by Ursula
Recognizing his demon, Walter grimaced and put the gun back in the holster,
hanging both in their spot. "Thought you'd be here."
"Then why did it take you so long to get home?" Alex questioned.
The leather coat was draped across the couch back. Alex's shoes were paired next
to the fireplace, neatly lined up. The socks were tucked inside one of them.
Alex was dressed in black sweater and denim jeans, open at the top, a hint of
flesh visible where the soft wool had ridden up and the denim had parted. One
naked foot extended outward. The other was tucked behind Alex's ankle. Alex
leaned his chin against his hand. The left arm was positioned on the arm of the
chair. Walter imagined it ached after that daredevil driving and the scuffle
with Doggett.
Walter could see the lines feathering outwards from the eyes and the dark
circles beneath. Alex was still beautiful, but the life he led was marking him.
"I was cleaning up the mess you made, Alex. Did you know that one of those cars
you hit in the garage was Kersh's?" Walter asked.
"Really? Damn, I'm good," Alex exclaimed and he meant it.
"I'm going to go change. Make me a drink and a sandwich. Unless you ate all of
the roast beef that was in the fridge?"
"No, I've just been waiting," Krycek answered.
Looking critically at his lover's unshaven chin and the blood dried on his lip,
Walter chided, "You should have used the time to clean up."
"After," Alex said.
"We'll talk about that," Walter replied.
Moments later, Walter lifted his face to the shower's driving heat. The water
pummeled life back into him. His broad strong hands soaped his body and
lingered. His cock responded with a twitch, enlivened by the expresso-like jolt
of Alex's presence. He'd expected him from the moment that nanobytes hit him.
Even as his capillaries had strained, as if the river of his blood strove to
burst the banks of his flesh, some distant part of him screamed Alex's name. He
could see why some came to crave pain and humiliation...the paired association
with sex until one became the other in a ritual-mating dance. Nanobytes meant
Krycek...not his Alex, of course. It was the other, the demon who still wielded
some dark seduction of his spirit. Yet Walter knew that when Krycek dropped the
Kabuki mask, his Alex would be there, tender, loving, a vortex of desire.
Toweling dry, Walter stepped out and stretched again, feeling the stiffness of
the difficult day. He picked up a pair of jeans from his dresser, old ones, soft
with age and too thin to even think of wearing outside, but he still liked them.
They fit like a second skin, clinging to his ass and worn white over the crotch,
his cock nestling in a pocket of fabric that kept the memory of its shape.
Alex had sandwiches made and drinks waiting. He stood up as Walter entered, his
eyes exploring the naked chest. "Nice," he admired.
"Someday you're going to push a button on that thing and I'll have a heart
attack. No more scenery for you to admire," Walter reproached.
"If you think I don't check your medical reports like a auditor looking for a
cheat, you're crazy. You have a heart as good as a nineteen-year-old. Your grand
pa lived to be one hundred and one. He still drove himself to church the week
before he died," Alex replied.
Walter sat on the couch and patted the seat beside him. "Get over here."
As Alex came to rest beside him, Walter picked up a sandwich, approving of the
horseradish and the minimal fixings. Good beef deserved to be appreciated on its
own. Alex had already started eating and they shared the meal in silence.
Finished, Walter went to the kitchen with the plates and glasses, taking care of
them before going back. Hands on hip, he took in Alex's appearance again and
said, "If you're sleeping in my bed, you need to shower and shave. I see that
Doggett got at least one punch in."
"Man's a bulldog. He just wouldn't quit," Alex answered, ruefully exploring the
swollen lip.
"You're in his book now. The man is a bulldog, don't let him get his teeth into
you," Walter chided. "If there's ever a need for an instruction manual on how to
make enemies and influence them to homicide, you have the contract. Been tested
lately?"
"Yeah, not that my five fingers are likely to give me anything," Alex answered.
"Oh, you too?" Walter said, as he walked over and held out his hand to invite
Alex up.
Silently, Alex rose, cooperating as Walter undressed him. There were no new
scars, but he was lean, refined by adversity to the bone of him. Had he been on
the run again or just too busy to eat?
"I don't suppose you want to tell me what this was all about?" Walter asked.
"Not unless you're ready to walk with me, Walter? Do you want to abandon
everything to hear the truth, Walter?" Alex asked, his voice vibrating with
passion.
God help him, he had to think before he answered, push away the leap his heart
made.
Walter said, "I have to take care of Mulder and Scully...Doggett now too. He's
gotten on Kersh's shit list."
"Then we play the game and wear the roles that we do," Alex said ruefully. "They
jerk my leash. I jerk yours. I thought it was over with Spender, but it wasn't.
I should have known that the shadows have shadows in my world. I don't like
hurting you, Walter. I really don't."
"Could have fooled me," Walter said harshly.
"Sit down on the toilet. I want to get the fur off your face," Walter said.
"With the straight edge?" Alex asked, his eyes gleaming.
Shrugging, Walter took out the razor. It had been his father's. He'd learn to
use it mostly as a stunt. The first time, a thousand years ago, when young Agent
Krycek had seemed quite naïve, Alex had been so turned on by watching Walter
shave with it that he often used it. When he had shaved Alex with it, his lover
had nearly cut his throat when he had shuddered and come from whatever was
happening in that delightfully twisted brain of his.
Tilting Alex's head upwards, Walter laved on the shaving foam. The sensuous
contrast of the soft skin, the rough stubble, and the slippery foam thrilled
him. Alex arched back further as Walter picked up the razor. Alex let out a
small sound, mewling like a kitten from hell.
"Shh, hold very still. I should hate to slip," Walter said. He half suspected
that every time he did this; Alex did expect him to slip, end it, and stop the
nanobytes with the slice of a blade. He never would. He couldn't. Kill him and
Alex would never leave him...
Hell, as if there was one chance that anything either of them could do or would
to break the chain.
The shining steel made a path down one cheek. Walter's fingers stroked Alex's
skin this way and that. The blade moved firmly and skillfully, without
hesitation.
Only a glowing line of green showed from beneath the luxuriant lashes. He
offered his throat like Isaac. Carefully, moving the blade over the neck, Walter
almost held his breath.
Alex moved slightly, maybe deliberately, causing Walter to draw a line of blood.
He moved the razor away and said, "Do that again and I am putting the razor away
and the next time I shave you will be with a Lady Gillette."
Laughing, Alex nodded, allowing Walter to press a tissue to the scratch until
the bleeding stopped. Walter finished shaving Alex and kissed his lips, careful
of the cut that Doggett had inflicted.
"I want you to punish me. Hurt me as I hurt you," Alex pled in the same tone he
might use to ask to be fucked.
"You want me to make it easy for you, but not this time. I won't. Come on, take
a bath," Walter replied.
Walter pulled up a stool to sit comfortably after Alex stepped into the tub.
Alex washed the rest of the foam and scraped hair from his face and then
subsided back. Walter poured shampoo on his hand and slowly massaged it in to
the thick satiny cap of hair. Once, Walter had dreamed of Alex as Rapunzel in
his tower, his sable hair long enough to make a glossy stair for Mulder and
himself. If he could somehow keep Alex captive, the deadly face would never
return. Walter rinsed the soft shining hair free, pressing his lips down on the
silken stuff as he finished.
Proceeding downward, Walter made a swift inventory of the scars that truncated
the arm. Well, despite his down-at-the-heel appearance, Alex had not been
neglecting that. It looked clean and the end was white fleshed, not red with
irritation. Walter watched Alex's face turn away as the stump was washed. Denial
was written on his face. 'This isn't part of me.'
As the sponge moved lower, Alex relaxed, offering himself to the slow strokes.
"Wash me clean, Walter. Wash it all away," he said in a low invocation.
"I wish I could," Walter mourned, "If there were world enough and time."
For a moment, the mask dropped back over Alex's face. He sneered and said, "Yet
you fuck me."
The water ran from the sponge as Walter's knuckles went white. He took a quick
breath and replied, "I've never fucked you, Alex. We make love."
The sneer fled and Alex's expression softened. "I know."
Alex rose, arm across his chest, a male Aphrodite rising from the waves. He
glistened with water, shone with it as if he glowed with some inward
incandescence. Walter caught his breath and wondered if he'd been under some
sort of spell from the first moment that he had seen Alex? If so, it was not
like the nanobytes, it was mythos, a natural madness old as time.
"Wait, I want to get in with you," Walter said.
His body enveloped Alex's as he sat down in the still warm water. He leaned his
face against Alex's head, breathing him deep, cell deep, filling all the deep
empty places within himself with his beautiful one. Tears stung at his eyes.
'You can never hold him, Walter, never,' he thought, but his arms tightened
around Alex all the same. Closing his eyes, he felt Alex's head resting against
his chest; his lover's weight was awkward, bruising, delight and pain in one
beautiful package, his Alex.
Violent shivering woke Walter. He couldn't believe they had fallen asleep like
that in the tub. The water was cold around them of course. Walter had gone numb
where Alex's weight rested against him. Alex was still sleeping despite his
shivering which was the source of the wake up call.
"Come on, Alex, wake up. Let's get out of here and go to bed," Walter said.
As he gave homage to his lover's wet and naked body, Walter felt his blood stir.
He wanted him despite the weariness. Alex turned to him, the expression in his
green eyes becoming moss soft as he offered his lips. Walter ran the tips of his
fingers trembling along the line of Alex's jaw. Alex took a deep breath as they
leaned into each other. Their mouths met like flames leaping, a flare of light
and heat, breathless, not needing to breathe, they fed upon each other.
In bed, they forgot the balance of power and there was only pleasure. There was
only the touch of one hand. The caresses of two hands. Eyes wide open as a mouth
gasped as if in agony. The intimate joining of two bodies into one. Walter never
knew which he liked best. To lie with Alex fitted to his body as if tailor-made
for him or to climb the stairs to paradise between his outstretched legs so he
could see the fierce passion in Alex's face. Yet again, to be taken, to feel
Alex more helpless in taking than in being taken...as he thrust and thrust
again, the sharp edge of his desire buried in Walter's flesh, encompassed, and
finally satiated.
Even in sleep, Alex's face was merely a frieze of calm, covering the immolating
truth below. Walter felt like a mortal in love with a god. He wondered why the
Greek myths never told what happened to a mortal toyed with by the deities, who
merely tried to resume his old life? He knew he would never be the same...
Waking, Walter saw Alex sitting on the edge of the bed, the sheet had fallen
from his torso, draping in white contrast across his powerful thighs. His head
bowed slightly forward, catching the sun's first rays across his profile. He
seemed lit by some inner radiance, his face half in shadow and half in dawn's
light.
"I have to go," Alex said, "I can't stay. There's a man I have to meet who may
have information."
Alex's face held no clues to his mission. He could have been gathering evidence
or destroying it. He said on occasion that he was working against the aliens,
that everything he did had some meaning in the coming battle. Perhaps, but why
then did it seem as if Alex was some destructive demon, a poltergeist that
haunted them?
A killer walked away. As he did, Walter watched from the balcony and he
wondered. He wondered which was Alex's true face and which was the mask. He
realized it didn't matter. His loyal heart loved forever.
eary, he was so weary. The burden of the day...hell, two days run together into
one roller coaster ride of highs and lows had drained him. Wryly, Walter smiled.
The tough kept going...well, he was tough and maybe just too stubborn-dumb to
ever just lie down like the proverbial camel. As he carefully hung his overcoat
in the closet, he heard the creak of a chair. His gun was in his hand without
even thinking about it and he aimed it right between Krycek's eyes. If he had
fired, it would have permanently erased that small wrinkle that crinkled over
the snip of nose.
As Alex walked from the building, he turned around for a look back. His face was
defenseless for that moment, shot through with longing. Then as swiftly mutable
as the remorseless wind, the Kabuki mask settled down.
