"You wither
This is where it falls apart
Mulder still stood and stared. Scully
had left a while ago when she realized that he wouldn't say anything or
move or let her lead him away. Once or twice he closed his eyes and
opened them in that attempt at magic he used to do as a kid, the one where
he'd close his eyes before entering a room and wish that Samantha would
be there when he opened them. It didn't work then, and it didn't
work now. He saw the same thing with his eyes shut as he did with
them open. Destruction. Nothing could bring back any of the
things he'd lost.
He'd stopped noticing the reek of burnt
plastic and paper long ago. It simply became part of the environment,
part of his own scent. Water still dripped in places. Everything
withered, blistered, burnt, and peeling away, twisted into new and frightening
shapes.
He didn't think. White noise, static,
crackled through his numbed brain. Dimly he felt his heart slowing,
his skin growing cold and clammy. Shock, or part of himself willing
death. It didn't surprise him that death hurt every bit as much as life.
He'd always expected that.
If ever there had been a physical representation
of his mind, it had been this office. Cluttered, dingy, isolated,
and crammed full of images and facts. He appreciated the irony of
being a person who lived more in his mind than anywhere else and having
this office, another representation of the same, serving as more of a home
than his apartment had ever been. He had felt safe here.
When he had first been led to the office
his superiors had decided he deserved as department head of the X-Files,
he knew what they expected from him. They wanted him to see this
cramped, former copy room in the basement as a warning, an insult, and
a punishment. The man who guided Mulder watched his face carefully
for the look he should have had, for the regrets and second thoughts.
But Mulder started to grin. He saw
the message and read it differently. He had succeeded in pissing
someone off. They found him threatening; they wanted him demoralized.
It meant he was on the right track. He couldn't resist further baiting
them by extravagantly praising the space when the disappointed guide asked
Mulder what he thought of it. He spoke lovingly of the privacy and
quiet.
For months afterward people still interrupted
him occasionally trying to find the copy machine. Their way of
playing with him, trying to work on his nerves, make him surrender.
He retaliated by giving his visitors a guided tour then finding the machine
for them. Even now his lips twitched slightly upwards at the memory.
He had made this room his own, his sanctuary.
Diana never really belonged here, and it surprised him not at all when
she jumped for the first glamorous assignment that came her way.
Scully came the closest to staking a claim, but a part of him would always
see this place as his, even if it did seem emptier and darker without her
around.
When Mulder had caught Skinner rummaging
through the office, he'd almost said something that would have gotten him
fired. //Stop trying to figure me out!// had been the first thought to
run through his head, but Skinner didn't have a chance of separating the
most important things from the important trivia.
Scully had once told him that he let everything
take on a "warped significance." She didn't understand that everything
was important. Knowing this made him one of the bureau's most successful
investigators. Everything was important.
Now he looked at the work of years lying
in blackened ruins around him. His work and other agents' work, the
labor of decades, lost, gone to ashes. Destroyed by fire, which he
hated and feared because he loved it too much. Loved its flowing
beauty and power, respected its overwhelming hunger.
Mulder suddenly realized that someone's
hand rested on his shoulder. Had been resting on his shoulder for
some time.
"You do know who did this," Krycek said.
In faded black leather and denim he seemed to match the charred ruins.
Mulder couldn't even feel surprised.
"Since when did the FBI start letting just anyone wander the halls?
Security always checks me when I walk in."
"Maybe you look untrustworthy." Krycek
looked around at the devastation. "This hurts, doesn't it?"
"Why, no, Krycek, this is the best day
of my life."
"You don't get it, do you? They wouldn't
do this if you weren't on the right track, doing things they find threatening."
"Consider me comforted. Why don't
you just go and leave me to wallow in my own misery?"
"That's no fun. I could have killed
you just now. You didn't even know I was here. I stood here
watching you with my hand on your shoulder for five minutes."
"If your hand's squeezing my shoulder,
you can't use your gun."
Krycek shrugged and changed the subject.
"You have to admit that he's back to his old self. Death did him
some good. Before they shot him he was becoming unfocussed, distracted.
A little downtime in Canada as a ghost, and he's back better than ever.
And don't make any comments about Canada. I like Canada."
"When my side dies, it's forever.
When yours does, it just means they've gone to another country."
"They're not my side. I'm my own
side." Mulder felt Krycek shift next to him. "Maybe you're
on the wrong side."
Mulder turned his head to look at his former
partner. Krycek gazed back with a fire in his eyes that made Mulder
shudder. The beauty, the power, the hunger...
Mulder could go for days at a time without
thinking of a night at his apartment when Krycek had spoken of war and
the refusal to submit and sealed an unspoken pact between them with a kiss.
A kiss that had distracted Mulder out of his bitter despair and bolted
him to the floor as Krycek left.
//I should have gone after him and brought
him in. I didn't. He's doing it again. Am I going to
let it work again?//
"Are you trying to seduce me?" Mulder asked
and then promptly cursed himself. That wasn't what he meant to say
at all... or at least not how he meant to say it.
Krycek smiled. "Do you want me to?"
he asked in a voice that sounded playful, dead serious, and devastatingly
sexy all at once.
Mulder's mind blacked out momentarily,
leaving him standing there, staring, with his mouth slightly open.
All that time, all those veiled comments and heated looks, and in one stupid-tired
moment he'd forced it into the open. Do you want me to? //Do
I?//
Krycek took him by the arm. "I'm
sorry, Mulder. That was a stupid mistake." Before Mulder had
a chance to whimper out a plea for—something—Krycek continued, "You're
hardly in any kind of state to give me a decent answer. Going at
you now is like propositioning a widow over the grave of her newly dead
husband." Krycek smiled briefly, and his eyes seemed to gleam at a thought
he kept to himself. Mulder shivered at the heat the sight inspired.
"Besides, you reek right now. A shower, some rest, a
little food, and it'll be a different
story."
"So do you," Mulder said softly.
When Krycek's eyebrow quirked in query, Mulder said, "Reek."
"Some things are easily fixed." Krycek
started to pull him away, and Mulder, who had resisted all of Scully's
attempts to do this, silently let it happen. He blamed it on the
fatigue, or tried to.
Mulder let the spray wash over his head
and tried to think only of the feel of the hot water running over his hair
and skin. He still felt cold. He wanted to return to a state
of mental and emotional numbness. If he started to think he knew
he would run and never stop.
He was showering at Krycek's place.
"Hey, Mulder! Are you trying to dissolve
yourself in there?" Krycek called from outside the door. Mulder could
just make out his voice over the rushing water.
Mulder realized that he hadn't even picked
up soap or shampoo; he just stood under the water. "Yeah," he answered
shakily as he started to run the shampoo through his hair. He hadn't
realized just how seriously the burnt stench of his office had permeated
his hair, skin, and clothing until Krycek got him out of the Hoover building.
Mulder suddenly felt another hand in his
hair, massaging his scalp. He jumped a little but Krycek standing behind
him stopped him from slipping and falling. He backed into warm bare
skin and had
to throttle down an urge to panic.
"Let me help you, Mulder. I think
you're still in shock."
//That Krycek, always trying to be helpful,
even if it kills me,// but Mulder couldn't maintain his sarcastic cynicism
and slowly calmed under the deft, sensuous touch. Once he realized
that he'd been dawdling, Mulder had planned to just finish the shower,
get himself cleaned up, as fast as possible, but Krycek's fingers felt
so good. His scalp tingled, and he felt the knotted-up tension inside
him start to drain away.
"Will you do mine for me?"
That would mean turning to face his former
partner, acknowledging that he stood skin to skin with Krycek in such a
small space. Mulder slowly turned, already missing Krycek's touch,
and kept his eyes carefully away from the important bits as he reached
for the bottle. Ignoring the challenging look that met him, Mulder
proceeded to lavish as much care on the younger man's head as he had just
received, only with two hands. It was only fair. Krycek hummed
happily, and let him pull them both briefly, carefully, under the spray
to rinse.
"Repeat? And dare I ask for conditioner?"
For the second round they stood even closer,
and their hands became more daring. //You know where this is heading,
Mulder, don't pretend you don't.// By the time they got to the conditioner
they stood almost within one another's arms, erection to erection, and
the feel of the spray against Mulder's sensitized skin sent pleasure sizzling
through him.
"I think you're starting to come around."
When Krycek bent down to pick up a bar of soap, he made sure he rubbed
against Mulder all the way down and then up again. Mulder groaned.
"Do you feel clean yet, Mulder?"
"No," Mulder moaned.
"Good." Krycek's slick, soapy hand wandered
down Mulder's body, starting at the elegant neck and drifting down to the
nipples, sliding over the ribcage and trailing further down. "Can't
neglect this." His hand stroked Mulder's cock, alternating the lightest
touches with grasping pulls. But just as Mulder reached the very
edge, the hand fled, and he whimpered at its loss.
"Not yet." Krycek pulled him close for
a deep kiss and started to grind against him. His hand played along
Mulder's spine and stroked down his ass. Krycek gasped as Mulder's
fingers scrabbled for a grip on him. "Is this what you want, Mulder?"
"Yes." //I want to, need to, burn with
you.// As they kissed hungrily, they stroked and ground against one
another, trying to touch and tantalize as much of the other's flesh as
possible. Mulder came first with an agonized cry with Krycek soon following.
Then Mulder started to shake.
Krycek held him and murmured, "It's okay.
You've had a busy night. Everything will be better in the morning."
He turned off the water, toweled Mulder dry, and put him to bed.
Despite his confusion and the hot, dark
gaze watching him, Mulder immediately went to sleep.
An hour later Krycek climbed in next to
and spooned against Mulder. He stroked the soft, drying hair and
breathed in the scent of his own soap and shampoo on his new lover.
//Mine. Try to back off from this, Mulder.//
He should have killed the smoking man when
he had the chance, but he had been commanded not to, and, for now at least,
he had to follow orders. At least publicly. They had to think
they had tamed him, given him enough of what he wanted to gain what loyalty
he had to give. He could afford to play Krycek the Errand Boy and
Chauffeur for a while.
But the torching of Mulder's office by
the bastard made Krycek's teeth clench. It may have knocked down
enough of Mulder's shields to finally let this inevitable thing happen,
but it seemed to have broken something as well. As much as it scared
Krycek to admit it, he wanted to make that pain go away, fix everything
and make Mulder safe.
Krycek knew what would make him feel better
if he were Mulder. //And if it makes me feel better too, all the
better. I already have some ideas.../ With visions of murder
and mayhem dancing through his head, Krycek put his arm around Mulder and
fell into a satisfied sleep.
Burn
by Viridian5
You blister
I watch you burn and peel
It's not like you
Can save me
It's not like you even care
I'm finding it so hard to hold on
This is where it falls apart
I feel helpless as my everything
Comes crashing down on me"
—"Falls Apart" by Stabbing Westward
