by Garnet
Hatred. And I had quite enough of that already to go around.
Not that what we had done together had been all that legit anyway in
the first place. Not officially and certainly not unofficially. An
Assistant Director of the FBI simply did not sleep with the agents
under his command, let alone those of the same sex. Let alone one
who had turned out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. It would have
ruined his career. Could still ruin his career, what was left of it
anyway, if it was ever found out. If anyone ever caught on.
It had happened every couple of weeks in the beginning and now it
happened every few months. Never less than two, never more than
six, except for that long period of time I'd spent in Mother Russia
trying to recover from the latest escapade the most troublesome of
the man's other agents had dragged me along on. Still, if I wanted
to try to pinpoint just when things began to change, I would have
pointed to just then. To that evening that I turned up on the man's
doorstep—still hollow-cheeked and shaky, uncertain of the time
after my long trip and even less certain of my welcome—and was
waved in, as usual, without a word. Without a single change of
expression on the face in front of me or in the brown eyes behind
those fragile wire-frame glasses.
No, instead, the other man'd stood back and invited me in to stand
in almost exactly the same spot where I had stood over half a year
ago, when the man before me had grabbed me and shook me and snarled
at me and punched me full in the stomach. But that had been that
man and that man was not this man. That man had been Assistant
Director of the FBI, Walter S. Skinner, proper and exacting and firm
and afire with a not terribly unjustified rage. This man, the one
who had turned away from me to go and fill a glass with two fingers
worth of his best whiskey, neat, the way I always drank it, had no
name. Had no voice. Kept all his emotions, all his reactions,
buried deeply inside. All his reactions but one.
The only one I was interested in. The one I came back for time and
again, despite all better judgment and reason.
I had taken the glass offered at the time and thrown it back, only
to instantly regret it as the room swayed around me. Swayed and
spun and turned a mute and unforgiving shade of black. When I'd
come back to myself, I'd found myself being held to a broad chest,
being half-carried, half-guided towards the sofa. And I'd
instinctively resisted, foolishly tried to twist away from them,
from him, only to have those arms tighten around me—pain sparking
through the still-tender scars on what was left of my arm—clearly
not about to let me go. Not in this incarnation, anyway.
They'd pressed me down into the cushions then, pressed me flat and
covered me up with the blanket off the back of the couch, and then
abandoned me again as the man moved away. Picked up the glass I'd
dropped and set it back on the bar, before disappearing into the
kitchen beyond. The sounds of him puttering around had been
mockingly comfortable, hurting a little with the sheer domesticity
of it, and almost seemed to trap me there, waiting and watching and
shivering a little. Wondering if I'd finally made my last mistake.
If I'd gone too far. Or simply not far enough.
But the man's face had given nothing away when he'd finally emerged,
a large mug steaming in his grip. A bright yellow mug with a happy
face on one side and a sad one on the other; it didn't suit him at
all and somehow that made it minutely better. If only for a moment
or two. Long enough for him to help me sit back up, to re-wrap the
blanket around my shoulders, being extra careful of the left one as
if it was something he'd practiced almost, and then put the mug in
my one remaining good hand. And the other man's expression remained
bland, unassuming, as he sat down next to me on the sofa and gazed
out across the room as I slowly drank down the hot chicken broth I'd
been given. Half grateful and half resentful for the damn stuff.
For his consideration. His thoughtfulness.
Perhaps the older man'd been looking at nothing. Perhaps he'd been
looking out at the city, or the balcony where he'd once forced me to
spend a cold and miserable night. Or that part of him had, anyway,
the part that hated my guts. The part that didn't care if I lived or
died as long as I got what was coming to me.
And I'd briefly wished that I could ask. That we could talk. About
this, at least.
But I'd said nothing. Only drank my soup like the good little boy
that I wasn't and watched the other man not looking at me and
listened to him breathing, slow and sure and steady as always, and
found myself wanting as I always wanted. The hard truths, the only
real thing left to me anymore, careless of doubts and fear—the
truth of mouth and skin and flesh and fingers, of steel and heat and
pain and pleasure and submission to it all, to that fleeting and
exquisite moment or two of sheer nothingness that came after and
allowed for nothing else. That ate the last bits of me away, my
name, my life, my memories, and granted me peace for a few
infinitely precious minutes. An effect that lingered at the fringes
of the man I forced to be the rest of the time and made me to be
able to get through another few months relatively intact. Marginally
sane, at least.
Yeah, if I had to point a finger to it, it had been that night.
When I had been offered comfort instead of copulation. When I had
been forced to submit to concern—remote and mystifying as it
was—rather than the hard cock I'd grown to want, to need. Though
that had been there, too. I had been able to see it, the outlines
of the other man's desire and equal need, pressing up against the
front of his jeans. Could almost smell it coming off of him, even
over the scent of the chicken soup. I well knew that smell. I had
worn it home when I'd had a home to go to. Had worn it back to
seedy motel after seedy motel. Even, once, and that had been truly
stupid, to a meeting with my own employer. Not that the bastard
should have been able to smell the scent of sex on me over the
clinging miasma of his own addiction.
That had been the night I'd been ordered to commit murder. Not that
they ever used words like that. Ever spoke so directly. But I knew
what they meant and what it meant to kill the man I'd been sent to
kill. That I'd been sent to stop from spilling it all, bloody
secret after bloody secret, to the man he'd thought was his son.
Lies and lies, that's all it was. All it ever was. Small wonder
that Mulder'd never found his truth; it didn't exist anymore.
They'd killed it as they'd killed so many through their experiments,
their policies, killed and maimed and mutilated. As I'd been killed
and maimed and mutilated.
Both inside and out.
No words between us. And, this one time, no sex. Just a bed and
clean, soft sheets and arms warm around me the rest of the night.
Long into the morning, when the older man should have been gone.
Should have transformed into that other man and been at work and
continuing that fight for law and order and the power to hold it all
together for just another day, another month, another year.
Like sandbagging the ocean, but you could never tell him that. And
he'd never believe you, even if he knew he should.
And, while he had me, while he was on top of me, in me, I could
ignore the flood, too. The destruction I knew was coming. The
choices I'd made and the one's I knew I'd have to make in the
future. What my life had become and what it hadn't and how much I
hated one and longed for the other. Even if it meant I were as
blind as that long-haired and beautiful bitch on the pedestal with
her sword and scales and penchant for maddeningly black and white
solutions.
What she never got was that things weren't just black or white, one
thing or the other. Mostly, they were shades. Fleeting chancy
things that you couldn't quite get ahold of, let alone try to keep.
To hold to yourself. To hold onto.
Because, sometimes, and that hurt the worst, it all split right down
the middle. Left you bleeding and lonely and broken, with half of
yourself on one side and half on the other. Like someone had taken
that big old blind sword of justice and sliced so quick and fast
that it didn't hurt at all at the time. Only later. When the
resultant sting would like to drive you mad. The pain reaching so
deep there was no way in hell to ever hope to balance on the edge.
If you even knew how to. If you ever had.
But I never even had the chance to try—I fell right over. Fell
right down. My fingertips catching at the last on the only thing
left to keep from the depths below, catching on a man who had his
own problems with balance. Who also know that razor's edge.
Cutting himself deeply on that merciless blade over all the
compromises he'd made and been forced to make. And the ones he
hadn't and what they had cost him.
Oh, I'd cost him. And I'd hurt him. Never doubt that. But never
so personally before. So directly. Getting in a few chops in a
stairwell has nothing on this. On holding a man's life in the palm
of your hand.
I'd hate it if it were me in his place.
I do hate it. Though the pain they've put me through—and that they
use sometimes to control me, to haul me back to their tender
embraces—is not physical pain. At least, not entirely. They have
no little black box for me. They don't need it. Not anymore. I've
got nowhere else to go. Nowhere to hide. No one who gives a damn.
Except maybe the man who'd held me once and kept me safe all the
night, from memories and nightmares and fears and regrets, some of
which he also shared. Some of which I'd done to him. Or had him do
to me.
I hadn't wanted to do this to him. To hold this over him. But I
can't tell him that. He either already knows it or he wouldn't
believe me, anyway.
So I said nothing. Even as he opened the door and found me there,
yet again. Only hours after I'd made my threats and my
promises—their threats and promises—in the back of his car. My
finger on the button. My heart in my throat.
His eyes cold and resigned and tired all at once and mine...
Empty as I could make them.
So I said nothing, even as I wondered if this had finally proved too
much. The last betrayal. The one thing neither he or I could live
with.
Said nothing as his eyes met mine, one long moment, two, cold and
unforgiving and breathlessly sharp, and then dropped a little.
Staring at nothing in particular, even as he moved back to let me
come in.
Then caught me by my right arm, my real arm, as I walked past him
and spun me right around and crushed harsh lips to mine. Stole my
breath of surprise and drank it right down, as if it were his right.
His necessity. His only remaining chance at conquest.
I fought him; I couldn't help myself. But then he spoke, finally
and absolutely, grinding the words directly into my mouth, fingers
digging into my flesh. Hard and harsh and hopelessly. Doubly
damned and half in sorrow.
"God...Alex, please don't...stay..."
So I did it. I caught his face between warm flash and cold plastic,
caught it and held it for my own. For my own lips to beg, to plead,
to promise.
"Always..." Knowing the whole time he would hear what I didn't,
what I couldn't say—as long as I can, as much as I'm able, until
my death or his or until the whole world comes crashing down around
our ears as it always seems on the verge of lately. Most probably
because people try like hell to make it black and white and nothing
and no one can survive like that, not and not shatter under the
pressure.
I had shattered a long time ago and was still tearing myself on the
pieces, when I wasn't slicing others with them as well. Huge
glistening shards of glass, bright as any tear. Bright as blood.
Bright as the other man's eyes as he pulled back slightly from me
and stole the last of my breath away with nothing more than a
glance. But then he'd always been able to take what he wanted from
me. And I let him, time and time again, as if I had no choice in
the matter, no voice of my own. It was an illusion, of course, but
it was my illusion.
"Skinner," I said, then almost wished the word back as a frown
stitched itself across his face. He'd broken first—said my name,
severed the fragile silence of our truce—but maybe it hadn't meant
the same thing to him as it had to me. In that moment, I could
almost see the other man staring out at me, the man who hated me,
who would just as soon take a fist to me as look at me, and a sharp
thread of fear tangled around my lungs, knotted in my stomach.
He blinked then and the impression faded. But, still, he asked,
"Why?" No accusation, no anger, just a simple question, pure and
clean. As if I had ever known anything to be pure and clean.
I wanted to shrug, to throw off some snide response, a caustic
comment, something guaranteed to hurt him and save myself, but I
couldn't. Not while staring into those brown eyes, into the face of
the man who fucked away all my worst nightmares, who'd held me once
when I couldn't bear any more pain.
Who drank from the same cup I drank from and suffered the pangs of
the poisonous wine that lay within, icy-sweet, numbing even as it
destroyed.
"Did you think," I said at the last, hardly whispering it. "That
you were alone in all this? That there was ever...a choice? For
any of us?"
His head came up a little. Just a touch, but the light flashed
across his glasses, blinding me to his eyes, the nuances of his
expression.
"Yes," was all he said, but it was more than enough. More than I
could deal with in that instant.
The knotted threads turned to wire—barbed and cruel—and I winced
away from them, from him. Turned to go, even though I had just
promised not to. But he moved in close and caught me again, held me
fast, but with gentle fingers this time, not harsh. More fingertips
than anything else, blunt and strong. And I knew those hands, their
power, their uses. They had trapped me time and again and torn
pleasure from a place so deep inside me that it feared that same
pleasure as much as it desired it.
To be taken. To be mastered. Murdered by ecstasy and so to fly
free from it all, if only for one slender moment.
"Please..." This time it was my turn to beg, and he responded to
the tone if not exactly to the plea. His head moved down and I
could see his eyes again, forced myself to stand absolutely still as
they searched mine, hardly daring to breathe.
"Yes," he said again, but this time the word didn't hurt as much.
His hand slid up and around, cupped the back of my neck. Brought me
in for another kiss, something almost soft this time. Almost. I
had to admit it was sweet, though. So sweet and warm that I lost
the ability to breathe again, if I'd ever truly regained it.
Just for this. No thoughts, no fears, no past, no future. Just for
this, I came. And didn't want to think about that either—how much
I had grown to need this, to need him. It was stupid, dangerous,
silly, but there you go.
I moaned straight into his mouth and that hand on my neck tightened
hard enough to bruise. His cock was bruising, too, as he pushed it
into my hipbone, a steely motion, insistent, demanding. Evidence of
his own need and I couldn't get enough of it, could never quite
imagine the reality of it when I was alone no matter how hard I
tried.
Fleetingly, I thought of the man's bed—oversized and comforting,
sheets and pillows that always smelled faintly of him—and then of
his couch, but we never made it to either. Barely made it to the rug
in front of the coffee table. My clothes didn't. They lay, tangled
around his own and my fake arm, strewn across half the floor.
And that had been a deliberate submission, too. To let him touch me
there, strip me of yet another of my protections. My necessities.
He had hesitated the first time, as if looking for permission of
some kind, but now he did it almost casually. Carefully, but
casually. Not wanting to hurt me until he wanted to hurt me.
'Cause it always hurt. Physically, yes, to a greater or lesser
extent depending on how much time he took with me beforehand, how
much lubrication—the man wasn't small by any means—but also in
other ways. It hurt to be pinned, to be made small, helpless to a
greater strength and purpose. And yet the craving for it never
quite went away, the desire for the places it always took me to
eventually. Though, always at the pace that he chose, that he set,
whether I struggled with it or against it. With him or against him.
Myself.
I didn't struggle this particular night, not now anyway. Not
anymore. That was done with, at least for a little while. A few
hours anyway, maybe the night if I was lucky. If he would give and
forgive me that much. The man who had killed him once already, just
yesterday. Who just might have to do it again, for good this time,
if he didn't cooperate. If he didn't let them drag him off his
precarious perch, down into the dark below. Where I lived most of
the time. If you could call it that.
I didn't.
I doubted he would either, not this man or even the one who hated
me, the one who'd done the things they imagined he deserved their
little toys for. Even though they were one and same and yet...not.
I sucked down another moan as his hands both soothed and tormented
me. His mouth. His skin on mine, hot-slick over heavy muscle and
bone. His warm breath whispering across my face, down my neck,
hands following, pinching, stroking, caressing. Teeth impressing
themselves into my flesh, as if he could mark me as I'd marked him.
Usually, he wanted me on my stomach, but this time he simply lifted
my legs and slipped between them. Our cocks clashing, my hips
arching up out of my control as he slid a finger down to hitch
across hidden and sensitive skin. Familiar territory to him by now,
he took quick possession. And, this time, when I arched up it was
for pain, for the slow inexorable pressure of one of those large
blunt fingers fitting itself up inside me. It didn't hurt as much
as it once had, with or without the lube, but it made me realize
that I was still tense. Or maybe the word terrified would have been
better. Not that he had turned me away tonight, but he had yet to
turn me inside out.
He still might punish me, for the wrong reasons as much as the
right.
When a second finger joined the first, I looked up and saw him
looking down at me. Warm eyes in a severe face, unreadable and yet
entirely too transparent. At least to me, the man who lay beneath
him, bound to him by blood and suffering and the dreadful
convulsions of fate. By two fingers up my ass and the promise of
more, that great weeping cock that I had learned to rely on.
I closed my eyes, then opened them again. Ruthlessly tried to force
myself relax into the moment, to fall between the cracks of what lay
between us. To let it all go, or at least to put my first foot on
the road that led there.
But, instead, the memory of him on that hospital bed abruptly
flashed through my mind, this powerful man brought down, dying,
surrounded only by strangers. All but one. All but one. And I only
there to witness his degradation, his death. His subjugation to my
own keepers.
At least my hands hadn't been entirely impersonal as they worked to
kill him, even though they should have been. Another awful
convulsion of fate that, in a way, I had been the only true mourner
at the funeral, short-lived as it was. Mourner and murderer in one.
A hand touched my face, feather-light, and I realized that I'd
turned away from him, was trembling slightly. He bent down over me
and now both hands were on me, capturing me, claiming me. Lifting
me up into his hard body, to his determined lips. And, this time,
he gave breath back to me, perhaps the same breath I'd given
him—that first shockingly keen and roaring rush of returning life
and consciousness, implacable and addictive. My own, my only, hand
crept around to his back and then I was holding him, too. Holding
on as tightly as I could stand to.
I wanted to speak to him again then, but there were no words for
what I wanted to say, for how I needed to say it. But, maybe, he
heard me anyway, because he kissed me again and it was a murderous
kiss, chokingly deep, possessive, aggressive, the kind of kiss only
a hard-ass like him could give and really mean it.
Part of me winced away from the intensity of it, automatically
resisting, but the rest of me simply melted. And I opened my mouth
as wide as I could, let him have it all. His tongue scouring me
until I wanted more than that even, so much more. Wanted the hard
length pressed up between us. Wanted it in that great empty space
inside me, to fill me with heat even though it burned me, to have
him up inside me as far as he could go; the first time he had made
me bleed and I wanted him to bleed me again. And not to be even the
slightest bit apologetic this time, to feel marginally bad about it,
like he had then. But to take it as his due, call it vengeance or
not.
Finally, I tore my mouth away from him, from the drowning, and
instead moved to lick down the side of his neck, devouring salt and
sweat. Pausing to bite at his collarbone, something I knew that he
liked, that turned him on. All sharp teeth and rasping tongue.
Like he'd been raised to enjoy the feel of feral creatures beneath
him. Taming what could not be tamed, but could be sublimated if you
really knew how and had what it took.
I had to admit. He had what it took.
At least, what it took to take me.
I managed to reach one nipple, to suck and swirl on it for a few
paltry seconds, before it proved too much. Before it proved his
undoing and my own. He let out a sound, half-growl, half-groan, and
then the floor came up to hit me. His full weight landed on me a
half-second later and made me entirely too aware of how hard and
uncomfortable it was, that I'd somehow ended up partially on and
partially off the rug.
A sensation I quickly lost track of as a sudden liquid heat came
down on one of my own nipples, as teeth bit and tore and twisted, as
a wayward tongue lapped at the sting. Not an apology by any means
for the pain, simply an accent.
And then hands were skimming over the rest of me, hard enough to
rearrange skin over muscle, muscle over bone. Some slight turn at
landscaping before the architect moved on to some much needed
interior redecorating.
Without thought, my legs came up of their own accord, spreading
themselves for him. And I threw my head back and let my hand sink
down as well to rest on the floor to one side, palm upwards, fingers
curved up around emptiness. Showing him all that I had and more.
Letting him see and touch and have whatever he wanted, as if he
wouldn't just damn well walk off with it anyway.
I don't know what my face looked like to him, but his was dark with
hunger, almost as suffused with blood as that straining cock. Heavy
blood, tainted now, but still strong, more than enough to do the
job. And it might have been a dream, what had happened the other
day, his weakness and how he had been brought down by something so
small, how he had all but been destroyed; surely, nothing could get
a man like this down for long if at all, surely nothing could ever
have made him whimper, let alone surrender.
Like I whimpered and surrendered as those hands finally found my own
cock, wrapped rough fingers around it just past the point of pain,
and worked me once, twice, half a dozen times. Brutal strokes,
almost cruel. Seemingly impersonal, as if he were simply priming a
pump. It was agonizing and electric at the same time, the impulse
to jerk away from that grip warring with the urge to push into it
even harder. Hard enough for that pain to peak, for that pleasure
to spiral up out of control.
But he would never let me go so easily, would never let it happen
before he took his own needs out of me. A supreme selfishness for
which I was usually grateful. Afterwards. Right at the moment,
though, he was a bastard, especially when he gave my cock one last
tug and squeeze and abandoned it. Ignored how it almost seemed to
try to follow him as he shifted over on top of me, brought his mouth
down on mine. Swallowed me up, ragged breath and sullen moan of
protest and clashing teeth and tongue and all.
I tried to keep my eyes open, but found them sinking shut beneath
the onslaught. Blinding me to the look in his own eyes, to what I
didn't want to see and what I couldn't afford to witness. His body
was more than enough, his sheer solidity, the smell and taste and
texture of him—salt and sweat and the faint traces of some
expensive cologne, musk and citrus at the same time—the sticky
trail his cock made as it slid across my belly. The way his tongue
took me as well, stroking and jabbing and slicking across my own,
across every inch of my mouth. Hot, so hot, a furnace, but one that
had never touched my own cock, that had never deigned to take me
inside and likely never would, especially now. Especially after what
I had done to him and what I nearly had done.
I'd sucked him once or twice in the beginning, but he'd never gotten
around to returning the favor before I'd been forced to flee into
the shadows. And, now, time and damage didn't allow the option.
Hardly allowed for kisses, if you could even give the devouring
force of what he was doing to me such an inconsequential name. To
give life, to take a life, to raise a fire in the dark and damn the
consequences. To claim what had already been damned, as if it were
still worth claiming.
He pulled his mouth away from mine and it was almost a tearing
sensation, one that left me open-mouth and gasping. My hand half
coming up before I could stop it, as if to grasp him, to pull him
back to me. But he wasn't going anywhere. And I should have known
that. I should have...expected the sudden urge that shook him and
shook me, the fingers that skimmed across the head of my cock and
stole the damp desire that had risen there. That moved to spread it
between my upthrust thighs, down in the dark, in the cold and in the
heat.
Two fingers slicking and curling up inside me, easier than before,
just the faint edge of a burn. Of a pull. The thumb pressing down
on the sensitive skin just above, as if he would pinch me between
them, hold me quite literally by the balls, or by the next best
thing to them. I hissed as those finger dug down and into me at the
same exact time, a hard grip, hard hands, callused and strong and
plain and eminately useful, as if he hadn't spend the last ten years
or more hiding behind some desk. Hiding who and what he was from
the powers-that-be. It was a real kick. They should be more
afraid, more respectful, of him, and they would be if they had any
sense, if they'd ever seen him like this, seen him as I'd seen him.
As I'd felt his strengths and fallen to them, seen his weaknesses
and found in them a skewed reflection of my own.
I opened my eyes but could see nothing of myself in his, at least
while he worked his fingers inside me, blunt force, blunt trauma,
impossible to run away from. To ignore. Anymore, than I could
ignore the cock that he eventually brought to bear on that same
tender spot. It was slick, too, but with his own liquids, his own
demand. If he was smart he would have slipped a rubber on
first—you never know where I might have been, what I might have
been up to—but nothing about this was smart or even sane so what
the fuck. Not that I had been with anyone, but I'd never tell him
that. Never give him the cure or curse of that particular brand of
satisfaction.
But there was no more hesitation, no more preparation. He just
pushed in and in hard as you please and I winced even as I pushed
back, rising up to meet him, to help drive him home. To take him
all in. One great gulp, wrenching and wonderful at the same time.
Sweat breaking out at the back of my neck, my legs shaking a little
as the force of it cracked them even wider. Threatened to split me
right open.
It was a feeling I could never deny, could never quite forget, even
when I felt like I should. That it would have been the correct and
the clever thing to do. The one that might help keep me alive.
Except that it was only in a moment like this that I was alive.
That I could feel myself breathing and sense my heart beating and my
flesh tingling, an itch and a scratch just below the surface, as if
something there was straining and struggling to get out. A heat and
a horror and a want and a will. A heat matched by the shocking heat
of this man inside me and a trembling horror at the sheer size and
steel of him, that it could ever get into me at all, let alone that
I could take it. It scorched me and how I wanted it and more, so
much more. Wanted the straight clarity of those brown eyes on me and
the compression of that hard mouth and all his anger and his calm
and his mockingly mute promises of devotion, both to making me hurt
and to making me safe.
More illusions, but sometimes that was all you had anymore.
All you were allowed.
Then his balls were resting against my ass, his cock impressively
far up inside me, so real, so solid, throbbing as I throbbed, as I
arched up and felt it move within me, slide another tiny notch
deeper. Touching the bare edge of that empty place. And I didn't
have to see it to imagine its shape, its color, the flare of that
great head and the beat of those veins all along its swollen length,
purple and stricken and savage.
I gasped, then gasped again as he ground it down into me, ground me
down beneath it. His hands sliding up to grab my shoulders—one
infinitely more careful than the other—and hold me for him, to him.
As if I'd ever want to leave him, let alone escape from this.
Still, his first real thrust caught me off guard as it always did.
Driving an actual groan out of me, a little with pain, a little with
pressure. A low groan, half-protesting it seemed, but still a
groan.
He paused then, as if to survey the results of his effort, and his
fingers tightened on my flesh. He tilted his head at me and now
there was something in his eyes after all, a heat and a
possessiveness, a hunger and a sullen blaze of hatred for that same
hunger. Or a burning dislike, at the very least. And I wasn't sure
if it was for me or for the very fact that he had to need anything
or anyone at all. Least of all someone to fuck.
Skinner had never struck me as a man who liked to just give it away.
He always seemed more like a "pay through the nose" kinda guy. As
if you wouldn't really appreciate it unless it cost you something.
A fair price to be sure—he was that, too, at least generally
speaking—but still a price.
I knew what my price was to come here. I didn't know for sure what
his was to let me in. And, maybe, just maybe, I didn't really want
to.
Abruptly, he pulled back—almost all the way—and pushed in again,
slow and slow this time, his eyes watching me the whole while.
Watching the effect that that big cock of his had on me as it
smoothly slid home, as if he hadn't quite gotten enough of it all
the times before. And I felt right and truly caught, unable to hide
a wince, a shudder, a soft sound. Unable to tear my own eyes away,
though I suspected that they were revealing too much in that
instant, way too much.
If his eyes were possessive, then what were mine? Could he see me
falling in them? Could he see that sharp edge, companion to his own?
Or did he see nothing. Just empty holes where a man's soul should
be, black as night and quick as sin. A darkness built up from
layers upon layers of lies that had once protected the last gasps of
a dying man—a man I couldn't even hardly remember now, except in
fleeting dreams, fleeting snips and scraps of memory—and now only
served to hide the fact that he had long since expired, that he just
didn't know he should damn well lay down and die already.
Necrophilia, thy name is Walter Skinner.
I closed my eyes then as that thought sank in, as the realization
came to me that the man above me was in a terrible way simply
fucking the dead. Maybe, even fucking his own death. The only real
way he could get back at it. At me. At them. At the whole goddamn
well-and-truly-fucked-in-the-head universe.
And, this time, I didn't make a sound, didn't react at all, as he
pulled out again and sank in. As I felt his balls, huge and hairy
and swollen with seed, press up against me. I was too busy simply
feeling him, smelling him, hearing him. His light and his life,
sweat slicking lightly across his skin, the grip and pull of his
muscles as he shifted, the weight of his bones pinioning my own, his
breath even warmer than his skin, hitching out only slightly more
rapid than normal. He was so strong and so real, so very alive, as
if he didn't know he was a dead man, too.
As if there was no way in hell that he was ever going to just lay
down and die. Not now and not ever. Even if his own blood and body
should turn against him. Even those he once trusted.
One long slow pull out and one long slow push in. Slide out and
slide in. Over and over. Never changing speed, never hurrying. All
the time in the world. As if he wanted to feel every last inch of
me. Or make me feel every last inch of him. From slick swollen
knob to massive root. A hurt and a pleasure so tender it was almost
a hurt, as well.
And it never been like this before, either. It had always been
quick, hard, fast, brutal. Sometimes a dab of lube to do you and
sometimes no more than some spit and polish. Pain tearing its way
to pleasure. To an ecstasy just bearly on the edge of agony.
Certainly sore and limping away afterwards. Sometimes a shade more
than that—a bit swollen, even. Always unforgettable. Undeniable.
I wasn't sure if I liked this. I wasn't sure if I could handle
this. A broken nose, a hard fist to the stomach, being knocked to
the floor and having my jeans yanked down, yeah, but not this...this
calm, this almost-gentleness. Being taken, but not being ripped
apart in the process.
But I was trapped in it now. Trapped with him, and I didn't want to
fight anymore. Even though it was likely to bring out his own cruel
streak, to make him fuck me as he used to. As he ought to.
So I rose up for the next stroke, gave myself over to it fully, and
reached up a blind hand to touch him. To run my own fingers across
his chest, feeling the heave and flow of his breath, hair and muscle
and the solid plate of breastbone, and finally along his throat. Up
to cup around the back of his neck, feeling sweat pooling there, hot
and liquid. Wanting suddenly to drink it, to drink him. To take
something of him into myself, willingly and deliberately. Something
that had nothing to do with regrets or possession or hurts or
wrongs. With broken, bloodied fingers and long falls through
consuming darkness.
With the impact that ate your soul right up out of you.
And he bent with my needs, with the gentle insistent urging of my
few fingers. His mouth coming down to mine, opening to my tongue.
Letting me inside. Letting me take what I needed. His cock moving
in silent counterpoint, quicker now, sharp little jumps inside me.
Every couple of jabs taking me like a live wire, hitting just the
spot to make the pleasure spin and spiral. Twisting at my heart and
lungs as if they were somehow tied to the same string.
Puppet-pleasure, worked by big hands, by a big stick, to speak and
move and dance and dangle. To be mouthpiece for another's desire.
And I stabbed back at him, licking and biting slightly. Touching
and tasting both his lips, his teeth, his thick tongue and rough
palate. Stealing the moisture of his mouth as I planned on stealing
the brilliant power of his cock. Every last little drop of it, milky
white with purity and salty with pleasure.
His mouth tasted of salt, too, and, more faintly, of coffee. I
hadn't noticed it before, but now I savored it. Sucked it away.
Wondered what whiskey would taste like from the same mouth, my
familiar two fingers worth taken straight from the source. Mouth to
mouth, a drunken exchange.
And, now, the hand on my left shoulder also moved. Came to slide up
the side of my neck, to graft large fingers across the back of my
head. Compressing through short short hair to the skull below,
holding me even tighter to his mouth. Holding me to his tongue and
to a series of long, relentless strokes inside me. Not slow, now,
not by any means. But not frantic either, as if he could go at it,
at me, all night yet. Displaying wicked control. Vicious strength.
Vengeance beyond price.
My thighs straining as he took me, as he condensed my world down to
just two things. The consumption of his mouth and the force of his
blows on my bowels. Darkness all, but he drove them with his light,
with his purpose, sweat building between us as we slid wet belly to
wet belly. My fingers tightening at the same time as his, winding
down, our teeth jammed up together, our lips warring. Our tongues
dipping back and forth, tangling and stroking...and if he tasted of
coffee, what did I taste of?
Was it of his best whiskey or something else entirely? Something
dark and earthy and evaporating hotly, wetly on the tongue. Did I
taste of blood and other, even more unsavory things—of lies and
death and a little black box, little black killing machines—or did
he taste only blackness, emptiness, what remained when all else was
gone.
And I could feel it coming and I wanted it and didn't want it at the
same time. Wanted him and hated him at the same time. Both for
what he'd done to me and for what I'd been forced to do to him. To
others like him.
But some things were inexorable, impossible to resist, even as your
very dread of them drove you to actions and thoughts and feelings
that you never would have thought yourself capable of. Let alone
capable of living with. Even enjoying, if that was the word for such
a dark and distant pleasure. For what it felt like to live when you
wanted to die, and to die a little inside every time you had to pull
a trigger or plant a bomb, to lie, to torture the innocent and the
guilty alike. To murder a man and then bring him back, like a magic
act you just hadn't got quite right just yet.
To come to him in the night and expect anything other than
vengeance.
To need so damn much, let alone to receive...
Weight shifted on top of me, in me, and I opened my eyes before I
could stop myself. Opened my eyes to the tearing away of his mouth
as he pulled back a little to look at me, simply look at me, his
eyes looking almost black in that moment, their sheet intensity
driving into me as hard as his cock. And, minutely, I was aware of
each separate trickle of sweat on his face, of the wetness and the
red and slightly swollen lips that still hovered so close to mine,
that suddenly parted to reveal a flash of brighter teeth. Of the
quick heat of his breath on my skin and how I couldn't help but suck
it right down, that I was sucking him down into my own desperate
lungs.
His throat worked then, a heavy swallow that I felt clear through me
and suddenly I was aware of the prickly heat and tickle of my own
sweat—on my face, gathering at the small of my back, of how his
hands slid and slicked through it, slid and slicked all over me even
as they held me to him, to that steadily driving cock—and the smell
of musk and sex and sweat that was rising between us abruptly all
but choked me, the mingled smell of him and the smell of me and of
what we were doing together. Of how he was taking me and how I
couldn't get away and how much it hurt and how much it...didn't...
And my stomach abruptly heaved and twisted with a black, blindingly
sharp and almost overwhelming wave of panic. I began to struggle,
to push up at him, but it was like trying to move a stone, a rock, a
fucking mountain, and he was already reaching down, easily snagging
my cock with one of those big hands, imprisoning it in coarse
fingers. Stroking me, milking me, making me shudder and arch up
into his touch, even as he forced himself faster inside me, against
me. Slamming into my hips, into my still-resisting flesh, as if he
could force the bones to simply shatter, as if he wanted to smash me
into smaller and ever smaller pieces. To break me down and push me
back to dust and blood, to a simple, primal and unspeakable need.
"Please," I said, I gasped, the word catching in my throat and
stealing the last of my breath away before I knew what it was doing
to me. What it might mean to him.
"Fuck," he hissed in return, super-heated air and spit and drops of
wayward sweat flying across my face. Stinging at my eyes. Draining
down into my mouth, bits and pieces of him mingling with my own.
"Fuck..."
And then I couldn't help but hang on, couldn't do anything but hang
on, as his hand compressed to the point of pain on my cock—as if to
squeeze the blood and strength right out of it—and he pulled back
out of me so far I felt the wetness of his cock head briefly before
it came thundering right back up inside me. Before his entire not
inconsiderable length rammed home and his hips twisted, the muscles
of his back, his ass, his whole body clenching as if to keep it
fixed there forever. Tabbed right up into that dead place inside
me.
A place that was abruptly flooded with light, with heat, with all
the intensity of this other man's will to live, to survive, to never
give up. My vision rocketed to red instantly, a caustic and deadly
color, then flashed to pure and liquid white, as almost-cruel
fingers slid and twisted and attempted to steal my own life away.
Tore pleasure and pain in equal measure out of my suddenly jolting,
screaming cock. Surge after surge, as if his own hot seed was
shooting straight up and through me, forcing itself right back out
to wash across those relentless fingers. More his than my own ever
could be.
I still couldn't breath and I was dizzy, almost sick with it, but it
didn't seem to matter so much anymore. Nothing else seemed to
matter, even my own mute terror of a moment ago. My flesh hadn't
broken after all, but everything else did. The past, the future,
all that I was and all I would ever be was ripped right along the
seams and fell away, down and down into the dark. Down into a pair
of brown eyes. Into a mouth that slowly returned to my own, that
settled and gentled over my lips and finally gave me a reason to
breathe again.
His weight no longer a rock, fixed and frightening, but a blanket.
A comfort. Muscles in his ass flexing a second time, holding that
massive cock thick and steady inside me as one last and tiny flutter
came from deep inside. Fingers painted with my own come playing over
my cock, squelching and stroking in the sticky warmth. As if he
wanted to tease yet another drop or two out of me as well, every
last little bit he could get. That he felt he was entitled to.
And I would have given it to him if I could. If I felt I could do
anything in that moment but gasp for more of that overheated and so
precious air and shake inside and feel every muscle in my body
sliding inevitably towards personal oblivion.
One kiss, long and slow and steady as the rest of him, as I was not,
and then he was pulling back. Back, but not out. Those brilliant
teeth pausing to nip at the very tip of my nose, a playful gesture
that felt almost unbearably tender. That made my eyes sting again,
though, this time, not with sweat. But the tears—if that's what
they were—didn't fall and I knew that they wouldn't, that they
couldn't, and that he wouldn't ever see them, not really, caught up
in his own aftermath or not, and that was all right. That was as
right as it could ever get.
That this was as all right as it could ever get. Fleeting and
fragile as it was. And as false.
But I closed my eyes, my mind, to that thought—that horrifying and
inevitable knowledge—and simply arched my throat. Baring myself
further to him. To the man who had taken me, who had remolded me
with his own flesh. And I felt his cock twitch inside me again as he
moved, as he bent to take my throat between his teeth. Half a kiss
and three fourths a bite.
Not enough to draw blood, but more than enough to get a taste for
it.
And, before I realized it, I was running my hand through his
remaining fringe of hair, up and over the sweating smooth expanse of
his head. Holding his mouth to my skin, those lips, those teeth,
that sweet-sharp pleasure. Of being possessed. Being needed, being
wanted, being...something other than a rat on the run.
Ruined and dirty and desperate.
His mouth moved downwards slowly to map the bones of my
shoulder—the safe one, the whole one—and then he was lifting up
again, lifting off me, and his cock slid out with a wet ease that
almost made me feel like crying again. That made me want to roll him
over and drive myself back down on him. Just to get him, to get
something, back inside me again. Anything to drive back the dark a
moment or two longer. To make this feeling, this boneless and
almost-pure sensation, last.
But he was already turning away, getting to his feet, no doubt
expecting me to do the same. Sweat gleaming on his body as he ran a
hand loosely across the back of his neck, as his head bowed down,
his eyes searching. And I almost made a sound of protest as he bent
and snatched up his pants again, started to get back into them.
Turning half back towards me in the process.
My eyes were immediately caught by his cock, still slightly hard,
reddened and slick with faint traces of come, and I pushed to my own
feet, to my knees, without thinking. Without preamble or
consideration for how close I was coming to going too far, pushing
too much. Betraying myself.
I opened my mouth, but he was already pausing, looking down at me,
and his face was impassive. No emotion at all, not even in those
brown eyes. His mouth already edged with hard lines.
It was a dangerous look—the look of the man who usually knocked me
around, who would have few if any qualms about locking me up and
leaving me to the tender mercies of my own employers such as they
were—but I suddenly found that I didn't care. That I only wanted
to stay a little longer. To be someone else a little longer. To
remember better times and better things.
I didn't reach out for him, but his eyes narrowed slightly,
consideringly, and then he let his pants fall back to the floor
beneath him and stepped back towards me. Looked down at me with
those still eyes, that tight mouth, and then nodded. The movement
so small that if I hadn't been looking for it, waiting for it, I
might never have seen it at all.
I didn't dare a smile, but he must have seen something in my eyes,
because his face slowly relaxed a little and he straightened a
touch, let out a long soft breath. Let out another as I bent
forward and put my tongue to his cock. To the tip of that flaring
head. Tasting the last of him, tasting what the rest of my body had
accepted.
And this wasn't safe either, but I didn't fucking care. I couldn't
find the strength for it. For worrying about anything beyond
tonight, beyond the man in front of me and how I wanted to make him
feel. How I wanted to make him forget as well.
The least I could do. No matter that it could never make up for the
rest. Not in a million goddamned fucking years.
He was still mostly soft, but I took him in anyway. Ran my tongue
around and around and then just took him straight down. And it was
almost a benediction to feel his hands settle on the sides of my
head, to feel those fingers digging in. Not hard, but determined.
Certain. Like he knew there was no way in hell that I'd pull away
now, that I'd ever imagine leaving him like this.
Especially now that he was hardening again, pretty right damn
quickly for an old man, for someone who'd been all but stapled to
his desk for the past ten years. His cock beginning to fill my
mouth, to stretch out my lips, knocking with gentle force at the
back of my throat as I took him deep over and over again. Deeper
than was comfortable.
And the man had amazing control, even in this, even more than he had
years ago. The last time I'd done this for him. At his instigation
I believe.
He didn't move at all—not even to work my mouth over him with his
grip on my head— let alone to thrust, though it must have been all
but impossible not to. No, the only release he allowed himself was
the occasional sound, little catches of breath and even softer
moans. As if fearful of being caught and punished for anything
more, though by whom I had no idea.
Certainly, not by me. Who was, even now, finding myself getting
just as turned on by sucking his cock as by having him fuck me.
And he must have been somewhat aware as well, because he suddenly
shifted a little, changing his balance, and his foot moved to brush
across my own growing erection. Brushed and stroked and pressed.
The skin there nearly as rough and callused as his hands. Not as
graceful, but good enough. Certainly good enough to make me groan
around a mouthful of cock and buck up against that steadily working
foot.
We never really got into any kind of rhythm, but it didn't seem to
matter. I could taste him—to be honest, he was all I could taste,
all I could smell, all I could see—and his hands still held me as
if they could do no less and I could feel him beginning to tremble,
to quake, to shake. And it was all the warning I got, as heat
suddenly poured into my mouth, a torrent, thick and rich and bitter.
And I took it all as best I could, letting it all but overwhelm me.
Letting it choke me.
Wanting to drown.
But then he was yanking himself away, careless even of my teeth, and
those hands went to grasp my shoulders, to push me back down to the
floor. And, fool that he was, blind and deaf and dead already even
if his body hadn't quite caught up to his fate, he slid down me and
sucked in my own cock. His mouth achingly hot, his teeth scraping
along my length— deliberately, demandingly—his tongue delving down
and then returning to press into the tenderest part just below the
head. To flick and nip and wrangle a moan out of me that twisted me
into an even tighter knot inside than I would have thought possible.
A knot that tightened instantly on my cock, a deathly sweet
chokehold.
And I knew I wasn't going to last either, maybe even less time than
he had, but I didn't have it within me to make the attempt to try
and fight it off this time. To do anything else but simply accept
it. To accept what he was doing to me.
What he had always done to me.
What I let him do.
The pleasure even more akin to pain this time as it burst from me
just a few eternally brief moments later, as he drank it all down
with one great gulp after another. Like it was the absolute best
thing he'd ever tasted. As if he'd been thirsty for so long he
couldn't bear to lose even one paltry drop.
Not raising his mouth from me until my cock was completely deflated,
was lying loose and lax across his tongue like the beaten thing it
was. Then he gave it one last lick and tickle and let it, let me
go. And there was no expression on his face at all as he leaned
back and settled on his knees and ass on the floor. As he
straightened and his eyes passed from the root of me to my face. To
my own eyes.
The silence that dragged between us was deadly, a coiled snake,
thrumming and costly-cool. Shimmering scales suddenly passing over
both our eyes, its edges stinging and sharp, and I was almost blind
from the pain of it and suspected that he was the same. Blind to
what had to happen next, and yet knowing there was no other way all
the same. No other option. Not anymore. If there ever could have
been.
"Get out," he said at last. His voice mockingly soft. More of that
snake's hiss.
I stared back at him, up at him, but he didn't blink. Didn't bother
to wipe the evidence of his own pain from his eyes. Not that he
would let himself cry either. Probably not even in the heart of the
night, when he was all alone once more with his fears and his
regrets and his helpless anger.
"Go on," he added, and this was even softer.
"Yeah," I said, and the word was the softest of all. Hardly more
than a tendril of breath, twisting and smoky and torn.
He got to his feet and didn't bother to look for his pants this
time, let alone take the time to try and put them on. He just went
and laid down on the couch, one of his arms coming up to lay across
his face, hiding his eyes.
I dressed quietly, quickly. Trying not to look at him. To look at
much of anything.
When I was finally put back together—clothes, arm, gun, dignity,
such as it was—only then did I turn and walk over and stand just
beyond the coffee table. Keeping it between me and the man lying
naked on his couch, each breath sounding like it was an effort no
matter how even it was.
My own breathing wasn't much better, though it too had that illusion
of calm, of certainty. An acquired talent—I wondered just where
and when he'd learned it. In the Marines, maybe, or as a field
agent in the FBI. Perhaps from all the years of staring at Fox
Mulder's expense reports, a heart attack in the offing for the
average supervisor.
Of which Skinner was not, and likely had never been.
He didn't move, though he must have been aware of my scrutiny. And,
oddly enough, though I was now dressed again and armed, it didn't
feel like I had the advantage of him. That he had the slightest bit
of vulnerability. And that both scared and soothed me. Made me
want to turn and run away as hard and as far as I could and never
look back, and yet, at the same time, it was all I could do not to
stay, to step around that damn coffee table and let him enfold in
his arms again, to crush me, to keep me. Even if it hurt me more
than anything else ever had.
Even if it destroyed me.
I opened my mouth, words hovering there just out of reach—words I'd
long thought I'd lost the meaning of, let alone the capability of
saying—but, in the end, I couldn't get them out. Couldn't let them
go. It wasn't as if they would be enough, anyway. Nothing would
ever be enough, not after what I'd done and who I'd become. It was
my time to turn away now, my vision blurring a little around the
edges again as I headed for the door. Headed back to the place I
belonged now.
Pausing with my hand on the knob as I heard a whisper behind me, a
soft sound. A breath taken in and released again, heavier than
before. A sigh. A real sigh. Long and slow and infinitely sad.
"Be careful."
I heard him say it, but couldn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it.
Couldn't afford it. Not if it killed me.
As it killed me to go ahead and turn that knob, to open that door,
to walk outside and close it again behind me. To walk down that
hall. The elevator right there to greet me, to drop me nearly
seventeen floors down before my stomach could quite find its way
back. Before I realized that I wasn't breathing right myself. That
I didn't want to fucking breath at all. Didn't want to go on and
couldn't go back and when the door opened it was to familiar
blackness, wrapping itself up around me like cold black leather,
like the weight of a gun and the pain of an arm no longer there and
a life unlived and barely mourned.
Barely missed. Except by one other.
My victim. My savior.
My...one remaining friend.
I said nothing. But then that was how it had been between us for a
long time—even before that last day of legitimacy—and I, for one,
wasn't inclined to break it. A word could destroy everything, could
bring a whole rush of other words in its wake. Could awaken
accusation. Hurt. Anger. Blame.
