stayed quiet until Alex
pulled off the highway at Exit 22. Snow Shoe, Pennsylvania rested
on one of the highest altitudes in the whole state, making it slightly
cooler but still currently hot enough to render the name ironic.
In winter the natives probably dealt with snow up to their asses.
Alex would have preferred that.
"Where are we going?" Mulder asked.
Alex had a sudden image of a younger Mulder
driving his parents to homicide with endless questions. "We're stopping
for gas and supplies. You're staying in the car." He stopped
the car in a truck stop parking lot.
"Like hell I am."
With lightning speed Alex grabbed Mulder
by the hair and rammed his head against the dashboard, knocking him out
cold. The former agent eased Mulder back against the seat and, with
some amusement, posed him so the older man looked like he was sleeping.
A person walking by would have to come right up to the door to see the
cuffed hands.
No choice really. Mulder would be
trouble any other way. That Alex enjoyed doing it had almost no bearing
on his decision. Mulder always looked different and younger
when unconscious. Innocent. Sweet. Sexy, especially with the
gleam of sweat on his skin and even with all the bruises. Though
the bruises did something for Alex too... Vulnerable. Alex
licked a drop of sweat off Mulder's temple and told himself he did it just
because he could, not out of any sentiment or need.
Definitely time to get out of the car.
When Alex walked inside, the air conditioning
hit him like a wall of dry ice, such an intense contrast after the heat
that he almost felt ill. He chose a cooler, a bag of ice, some cold
hoagies, some ice cream, and a few drinks. The last man who tried
to kill him would be picking up the bill. When he reached the counter,
Alex saw row upon row of cigarette packs.
The cold and the thought of cigarettes
briefly brought his mind back to Russia. Everyone smoked there.
Alex had quit for his new life in the United States. He was one of
those people who could step on and off the nicotine train at will, although
he admitted that the fact he kept stepping back on suggested he wasn't
as free from addiction as he liked to think. He'd loved the feel
of the smoke diffusing through his body. The stench in the car had
awakened the craving.
I don't need them. I just want
them. That's different.
When Alex paid for his supplies, he also
bought a pack.
The heat smacked him like a giant hand
when he walked out. He felt light-headed and a little ill, but he
couldn't do anything about the weather. Alex thought of snow and
walked to the car with his bags.
Nothing was working out lately. His
superiors had set him the task of keeping an eye on the American end of
the Consortium. "We can't trust them not to stab us in the back
and make a separate peace, Sasha." But he hadn't gotten anyone
to trust him with important information. He'd thought his assignment
babysitting Mulder would lead to better things, but that had gone sour
through no fault of his own. Then the Americans had tried to just
sweep him aside like trash. They hadn't even bothered to do a professional job on that car bomb.
Very insulting.
So, what now? I can't go back a
failure... Alex set thoughts of the future aside for later.
Alex put the bags on the front seat and
The shirt's off, Sasha... you can stop
now...
But he's sweating
Alex caught Mulder's scent, a heady mix
of sweat and that indefinable something he associated with his former
partner. It mingled with the smell of his own arousal, and his brain
flashed helplessly to an image of Mulder's bare ass impaled on his cock,
the older man moving the way he wanted him to, writhing in mindless pleasure.
This is not who I am now. I'm in
control of my wants; my wants don't control me.
But all this drops in my lap, and I shouldn't
touch? Alex stared down helplessly at the treat fate had thrown
at him. I was much more fun back in Russia.
The bead of sweat continued its unstoppable
path toward Mulder's navel, hesitating just at the rim. Alex couldn't
help himself. He ducked in under Mulder's arms and used one long,
leisurely stroke of his tongue to lick it away. Salt and skin and
moving flesh beneath him...
Mulder's head started to move back and
forth, as if he struggled against something, and he muttered, "No, please,
no."
Definitely not the reaction Alex wanted.
It also seemed to be waking Mulder up, and Alex still had to pump the gas.
With great regret and a supreme act of will, Alex pulled away.
Once he'd filled the car up and put his
goodies in the now ice-filled cooler, Alex got back onto the highway.
In five more minutes, Mulder came to. "You son of a bitch!" Mulder
shouted before he rested his head back against the seat with a dazed sound
of pain.
"You shouldn't move too quickly."
"You bastard. And how did my shirt
get unbuttoned?"
"Well, either I did it, or it's an X-File."
Alex laughed at the venom in Mulder's eyes. "You looked hot, so I
tried to make you more comfortable."
Mulder shivered a little. "I always
get worried when you turn helpful."
"I have food and drinks, Mulder.
I even got an iced tea for you. You don't want to dehydrate."
"Go to hell, Krycek. I'm not playing
along with you."
What's going on here? "It's your
funeral."
Mulder quickly started to annoy the hell
out of Alex. The agent refused food and drinks without a word, just
a curt shake of the head. Despite his obvious suffering, he refused
to take anything Alex offered. The younger man finally reached a
point where he effusively praised the drinks and sandwiches as he consumed
them, making conspicuous sounds of enjoyment just to watch Mulder squirm.
As the sun started to descend in a bright,
rainbow sherbet sky, Alex had to adjust his sun visor to rescue his eyes
from the blinding ball of red-orange fire in front of him. When Alex
turned his head, he saw Mulder trying to escape the light, too, so he adjusted
his former partner's sun visor. "Thanks," Mulder said softly, then
looked horrified at himself.
But it didn't prove to be the victory Alex
expected it to be, because Mulder didn't say anything else. Thirty
minutes later, as a deep blue twilight slowly settled over the world and
the younger man felt a silent Mulder getting on his last nerve, Alex took
out the pack of cigarettes. He peeled the plastic away and opened
the box, taking a moment to savor the smell. He didn't intend to
do this again for a while, so he had to enjoy it while it lasted.
He lit the cigarette and soon felt that lovely head rush and pleasurable tingling through his whole body.
The smoke diffused through him until he slowly blew it out. Sometimes
he thought it was worth it to kick the habit, just to experience that wonderful
first-cigarette-after-the-long-exile feeling.
When Mulder made a small sound, Alex turned
to look at him. The older man looked jittery and anxious. His eyes
followed every move the coffin nail made in Alex's mouth. He couldn't
be more obviously in need of a nic fix.
Alex smiled. "You sure you don't
want one, Mulder?"
Mulder shook his head but still watched
with a dazed, hungry look as Alex went through a few more cigarettes in
front of him over the next two hours. At first the stare bothered
Alex, but it soon started to arouse him, despite the fact that Mulder was
lusting after his cigs, not him. But I intend to change that...
"Are you sure you don't want one?" Alex
asked, and got another head shake from his passenger. He put the
box away and grinned at Mulder's heartbroken expression.
Night fell softly with the odd deep blue-white
brilliance only a full moon could give it. Alex couldn't help being
touched by a certain sense of wonder at seeing shadows at night.
Living in the artificial light of cities made full moon nights just like
any other. Out in the middle of no man's land, the moon made a difference
between total darkness and illumination.
The air slowly cooled to something more
livable, and Alex slowed the car down to the legal speed of 55 miles an
hour. But two hours later, when he put his foot on the accelerator,
he got no power. "What's going on?" Mulder asked.
Sure, a crisis gets him talking again.
"Everything's fine, Mulder."
"That doesn't sound like 'fine.'
It sounds like the transmission."
Then the car lurched forward in a rush
of power before going dead. "Shit!" Alex managed to coast the car
onto the right shoulder. He turned off the car and tried to restart
five times. Each time he got the battery to go on, but the ignition
refused to do anything other than make a little noise. "God damn
it!"
"As far as getaways go, I've seen you do
a lot better, Krycek."
"That does it!" Alex got out of the car,
stomped over to the passenger side, and yanked the front door open.
Since he had Mulder handcuffed to it, Mulder came flying out too and got
dragged along the ground. "You have been nothing but—"
Mulder kicked him in the groin. When
the younger man folded in on himself in pain, Mulder kicked him in the
head, knocking him onto his back. As Alex tried to move past the
agony and get up, the older man tried to pull the door handle loose in
a fit of berserker strength. Alex threw himself at his former partner
and put him in a sleeper hold, cutting off the oxygen to Mulder's brain,
such as it was, and taking the fight out of him.
Which left Alex with Mulder's back pressed
up against him and long elegant neck under his arms as Mulder gasped and
tried to move. The thoughts that followed sent a stab of pain through
his abused groin. I'm going to do something about this later, I
swear.
"Where did you think you would go?" Alex
asked as he shook Mulder the way a cat shook a mouse. "We're in the
middle of nowhere, 10 miles from any exit, with only woods and mountains
nearby."
"Get. The. Cuffs. Off,"
Mulder gasped.
"I can't do that when you pull stunts like
this."
Mulder quivered in his arms. "I'm
not going to let you make me feel responsible for this."
"Whatever. I'm going to use your
phone to try to call a tow. I could either keep you cuffed to the
door or keep you cuffed but loose around the car. More freedom if
you're good, Mulder. Which will it be?"
Mulder swallowed. "Please, uncuff
me from the door."
"Do you promise to behave? You'll
just get yourself killed trying to escape here."
"I... promise."
Mulder sat still as Alex uncuffed one wrist
and brought it away from the handle, then put the cuff back on. Mulder
moved and stretched his arms in a careful manner that suggested great pain.
He had been forced to keep himself in one position for hours.
I'm not going to feel bad for you.
"Good boy. Now I'll find you someplace to sit while I call someone
to get us out of here."
Forty-five minutes and two cigarettes later,
Alex cursed and threw the phone down onto the front seat. None of
the towing companies the operator had listed for him were still open.
He'd tried nine and heard nothing other than an endlessly ringing phone
at each number. Jethro has to get home early, so I'm screwed?
He shouldn't have had those cigs in such
a short time after his long time away. He felt high and vaguely nauseous.
My God, I'm either gonna puke or come in my pants. I feel like
I'm gonna die. This is wonderful.
Then the cassette player stopped working.
When Alex hit eject, streamers of crumpled tape came flying out.
The fucking thing had eaten one of his favorite cassettes, and he refused
to test its gaping maw with another. Back to the radio, then.
I'm in hell.
He flipped past four country stations before
he heard the King singing, "You ain't nothin' but a Hound Dog / Cryin'
all the time / Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend
of mine..." Mulder laughed. Alex decided that he had a winner.
Alex walked to the back of the car and
stared down at Mulder, who had stretched out across the trunk of the car.
The car was old enough that it still had a large tail section. Mulder
was lying on his back, legs dangling over the side below his knees, with
his arms extended to their full length as he tried to bring some life back
into them. His hands clenched and unclenched above the cuffs.
He raised his hips occasionally. I'm going to have to do something
about this soon.
"No luck, huh?" Mulder's eyes gleamed oddly.
Alex decided that his former partner had
gone into another manic phase. "You're really getting on my nerves,
Mulder, and this is even after I gave you a blanket to lie on."
"Forgive me. I'll try to be more
pleasant the next time you kidnap me and knock me around."
At least he's talking again. Alex boosted
himself onto the trunk to sit beside Mulder. The older man was having
a hard time sitting up without rolling off the car, so Alex gave him a
helping hand.
As they sat in silence again, Alex noticed
that the air was rich with the thick sweetness of clover and the tart,
tomato-like scent of freshly mowed grace from the median. They couldn't
drown out the subtle scent of the man he sat so close to. Horny,
much, Alex?
"Oh, damn, they're playing that song about
that girl who got hit by a train and went to heaven, probably to get away
from her boyfriend. I can take morbid, but insipidly sweet morbid
is more than I can deal with," Mulder said. "Let me guess, you can't
get a tow truck out here."
"No tow truck for me to steal, no."
"You wouldn't want it. They're slow
as hell."
"But they vibrate so nicely."
"I'm not touching that one. Where
were you trying to go? I imagine you'd have to stop before you hit
the Pacific."
"That's for me to know, Mulder."
"You stink, Krycek."
"So you've said before."
"You've been smoking." Mulder tried to
wriggle away.
Krycek gripped his arm. It felt hotter
than it should, somehow. "I've had enough of this. Sit." Incredibly,
Mulder actually satthere as told. Maybe Alex had succeeded in training
him to associate escape attempts with blows to the head and loss of oxygen.
World, you can thank me later.
As much as it nauseated him, Alex put a
cigarette in his mouth and lit it. Just when Mulder started to relax,
Alex removed it and put it into his former partner's mouth. Mulder's
lips pursed around it with the strength a baby would probably use for its
mother's nipple. Alex tried and failed to stop thinking about other
things Mulder could wrap his lips around.
The older man actually shuddered and closed
his eyes as he breathed in. The full moon's light left half of Mulder
face washed in blue and the other half in shadow. His white shirt
glowed only slightly more than his pale skin. Working the X-Files
had made Mulder a creature of darkness and fluorescent light. He
needs to get out in the sun more.
Are we going to make him?
Instead, Alex asked, "I didn't know you
smoked."
Mulder brought his cuffed hands up to hold
the cigarette. "For a year and a half. It was a low time in
my life. With all the profilers I knew who smoked, it was a cliche
for me to start to, but..." Mulder suddenly looked distant.
"What?" Alex finally asked.
"I didn't start because of them.
Did you ever hear about Bobby McCain case?"
"Yeah, everybody did. Are you trying
to tell me that you were the profiler on that one?" Alex wanted to keep
Mulder talking. If I'd known that all I had to do was get him smoking...
"The anonymous FBI agent. Yeah."
"They kept your name out of the news."
"There was a good reason why. McCain
kidnapped me. He wanted me after he hacked his way into the bureau's
computers and found my profile of him. He wasn't the genius movie
serial killers are, but he was an incredible hacker.
"He never understood why he did the things
he did. Killed people and embalmed them. Ate their organs.
That sort of thing. My insights into his character stunned him.
"So he kidnapped me, seriously wounding
my partner in the process. When I came to, I knew I had to be very
careful. Anything could set him off, and my profile of him pegged him as
the type to booby-trap his home. If I wanted to live, I had to play
along with him. After the first week I convinced him to take the cuffs off. The bureau rescued me
at the end of the second."
"Are you saying—"
"I went Stockholm. I personally led
two of the rescuing agents into traps. They had to keep me... in
restraints. And there was Bobby, confused about why they arrested
him. After all, he would never have to kill again. 'I have
Fox now,' he said, 'and Fox will never leave me.'" Even Mulder's voice
changed on the last. He blew a perfect smoke ring and followed it
with another. They swirled in the odd light until they slowly disintegrated.
"Because you 'played his game.'" Now it
made sense.
"It took five months of therapy to get
me back on active duty and another year to kick the smoking habit I started
while I was with him." Mulder held the cigarette in his cuffed hands.
The orange flare at the end bounced as his hands shook. "This is
a symbol of so many things I don't want any part of." He stubbed
it out on the car's roof and tossed it onto the highway.
Alex didn't know if it had been the smoke
rings or the shaking hands, but he couldn't hold back any longer.
He grabbed Mulder and kissed him before pushing him back into a prone position.
Stretched out and with his arms pushed over his head again, Mulder looked
like a ritual sacrifice laid out on the altar of one of those ancient South
American cultures that ripped out the hearts of its victims.
For a few blissful moments, Mulder melted
compliantly against him. Of course it didn't last. "We're not
doing this," he gasped.
"You need this as badly as I do."
As Alex straddled Mulder, he heard, "My love must be a kind of blind love
/ I can't see anyone but you" from the radio. "It must be fate, Mulder."
It fascinated Alex to feel part of Mulder acquiesce so shamelessly while
another fought. "This isn't about you and your guilt or you and your
past, this is about you and me."
"There is no 'you and me.' There's
you and then me, and in a perfect world the two would never meet," Mulder
gasped but ground his hips against Alex's.
"There's been a 'you and me' from the moment
you met me. For a man who claims to be looking for the truth, you
have some gift for self-delusion. You have to learn to accept what
you can't change and get on with your life."
The headlights of a passing truck briefly
spotlighted them. "We can't do this here!" Mulder said.
Alex smiled at the surrender implicit in
that statement. "Sure we can." Letting the leisurely speed of the
song set his pace, Alex laid claim to the body under him with slow touches
from his hands and lips. Under the odd illumination, Mulder became
all blue light and shadows, a striped animal growling and purring under
Alex's attentions.
"The moon may be high, "Doo wop, shoo wop," Alex sang with a grin
into Mulder's neck. The older man, who gave off a furnace's heat, shivered
against him.
"You're insane, Krycek."
"You're here too. Should I stop?"
Alex started to undo his captive's pants.
"Yes. No. Oh—"
Alex wrenched the pants and underwear down,
exposing Mulder to the cool night air, and pulled off his own. The
older man spread his legs obligingly as he panted, "Please."
Alex couldn't believe how much he needed
this as he stroked Mulder's hard cock for lubrication. No, I don't
need him. I just want him. That's different.
"You are here, so am I. It didn't take much to bring Mulder over,
just a few hard, expert strokes. His whole body shuddered as he came
with a strangled sound. I wonder how long it's been for him?
Alex slicked himself with Mulder's juices and asked, "Do you want this?"
He better want this. Without waiting for an answer, his slippery fingers teased his former partner's puckered
opening as he lubricated it. He knew how Mulder would respond.
"Yes, please..." The light of another set
of passing headlights revealed a Mulder utterly abandoned in lust, body
loose, lips slack, eyes sparkling and dazed, hands clenching and unclenching
above the cuffs. Beautiful, and obviously ready.
Alex plunged into him and immediately set
a hard, fast rhythm. Mulder locked his legs around the younger man and
writhed against him. As Alex thrust over and over, he kissed whatever
flesh he could reach and tasted salt. Mulder's inner muscles contracted
around his former partner's cock. You're going to break me...
I never knew you could make such incredible sounds. Oh, God. The
next squeeze made Alex feel like he'd shattered into a million pieces as
he exploded into Mulder.
Alex rolled to the side and collapsed,
only then coming close to falling off the car. Irony. Yeah,
it would be great to break my fool neck now. He kissed Mulder,
who sighed and curled up against him. Keep this in mind for next
time. Mulder's very nice to deal with when you've just fucked him.
Although I really think I need to do much more research. Much, much
more.
Alex saw red and blue flashing lights coming
in fast in the distance. At first they meant nothing to him.
When his brain came back on line, a bolt of fear shot through him.
Oh, shit.
"Mulder!"
"Hmm?"
"The state police are coming. We
have to get presentable, pronto."
"I have one little problem. My hands
are cuffed. Makes it hard to dress myself." For all the tartness
of Mulder's reply, he sounded a little fuzzed.
Alex cursed as he quickly cleaned up and
dressed first Mulder and then himself. Under other circumstances,
he'd enjoy this. He finished zipping up his jeans as the car pulled
up behind theirs. As the two officers—both tall, blond,
burly Slavic types—walked up to Alex, he quickly fabricated his story,
but he could swear that he'd forgotten something. "We're so glad
to see you. We can't get the car started or contact a tow.
My friend got knocked around when we lost control. Could you give
us a ride?"
One of the cops walked past him to stand
next to Mulder, who sat slumped on the rear bumper looking exhausted.
The agent had his bruised head down and his hands wedged between his knees...
The cuffs. Mulder still wore handcuffs.
Oh, shit. Right now the officer wouldn't see them, but if he
forced Mulder to move...They'll never believe that I'm in law enforcement
now. If I was, I would have identified myself as such and Mulder
as my prisoner from the beginning. Shit!
Mulder doesn't look well. What's
going on? Alex couldn't help fidgeting as he fought the urge to
try to distract the man away from Mulder, which would look too suspicious.
The officer put his hand to Mulder's forehead.
The fact that the agent didn't stop him said a lot for Mulder's physical
state. "I think your friend could use a doctor. Looks like
heat stroke and dehydration." The cop reached for his wrist, and Alex already
started to surreptitously move toward the tree line. Shit, shit,
shit! There goes my ride... But at least they'll take care
of Mulder.
The cuffs gleamed in the moonlight as Mulder's
arms came up. The policeman wasted a moment reacting in surprise before
drawing his gun and turning toward Alex, who had taken advantage of that
hesitation to bolt for the woods. He heard the cops shout at him
to stop but ignored them.
Alex fought the urge to look back.
He had learned long ago to never look back. It was pointless.
He would just move on, as always.
Mulder had been staring at the ceiling
but noticed Alex the moment the younger man walked into the room.
"The service sucks, and the bed's hard, but they have a nice big-screen
TV," Mulder said. "If you want to beat my head in again, I can't
do much to stop you." When he moved his arm the IV line rattled a little against the metal bed frame.
He looked exhausted and a bit ill.
"That's not what I'm here for." Why am
I here? He looks awful. Still attractive, but awful.
Damn, that doesn't make any sense. Alex had to look away.
So this is guilt. I don't like it much. And it's not my fault!
I tried to take care of him, and he wouldn't let me. Alex closed
the door to the private room. The near darkness of the room wrapped
around him. "Why didn't you tell me you were suffering? Why
did you let yourself get this way?"
"I didn't want you to get a hold over me."
Mulder sighed. "I failed. You look tired, Krycek. How
did you find me?"
"I had a rough night, followed by a rough
day. A truck driver finally picked me up, and I convinced him to
listen on the police band. Wasn't hard. It's amazing how much
they say over the air." Alex sat on the edge of the bed and stroked a lock
of hair out of Mulder's eyes. The older man let him. "How long
are they keeping you for?"
"Not much longer. They're almost
satisfied that I'm rehydrated enough. They're keeping me mostly for
observation." He closed his eyes. "I can't sleep here, not even with
the TV on."
Alex settled onto the bed beside him and
gathered him close. Mulder melted against him but said, "They check on
me now and then."
"I'll keep watch. Get some rest."
"I always worry when you turn helpful."
"If you didn't worry, I would worry."
Mulder laughed softly. In half a
minute he drifted off to sleep. Alex stayed awake and stared at the door.
The jitters he felt all day had faded. He'd gotten his fix.
Another need... what happens when this gets taken away from me, too?
And it will. What happens when Mulder returns to normal?
THE END "Strange what desire will make foolish
people do"
Addictions
by Viridian5
To make me feel this way
What a wicked thing to do
To let me dream of you"
—"Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak
Almost.
The car started to make terrible struggling
noises. "Oh, shit, not now. We're in the middle of nowhere,"
Alex muttered.
But I can't see a thing in the sky.
'Cause I only have eyes for you..."
Maybe millions of people go by,
But they all disappear from view,
And I only have eyes for you..."
The cops had arrived too damned quickly.
Given a choice and the opportunity, Alex would have hidden himself and
Mulder in the woods rather than take the chance that the staties would
realize he'd stolen the car.
—"Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak
