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A Taste of... (Skinner)
by JiM
It's cold tonight. Usually, I love cold weather; sharp, bracing, a worthy opponent to be overcome. Not tonight. Tonight, the fog is thick and chill and it touched my neck like fingers, crawling against my skin. There is a cold, dusty scent in the air tonight -- the lonely scent of fog that I can almost taste.
He is out there, somewhere in the fog. I lost him tonight.
I followed him tonight, to his meet with his mysterious new informant. The information on the shooter had checked out but Mulder refused to give me the name of his informant. That isn't unusual for Mulder, but the way he shifted in his seat and refused to meet my eyes was. So I followed him.
And then I lost him.
There is the scrape of a key in the lock and the door opens. Without looking, Mulder turns on a lamp beside the door, then throws the deadbolts before turning.
- Sir?
- Where the hell have you been, Mulder?
I rise from the couch and stand there, just looking at him. A mistake.
He looks like a refugee from the back seat at a drive-in movie. His hair is ruffled, his tie loose, shirt collar and several buttons open. His lips are deep red, bruised-looking. There is a darkening welt on the left side of his throat. A hickey, Mulder, at your age? I want to laugh.
No. I want to roar. I want to batter something to death, strangle someone, drink his blood, because the most damning evidence is in Mulder's eyes.
- Did I miss curfew, Dad? he takes refuge in sarcasm.
Before I know it, I am across the room, gripping his shoulders and shaking him, hard, once. His hands come up and shove me in the chest, hard, breaking my grip.
- What the hell is wrong with you?!
We are both confused for a moment, because the wrong person said that. But I continue talking, no, growling at him, although I don't touch him again.
- Are you trying to torpedo your career? Are you trying to get arrested for treason? What the hell do you think you're doing, meeting with Krycek?!
- You followed me? There is anger blooming in his eyes now, shoving aside the other.
- Damn right I did, Mulder. And what did I see?
I close my eyes against the memory, but it does no good.
Mulder's car parked in the lot at Roosevelt Island, cold fog slinking around it. Nothing moving, until suddenly, there is a figure at the passenger door, back to me. The door opens and closes too quickly for me to see who it is. From this distance, all I can see are two shadowed figures, first sitting, then grappling, in the car. No -- not fighting. Kissing.
I can't even name all that goes through me, but the chief emotion is disgust. I've sunk to a new low. I am sitting here, in the dark, spying on my agent as he meets a lover, not his contact. Then the passenger door slams open and the dark figure spins out of it. I hear the slam and watch the shadow cross the lot to melt into the other shadows.
I am colder than I have ever been. My anger is a cold, rolling, roiling thing in my chest. It traps me with icy, violent clarity. Because, for a brief moment, the figure straightened and I saw his face clearly in the orange-misted streetlight. Krycek.
- You saw me meet my informant, Mulder says coolly.
- I saw you....
- It's none of your business.
I want to shake him again. Hard. The ice that gripped me is shards in my gut.
- Oh yes, it is, Mulder. You know who he works for.
- Not anymore. He's gone freelance.
- The fact that he's available to the highest bidder doesn't make me any happier, Agent Mulder.
Ah, the refuge to be found in formula. You are my agent, I care only as a professional would. There are dangerous implications here for the Bureau and....
No. No, you are mine. I didn't know that, before tonight. But the cold has stripped away everything but that.
- Why, Mulder? Why Krycek?
The words are out before I can stop myself. And I see that he knows what I am really asking, but he answers another question anyway.
- He has information that I need, Sir.
- And there's no other source for that information within regular channels?
- You wouldn't even tell me the Smoking Man's name. Sir.
Strange how, even in the gloomy light cast by that one dust-encrusted lamp, I can see every nuance of his face. He almost hates me now. I have what he thinks he needs and I will not give it to him. I am protecting him and he doesn't want protection. He wants answers.
I know three of the Smoking Man's names. But none of them would help. The daughter has yet another name and never knew our nemesis by any of them.
- I looked for her.
His eyes widen, then he looks down and away. Young. He looks young and hurt and angry and I want nothing more than to hold him and soothe him. Then he rubs at the mark on his neck and I am swept by ice again. He holds out a photograph and shows me the address on the back.
- This is where she is.
- What did Krycek want in return?
I hate that tone in my voice. It's the one Sharon called my "rock-grinding voice." But I have no other voice to use now.
- I didn't pass any classified material, if that's what you're worried about.
- What did Krycek want, Mulder?
- It was cheap at the price.
No. No, can't you see, it's everything. It cost everything. The bitterness is rising, freezing around both of us, twisting his mouth.
His mouth. How would it taste? What would it have tasted of before Krycek? Krycek. I know the taste of Krycek.
Alex Krycek, back when he was new and green and promising, kissed me. He looked so malleable and freshly-minted, too sweet to be dipped in the acid-bath of mysteries that swirled around Mulder. There was an afternoon, in my office, when I looked up at the wrong moment, too open for just a moment, and his mouth was on mine.
Alex Krycek tasted of hot brass and need. He was appetite and greed. That's what he invited in return; it's what he calls forth -- the hunger that stops at nothing. Perhaps I should have known then that he couldn't possibly be what he looked to be. I wanted him, badly, almost as badly as he wanted to be taken. Instead, I gently, firmly put him away from me and closed the door behind him. I still don't know why.
The silence has gone on too long; I have stared too long. Mulder says,
- The shooter's name cost a thousand dollars.
- That is cheap.
- Well, that's Krycek's style, isn't it?
I am grateful for his veering humor and feel the ice crack as I smile a little.
- Write up the report and the Bureau will reimburse you.
He nods and strips off his jacket, dropping it on a chair.
- And the photo?
- No charge, Sir.
He viciously yanks his tie out of his collar and drops it on the floor. He will not look at me. I step closer. Now I can smell him, register what I could not before, through the ice and the anger. He smells hot and dirty, the back-alley smell of frustration swirling thick around him. But beneath it, I can smell....
- Please, just go, Sir.
No, not while he is looking at me like that. Not while he looks so lost to himself. I struggle to say something, to throw out some kind of lifeline in the ice-bitter sea into which he has cast himself. It's just Krycek, Mulder, I want to say. It's who he is, he can't help but draw you under, too. I know, I remember.
- Where did he touch you, Mulder?
He is as bewildered as I am by my words. We stand and stare at one another and the space between us is filled with the silent creaking and cracking of ice as it shifts in the midnight air. Then he moves.
There is a warm whisper of sound as he touches his left shoulder.
Moving slowly, so slowly, I reach out and cover his shoulder with my right hand. He shivers beneath my hand, although he is warm, so warm beneath the cloth. I rub a little, barely moving my hand, wiping away Krycek's touch. After a time, he stops shivering and stands, unresisting, beneath my hand.
- Where else, Mulder?
His fingers barely touch his cheek; they are trembling. I catch them in my left hand, and reach out, so slowly, to touch his cheek with my other hand. Once again, I am struck by how large my hands are. My hand curves and covers most of the side of his face. His beard pricks at my fingers and rasps against my palm as I soothe him.
His eyes fix on mine desperately. The ice is gone from between us and from within me. Now there is only a summer warmth.
- Where?
But he can't answer now. It's all right, I want to say, I know. Instead, I draw him to me gently. I bend my head to his, but stop and look into his eyes. He must want this, too. I will not take from him; too many have taken from him.
His eyes are dark and unreadable now. But he sways forward, just a little. It is enough.
I kiss him.
I meant it to be mild, like a cleansing rain. But that is not what he wants or needs. He wants the catharsis of conflagration. His mouth opens beneath mine, drawing me in, setting everything that has been between us afire. Now he is hard against me, hands moving over my back and shoulders, skimming up my arms, gripping my head.
When we pull apart for a moment's breath, he grabs my hand and puts it against his chest.
- Here.
He is running my hand across his chest, fingers biting into my wrist. I feel the hard muscles beneath my fingers, the elegant bow of his collarbone. My thumb nestles in the hollow of his throat and I feel the hunger beating within him.
I feel the hunger beating within me. I kiss him again, a sharp, hot pleasure. Then I trail across his face, down to his jaw. He groans and turns his head, baring his throat to me. Ah yes, now I remember. I draw my lips down the proud line of his throat until I reach that mark. Then I bite him, hard. His gasp gentles me again, immediately.
I kiss and soothe the wound, licking and sucking at it until it is shaped to my satisfaction. I inhale deeply in the hollow of his throat where his scent is strongest.
There is no more taint of Alex Krycek about him now. All I can see and taste and smell about him is Fox Mulder. He tastes like spring rain in the northern forests. It is a night scent, a midnight taste that should be cool but is hot, so sweet and hot.
Mine, you're mine, the growl curls and prowls through my chest but I will not say it aloud. Mulder has had enough of being claimed and demanded and manipulated. I hold him against me, neither of us speaking, for a long time. Time enough for our harsh breathing to calm, time enough for me to stroke his hair and back, soothing and gentling him until he remembers how exhausted he is.
He is sagging as I put some space between us. He looks confused.
- Sir? Don't you want....
- Oh yes, Mulder. I want. But not now, not tonight.
- I don't understand.
- You're tired, Mulder. Sleep.
Trust me, I want to say. But trust can only be given, not demanded.
- As if I could sleep now, he half-smiles.
I gently push him toward his bedroom. He stops in the doorway. - Aren't you going to tuck me in?
I want to shout aloud at the teasing light that is back in his eyes. - Have pity on an old man, Mulder.
He smiles, a slow, cat-smile that sends hot ripples through me, and says, - No mercy, Walter. When the time comes, no mercy.
I turn and run then, before I push him into that bedroom and make love to him until he is unconscious. His soft laughter follows me out into the hallway, twining around me.
Out on the street, I welcome the cold's embrace again. It shocks me out of the pleasant muzziness I fell into in Mulder's apartment, in Mulder's embrace. I walk more quickly now, not minding the sour tang of the fog. My mouth is filled with the taste of spring rain and the promise of Fox Mulder.
end