Arrogant Bastard 
by Shannon Kizzia (shannon@hegalplace.com)

Website:  http://hegalplace.com/shannon/

Rating:  17+

Keywords:  M/K, Krycek POV

Category:  SRA

Spoilers:  Up through Never Again

Archive:  You bet!  But please let me know where!

Disclaimer:  This again?  *sigh*  Chris thought 'em up.  I play with
them.  They play with each other.  Everybody's happy.

Summary:  Krycek buys Mulder a beer.

Date Posted:  3/9/03

Notes:  I'm taking a break from writing a really long, angsty M/K written
from Mulder's point of view.  I desperately needed a little Alex, not to
mention some nookie for these two!  I hope you enjoy it.  :)

Dedication:  For Satina.   Lyubimoy.

………………

I never come here myself.  Too brass-accents-on-polished-wood.  Too
upper-middle class.  Too Anglo-Saxon.  Way too straight.

I raise my real hand to signal the bartender.  The top shelf vodka here
is Grey Goose and it's outrageously priced, but that's okay.  I used to
be proletariat.  I'm not anymore.  I can afford the best of the best. 
Better than they have here.  But I remember a day when I was way too
young to drink.  When I stole my father's last two dollars and scrounged
in the couch cushions for change to go buy a cheap, sweet bottle of wine
to drink out in the alley behind our apartment building.  I remember the
tongue lashing I got for that, all those thick Russian words flying wet
from his mouth…the sting of the belt.

I find I've been unconsciously rubbing at my other arm.  The one that
doesn't feel anymore, or shouldn't.  It's hard under my leather jacket. 
I take my very real right hand away and reach into my pocket for my
wallet.  I notice that the bartender is trying not to look at my
prosthetic.  I don't say anything.  I let her not look as I produce the
cash.  I hold it out to her.

"All yours."

"Thanks," she says softly.  She's way too meek to be a bartender.  She's
probably not happy.  She should be playing the flute or something.  It
says so in her hands, bird-like, pale, precise.  I wonder how she got
here.

The place is starting to fill up.  He'll be here soon, too.  He comes
here.  I don't.  When I need a drink, I usually go to Giovanni's Room. 
It's dark and secret and feels like sex.  The lights are red and few. 
The bar is black.  The floors aren't very clean.  The men are
good-looking and at least less pretentious than at The Hole or Nexus. 
And it's pretty easy to find someone to suck my cock.  If that's what I'm
there for and often I'm not.

Nobody here looks like they give good head.  But you never know.  People
can surprise you.  There's a blond woman at the other end of the bar in a
silk blouse and too many gold bracelets.  She's laughing at something the
man beside her said.  She fluffs her hair up some more, smiling.  She
might be all right.  If she were my type.  She's not.

I take a drink and look at my watch.  Almost time.  He'll sit in his car
first.  In the parking garage.  He'll think about what he's done and
he'll feel bad.  Too bad and not bad enough in turn.  He has no idea what
he's done and if he did, he'd think he should never be forgiven.

I'd been watching on my closed circuit TV.  I started watching them as an
assignment back in my pre-self employment days.  It became kind of
addictive.  When my assignment was officially over and my bosses tried to
blow me to bits, I just re-bugged their office and kept listening.  Soon
that wasn't as fun as it used to be and I added the perverse invasion of
a visual.  When I wasn't making nice with Russian physicians, when I was
actually in town long enough to spend some time in my sparse living
quarters, I quite enjoyed looking in on them.  It became not about the
information.  It's always been quite clear to me that Mulder has very
little of what he actually needs to make a shit of a difference.  No,
it's always been more about just....them.  Him.  What he does.  How he
does it.  How often.

I've seen some pretty cool shit.  I've seen the subtlety of their
dialogue, their relationship.  I've seen the give and take of
partnership.  Something I so briefly experienced.  Something I would have
valued and given attention to...appreciated, if I wasn't so busy doing my
job for them.  Sometimes I wish I could go back and just be that again. 
Mulder's partner.  I envy her that.

Well, most of the time.  Not tonight.  Tonight I'm pretty sure she'll go
home and cry herself to sleep.  I watched it all.  Watched the rift
between them grow exponentially with each passing unsaid word, each
unvoiced hurt.  I saw her rose petal there on the edge of the desk.  Saw
it in black and white.  I wished I could have seen if it was red or not. 
I think it must be...have been.  Red like her hair.  I wonder what color
Mulder sees, since he can't perceive red.  Maybe that's his whole problem
with her.  Maybe if he could see the beautiful, unique red of her hair,
he'd finally see the beautiful, unique woman he shares not just his
office with, but his life.  Maybe he'd get her a fucking desk.

Somebody just put Free Bird on the jukebox and I want to shoot whoever
did it.  I don't exactly hate this song.  It's nice if you're in that
Arkansas, backwater, country roadside bar, beer against your lips, peanut
shells under your feet kind of a place.  But I'm not.  And I don't want
to be.  I resent somebody's imposing Arkansas on me at this moment.

And of course, that's the moment he chooses to show up.  <Lord, I can't
change.>  Not with that attitude, asshole, I think as Fox Mulder walks in
and pauses, looking past me, through me, to the bartender and the bottles
behind her.  His eyes are red.  Shoulders slumped miserably.  He's so
goddamned beautiful I want to fuck him right up against the door he just
walked through, right where all these accountants and advertising execs
and government lackey suit-types can watch.  I visualize it for a moment,
succumbing to temptation.  I so rarely do.  Even in my own apartment,
with no one there to see, I don't let myself think of him that way.  I
tend to think it'd get in the way if someday I might be forced to kill
him.  And it would.  So I don't.  I redress him, zipping up his slacks in
my mind, and watch him walk over to the other side of the bar, lowering
himself into one of two empty barstools, raising his eyebrows at the
bartender once in lazy, self-pity-drugged greeting.

I don't hear what he orders, but I see her take down the Dewar's and pour
for about six seconds.  A double.  Looks like his guilt pendulum has
swung over into the Responsible For All the Hunger, Hopelessness, and
Heartache in the World range.  Great.  This ought to be fun.  I consider
leaving.  Maybe going to find Scully instead.  But after another swallow
of my drink, I decide I kind of owe this to him.

I let him drink down what he has.  Watch him order another.  Dock of the
Bay comes on and I wish that's where we were.  Wish things were less
complicated and Mulder and I were sharing drinks with our feet dangling
over the end of a pier, fending off seagulls and watching the water.  I'm
not usually this daydreamy.  I don't normally entertain fantastical
thoughts about Mulder and me.  About anything.  Maybe it's the vodka. 
Maybe the loss of my arm, instead of jading me further, turned me into
some kind of a sap.  Somebody who thinks about the ocean and long,
pleasant talks.  It's been a long time since I thought about anything
except fighting for the survival of this planet.  The irony of fighting
for the ability to sit and watch an ocean I don't sit and watch doesn't
escape me even with three shots.  Or probably, more likely, because of
them.

I turn off the little voices in my head and just watch him.  I just
experience the look of him down there at the end of the bar.  Does he
really like it here?  It doesn't seem very...him.  It's as though he
decided to take his lunch breaks in the third floor bullpen.  These
aren't his people.  Mulder doesn't *have* any people.  Except maybe the
gunmen.  Or Max Fenig.  Why doesn't he just go home and drink away his
guilt?  I knew he'd be coming here.  Why?

I'm not a profiler.  I just seem to...know him.  Maybe the time we spent
in that cell together, nearly drinking down cockroaches, getting sweaty
and smelly together, has gifted me with some insight into his occasional
bouts of anti-anti-social behavior.  Maybe it was being Skippy Rat with
him.  I know that's his name for me.  He wrote it down once.  A doodle. 
I remember I was shocked.  Mulder doodled me.  He did it in the quiet
lull of the mid-afternoon office.  Scully had gone for a Diet Coke.  He'd
said he was going to clean off the tops of the file cabinets which were
crowded with about-to-topple-over stacks of casefiles.  But he didn't. 
He began to doodle.  And my camera's vantage point was such that I had a
good view.  First came an alien head.  Very typical.  I was kind of
disappointed.  Then there was a palm tree.  Then another palm tree.  Then
a hammock in-between, left empty because he moved onto...a figure.  A
little guy with stick hands...a suit...a knife in his hand...bad hair. 
And below it he had scrawled in angry slashes, "Skippy Rat."  I stared at
it and then at him staring at it and then back at the drawing again,
before Scully came back and he crumpled it up and threw it in the trash.

For some reason, it had been a moment of real triumph for me.  Here I was
watching him, and he was thinking of me.  I found it somewhat...sweet.

Well, for whatever reason, he's here.  Maybe he's going to actually try
to get laid.  Yeah, that'll help, I think, drinking down the last of my
shot.  Treat Scully like a drone made specifically to do your bidding,
get pissy when she fucks someone else, and then go out and bang a chick
to get it out of your system.  I shake my head.  If Mulder thinks that's
what he needs, he's got another thing coming.  And I've given him way too
much credit.

The bartender comes over to me.  "Another?" she asks.

"Please,"  I say, digging for my wallet again.  She doesn't look at my
prosthetic hand again, but this time it's not quite so on purpose.  She
nods and begins to turn when I stop her.  "Wait."  The blackboard full of
specials above the bar has caught my eye and I can't believe my luck.  I
can't believe they have it here.  "You have Arrogant Bastard Ale?" I ask.

"Sure do," she smirks.

"One of those,"  I say decisively.

"Coming right up," she answers and starts to turn away.

"Actually, it's not for me," I tell her.  "I still want another Grey
Goose.  It's for that guy down there.  Fourth from the end."

"Brown hair?  Nose?" she asks.

"Yeah,"  I confirm, bristling only slightly at the reference to what she
clearly identifies as a flaw.

"Should I say it's from you?" she asks, pouring my drink first, without
even looking at what she's doing and not spilling a drop.

"Only if he asks,"  I say and thank her when she places the new, chilled
drink in front of me.

I alternately watch her rummaging in one of several mini-fridges beneath
the rows of liquor, and watch him swirling his alcohol morosely.  No
going back now.  The ball is rolling.  I wonder if he'll start hitting me
right here in the bar.  I hope he doesn't.  I have some things I'd like
to say to him.  Things he needs to hear.

The bartender finds the right bottle, pops the top off with an opener set
into the wood of the bar, and walks over to him, setting it down.  I see
him look up at her.  Watch his lips ask a short question.  See her
respond.  See him shake his head and say something else.  See her respond
and then gesture with her head in my direction.  And then he's looking. 
I force my face into a mask of calm and meet his eyes when they search me
out.  For a moment, I can't read him.  And then...he looks down.

That's all.  Nothing.  No response.  Well.  This is certainly different.

I get up, taking my drink with me, and walk over to his side of the bar. 
He doesn't look up when I'm standing next to him, not yet taking the
empty seat to his right.

"May I join you?"  I ask.  I was trying for bemused irony, but it sounded
more like the question it was with a held breath at the end.  Not the
start I wanted really.

"Fuck you."  It's said with very little anger.  A little more disgust. 
But not even a lot of that.  It's...tired.

I sigh and take the seat anyway.  He's staring hard at a bottle of
tequila like he wants to make it explode with his laser eyes.  But in the
depths of them swims too much sadness to let the rage he wants to have
show through.

"I noticed you're a Scotch man, but I thought you could use one of
these,"  I tell him, and I watch his curiosity slowly get the better of
his forced resentment and he looks at the bottle.  He chuffs an unamused
laugh.

"Fuck you," he says again, eyeing the evil tequila bottle once more.

"It's good,"  I tell him, ignoring the meaningless phrase.  "I think
you'll like it.  It's a little bitter.  It's strong.  It's got a good
head."  I allow the smallest of smirks.  I'm flirting.  I almost can't
believe it myself.  I've never done this with Mulder.  I wonder how he'll
take it.  I don't expect well.  If the punches are going to roll, I'd
place my bet on now being a good time.

"What do you want, Krycek?"  It's on a sigh.  So tired.  And whose fault
is that?

"I want you to take a drink,"  I tell him harmlessly.

He looks at me now.  At my face, but not into my eyes.  He shrugs and
picks up the bottle, bringing it to his lips as he looks away.  He
swallows deeply and grimaces.  "This tastes like shit," he says and it
holds more passion than did his assertion that I become fucked.

I stare piercingly at his profile and put a seriousness behind my words
that I hope he'll hear if not fully understand.  "It's an acquired
taste."

He looks at me.  Oh God, into my eyes.  Searching.  Imploring. 
Condemning.  Wanting something from me.  Not seeing it.  Not believing
it.  Hardening.  "You can have it, then,"  he says, pushing the bottle
toward me on the slick, glossy bar.

I take it.  I force myself not to look away from his eyes.  I take a
long...slow...gulping, lusty drink.  I drain the bottle, putting it down
empty, and I lick my lips.  His eyes drop to see.  Then he's looking away
again at his own empty drink.

The bartender comes over.  "Another round?"  She looks from me to him and
back.

"You want another Scotch, Mulder?  I'll buy."

He laughs ironically again.  "Sure, Alex.  Let's tie one on."  He looks
pathetic.  Haunted.  I want to draw his bottom lip in between my teeth
and chew on it.  I take a deep breath, my brain just now catching up to
his words.  He didn't say no.  Why didn't he say no?

"Dewar's and an Arrogant Bastard?" she asks.  She's good.

I nod.  "Uh, yeah,"  I answer, my mind on other things.  Like why the
fuck he's even still here.  He looks like he'd just as soon punch me in
the gut as look at me.  But he's going to let me buy him a drink.  Why? 
I'm absent-mindedly fumbling with my wallet when it flicks out of my hand
and sprays coins across the bar.

"Shit,"  I mutter under my breath.

Mulder looks over as I start to gather them back up again, putting one
handful in my pocket and then another.  I look from the money to him and
back to the money, but something in his face has me looking again.  His
eyebrows draw down and a crease forms between them.  Then he looks down
at my arm.  My left arm.

His lips part on a gasp.  My fist closes tightly around a quarter and two
dimes, and I watch him look me over.  He starts down at where my hand
should be, but where a piece of hand-shaped, peach plastic peeks out from
my black sleeve.  Then, as if he could examine the whole, naked
prosthetic, his eyes travel up my arm.  Up to my false, still elbow.  Up
my no-longer-there bicep to my shoulder.  I actually tingle there with
him looking at where my jagged flesh meets the straps.  He's looking
right at the spot.  Right where they cut at me.

Fuck.  I wish he'd stop, but I can't exactly ask him to.  Not without
becoming the most vulnerable goddamned fuck in the universe.  It's not
even that I have a real problem with the whole arm thing.  I'm aware of
my karma.  I asked for this.  I don't have any weird shit to get through.
 Well, not a lot anyway.  When most people look at it, I remain unphazed.
 Most people have whole sections of their souls missing.  What's an arm
really?  But now...  With Mulder being the one to stare...  My phantom
arm is itching like a son of a bitch.  I feel naked and hot and
uncomfortable.  I'm grateful when my drink comes and I have something to
wrap the fingers I have left around.  I let go of the change, leaving
them for the bartender if she wants them, and hold my beer tightly.

"They got you?"  he asks rather stupidly.  I have not known Mulder to be
stupid often.

"Yeah,"  I say, taking a drink.

He nods.  And then what was becoming a look of softened fascination turns
cruel.  "You deserve worse, Krycek."  He pushes his new Scotch away now,
judging it more harshly now that he remembers a little more of why he
hates me.  He thinks I was going to leave him in that cell to bust up
rocks and eventually die from the test.  What does he see when he looks
at me?  Horns and a pitch fork?

"You want to take off the other one?"  I ask him.

He has the grace to wince.  He doesn't want that.  I didn't think so.  He
probably just found a new reason to hate himself in his inability to want
to cut my arm off.  He's so fucked up.  I almost laugh.

"Why are you here, Krycek?"

"I'm having a drink.  Why are you here?"  I counter.

"You followed me,"  he says, voice rising slightly.

"Mulder, I was here first."  And even though he's wrong, I find I don't
want him to feel like an idiot. "But I did come here to see you.  You're
right about that."

"Why?" he asks.

Why.  Which answer do I give?  Because you need to confront yourself and
then cry on my shoulder?  Because you fucked up with Scully and you
deserve to run into the devil at your favorite bar?  Because you need a
friend so fucking bad it's not even funny?

"I...wanted to make sure you were all right,"  I tell him.  Let him think
I'm talking about Russia and not his partner.  It's all the same.

He laughs again.  "What the fuck do you care, Krycek?  You *left* me
there!"  Suddenly all laughter, ironic or otherwise, disappears from him.

"I...don't..."  The bartender walks by and I glance up at her, lowering
my voice when I speak again.  "You think leaving you to languish in a
cell in Tunguska just does it for me or something?  I give a shit what
happens to you, Mulder.  Contrary to what you think you know."

"Why should I believe you?" he asks.  Not a statement that he *doesn't*
believe me.  A question.  A...chance.  Did he mean to give that to me?

"I don't know,"  I tell him, honestly.  Wishing I had more to give him. 
"Because I'm buying you expensive drinks in this cheesy-ass bar?"

I can't believe it when I actually see him have to fight something even
less than a small smile off his face.  He eventually succeeds, the
darkness over-powering the tiny flame of hope, of trust.  He can't do it.
 But I see in him that he wants to.  I hurt for him anew.  I'm very much
a part of why he's as fucked up as he is.  I want to put the shattered
bits of that trust back together again.

I watch him pull the glass in toward him again.  I know he doesn't want
me to take it as a sign that he's giving in to me.  He's thirsty.  That's
all.  God, I want to kiss him.  It hits me like a cinder block in the
chest.  It hurts.  This wanting so hard.  I tear my eyes away from where
they've alighted on his lips.  I take a drink of my beer.  He takes a
drink next to me.  Suddenly, I'm aware of how close we sit to one
another.  I wonder if he is.

"How can you drink that?" he asks out of the blue.   That's fine.  If he
doesn't want to talk about Tunguska, about history and betrayal and
grief, neither do I.

"I told you.  It's good."  I find myself smiling at him.  He's wearing an
uncomprehending frown.

"That is the farthest thing from good I've ever known,"  he says
seriously, looking perplexedly into his own drink, and it makes me smile
bigger.  Suddenly he looks up at me and his eyes widen slightly.  He
looks at my mouth.  My smiling mouth.  Then he shakes his head and drops
his eyes to the bar.

He's not exactly drunk.  But he sure isn't sober.  This can only work in
my favor, I think.  I watch him take yet another drink and my smile
softens.

"What's wrong, Mulder?"  The question is out in a loud whisper before I
decide to ask.  I wait for him to lay into me.

"You think you have the right to ask me that, Alex?" he asks bitterly.

I don't answer right away, both taken aback by the casual, though snide,
use of my name and considering which answer is the most true and won't
get a fist in my face.  He doesn't let me.

"You think everything you've done to me isn't enough?"  He throws back
his Scotch.  That's how his father drank it.

"You were a wreck when you walked in the door.  You want me to believe
that's all for me?  My ego will go through the roof,"  I tell him,
feeling bad for leading him, for knowing what the real reason is and
keeping that from him.  Maybe my next project is going to be debugging
their office.

He mutters the answer to himself.  "Because not everything is about you."

"What?"  I ask.

"'snothing,"  he says, closing his eyes for a moment.  "Just...I had a
bad day.  Leave me the fuck alone about it."

"Might help to talk about it,"  I say.

"With you?" he asks incredulously.

I look as deeply into his eyes as he'll let me.  "Maybe.  Yeah."

The fight seems to drain out of him then.  Like he doesn't want to tell
me but he also doesn't want to fight about not telling me.  I decide on a
different approach.

"Wanna take me out back and beat the shit out of me?"

His head turns to me so fast, it makes me blink.  "What?"  It's not just
a word.  It's a force.

"Might make you feel better,"  I explain to him.

He shakes his head.  "You're sick, Krycek."

"And you're an arrogant bastard, Mulder,"  I tell him simply.  For a
psychologist and a criminal profiler, he can be horribly obtuse with
symbolism in his everyday life.  Especially when it comes to me it seems.

"So I've been told," he says sullenly.  God, snap *out* of it, I think in
exasperation.  Just be it and move on!

"It's not the end of the world,"  I say and then regret my choice of
words.  I know I just put images of aliens and old men and fire and
brimstone in his head.

"What the hell are you talking about?"  he asks, now looking at me again.

"You can be a prick, Mulder,"  I start and he interrupts me with a
syllable.  "No, shut up.  You need to hear this."  To my surprise, he
shuts up.  My heart is beating crazy in my chest.  I can't believe this
is happening.  I have to make myself keep going.  "You can be an absolute
asshole sometimes.  You can be over-bearing, egotistical, and
insensitive."  His eyes have gone completely round.  It'd be comical if I
didn't think I was about to get a black eye once he shakes himself out of
his stunned silence.  I go on.  "You can be selfish and rude and a real
fucker when you wanna be.  And I still..."  I stall out, having almost
said something even *worse* than all those other terrible things.

I hope he'll let it go.  Just go beat me like I'd suggested earlier and
be done with it.  His wide-eyed stare turns into a suspicious frown and
he sounds completely freaked out when he asks, "Still what?"

Oh, fuck.  Well.  What did I come here for if not to do this?  *I'm* the
one in denial here.  Suddenly everything's so plain.  As I look at him so
close to me, my left arm aching now to reach out to him.  I let some
self-deprecating humor color my answer.  Nothing to lose.

"I still keep coming back for more."

He stares at me.  Eyes searching mine again.  I let him see.  I wonder if
he *will* see or if his stubborn need not to see me as human will get in
the way.  I don't know what he's seeing now.  I can't read him.  All I
know is that his mind is racing.

And then he's up off his stool and walking quickly away from the bar.  I
jump up and go after him.  In for a penny, in for a fucking pound.  I
follow him into the dimly lit hallway leading to the restrooms and the
back exit.  He whirls on me suddenly.  I stop myself from running into
him.

"What are you doing to me?"  he hisses.  There are tears in his eyes. 
What *am* I doing?  "Do you think you can just..."  A man turns the
corner and begins walking toward us and, seeing him, Mulder stops.  After
the man passes, presumably on his way to the phone advertised around the
corner by a blue sign hanging from the ceiling, Mulder grabs the front of
my jacket and hauls me through the door and into the men's room.  "Do you
think you can just come here, into my life whenever you want and say
whatever you want and it's all just fucking okay?  Fuck you, Krycek!  You
can go to hell.  I don't need *you* telling me who I am!"

"What *do* you need?"  I hear myself ask in a breathy murmur.

"Stop it,"  he says, his voice breaking on the command.  Stop what?

"Mulder..."

"I said stop, goddamnit!" he yells and shoves me back into the wall,
following and holding me there with one hand on my bicep, one on my
prosthetic.  He looks at where his hand grips the leather and plastic. 
"Fuck,"  he whispers, those tears still in his eyes.  He leans in, his
lips almost at my ear, his body against mine.  He's shaking.  "Just stop
it," he whispers.  "Stop."  And then his lips are on my ear, mouthing the
word.  "Stop."  Breathing on me, wet and hot.  "Stop."  He feels like
he's going to break open on something he's been holding inside too long. 
Oh, Mulder.  I close my eyes and a shiver rushes through my body as his
tongue finds my earlobe.

And quicker, almost, than I could register that he was there, he's gone. 
He pushes himself away from me, turning his back, hand on his head dipped
low, standing in the middle of the too-white room, breath heaving.

I take a shaky step away from the wall and reach my hand out to touch his
shoulder.  He turns quickly with a tortured groan, pulls on my hand, and
as I fall against him, he locks his lips to mine.

Oh God, this is not happening to me.  Not happening.  Mulder's lips are
pressed to mine and now they're opening mine and his tongue is in my
mouth and…  I feel myself want to relax into this.  I close my eyes.  His
were already closed.  His hand flexes on the back of my head, pressing me
into him.  I thought his kiss would hurt.  Hell, I never thought he'd
actually ever want to kiss me.  But in my fantasies, the ones I let
myself have, his kisses were like a rape of my mouth, bruising, his
tongue so harsh, punching at my teeth to get inside.

Here and now, he tilts his head more and his tongue steals in further,
then pulls away slowly, then slips back inside against my own tongue,
warm and wet, a slow fuck of my mouth.  So slow.  So deep.

His other hand presses into my lower back, pressing our bodies close.  As
far as I'm concerned, it can't be close enough.   I'd touch him, but I
can't raise my arm from my side.  I'd kiss him back but, Jesus, he's not
letting me.  I can't even react, much less respond.  The faint taste of
Scotch on his tongue is a drug seeping into my body.  I feel like I could
die here with Mulder's tongue stroking through my mouth and his arms
holding me tight to him. Who knew Mulder could kiss this way?  And that
he'd kiss *me* this way.  I moan involuntarily, releasing my breath into
his mouth, giving him my relaxed body.  If he wanted to kill me now, I
wouldn't bat an eyelash.  He has me.  I wonder if he knows it.  Or if
he's wrapped up in his own fantasy behind those closed eyes, behind this
overwhelming kiss.  What is he thinking?

His hands tighten on me when he hears me moan, but then he's letting me
go.  I congratulate myself on not stumbling when he releases me. Our lips
part on panting breaths, bodies separating, warm to cold.  He doesn't
back away, doesn't put comfortable space between us, but he also doesn't
look at me.  His lashes are lowered on almost closed eyes and his head is
bowed.  His chest rises and falls heavily.

"Go lock the door."

My head snaps up and I want to curse the quick movement, not wanting to
break whatever spell is cast on this room.  Mulder's voice is rough and
low and quiet.  I watch him swallow.  I watch him restrain all the
physical responses he'd had, try to tame the wildness in him enough to
wait until I do as told.

When I don't move, he raises his eyes and looks at me.  The heat there
burns and I can't stand it.  I sip in a quick breath and move away to
lock the door.  As the bolt clicks loudly into place, I wet my swollen
lips and turn to him.  He moved so silently.  He's almost right up
against me, and I turn merely to be pressed back against the wall beside
the door.

His eyes are a wet, deep brown, lashes moist.  His hand reaches for my
cheek, palm lightly brushing against me, fingers caressing hair, ear,
jaw…  Sweet God, I'm dreaming.  Then I feel his questing hand ball into a
fist and he pulls it away, only to slam both hands against the wall, open
palmed, on either side of my head.  Suddenly, he's breathing like he's
been running, the tension in him a nearly a tangible thing.

He looks like he's ready to yell at me, to let the accusations fly.  I
wonder if he's remembering Hong Kong now like I am.  It's almost the same
look.  Except now he has tears in his eyes and his bottom lip wants to
quiver.  I wait for him to say something, anything.

He says nothing.  Instead, he breathes hard as he eases his body closer
to mine, moving to where his temple rests next to mine, and I feel him
position himself against me.  Chest to chest.  His cock and
mine…touching.  I gasp, and what I inhale, he exhales, shivering his
breath out near my ear.

He edges his right hand in closer to my head.  It crawls along the wall,
and then I feel it against my hair.  He turns his head so that his lips
are all but touching my ear again.

"Alex…"

It's a pained sigh.  God, I want to be that for him.  I want to be Alex. 
I want to say yes, Mulder, whatever you want, whoever you want me to be. 
Whatever you possibly could ask.  I breathe in to say something…I don't
know what, but something.

Before I can, he's gently pushing down on my head, urging me to my knees.
 Whatever I intended to say, it comes out as a desperate whimper instead.
 I look up at him as I slowly lower myself down.  He's watching me go
through hooded eyes, both tortured and aroused.  He's not looking into my
eyes, but he's watching me.  His head bows as I descend and I fall
slightly forward into him when finally I have to drop to my knees.  He
shuffles his feet back a little to give me room, but one hand remains
against the wall, high over my head.  His other hand comes slowly around
until his thumb touches the corner of my mouth.  I look at him.  He
watches his own thumb rub gently over my lips.  I part them obediently. 
Is this what you want, malysh?  I feel light-headed.  It's a dream.  I'm
dreaming.  This can't be…

He pulls his hand away and begins to unbuckle his belt.  I drop my eyes
from his drowsy face.  I watch his graceful hand, deft fingers releasing
leather from silver.  I'm breathing heavy and fast, watching him.  My
breath is loud in the room.  I've begun to shake.  I've never wanted
anything like this.  I've never let myself.  How can I let this happen? 
How can he?  We're crazy.  I don't care.

His pants fall to the floor and he pulls his erection free of his boxer
briefs, holding around the base, drawing a shuddering breath above me.  
I look up and he's still looking at my mouth.  I want to just lean in and
swallow him down.   But I wait for him to take over.  He doesn't.  He
lets go of his proud cock and touches my face again with a trembling
hand, first the backs of loose fingers, then the pads of his long fingers
tracing my jawline.  And then he shuts his eyes, eyebrows drawn down.  A
tear squeezes from his eye and slides down his face.  Oh God, he can't do
it.  He's standing over me, ready to have his cock sucked…able to take my
mouth against my will…and he won't.

"Jesus, Mulder,"  I whisper in awe, without conscious thought to do so,
and then I feel my own desire and need take over, and I lean in, grasping
the thick root of him and enveloping his cockhead with my lips on a sigh.

"Unngah," he moans and it shoots into my cock as though he fisted it and
squeezed.  I groan around his dick in my mouth and suck gently at the
head.

Mulder tastes good.  Better than I'd let myself imagine on those sticky,
D.C. nights in my apartment, watching him absently stroke himself through
his pants under the desk when no one else was around, and during those
nights in Russia, when I had no one and nothing.  Only the memory of his
violent touch and his eyes.  And I would think about this.  For just a
few short moments.  Five strokes of my own hand.  Three breaths.  Never
enough.

His skin is so warm it's almost hot, and he's smooth, sliding on my
tongue.  I suck him down farther and hear his breathing catch.  Only now
does his hand slip around to the back of my head, and he doesn't pull me
into him, forcing himself into my throat.  No pressure.  Just the
phenomenal tickle of his sifting fingers against my hair and skin.  I
shiver.

He shuffles his feet, searching for more stability, a better fit of his
cock inside my mouth.  I suck back to the tip of him and let my lips play
there like a musician…tenor sax.  I manipulate the tiny hole with the
tender point of my tongue and rejoice in his deep moan and the release of
a drop of pre-cum .  I kiss at it, letting it smear just inside my pursed
lips.  Then I lick them close enough to his cock that I'm actually
licking him, too, at the same time.

"Ffffuuuhhh,"  he murmurs semi-incoherently.  It's so amazing…hearing
that from him…not a voice in my head, not a facsimile, but Mulder
actually making these sounds.  Because of me.  I take him deeply into my
mouth again and squeeze the base of his twitching shaft.

That's when his slim hips start to move.  It's barely anything.  Just a
rocking back and forth.  His movements are liquid and graceful.  His hand
slides up into the hair at the back of the crown of my head and he makes
a fist.  Still with very little force, he tilts my head back slightly and
slides his cock back just to my throat and then back out almost all the
way.  I flit my glance up to his face just in time to see him open his
eyes and look down at me.  He looks into my eyes for a moment, his
expression enigmatic now.  His eyelids are still heavy, and he appears to
be looking at my eyes, not into them.  And then he shifts his
impenetrable gaze to the sight of his own cock as he rocks his hips
forward and impales my mouth with it.

"Awwnnnn!" he groans more loudly, only shutting his eyes for the briefest
of moments before returning to my mouth around him.  He pulls out,
watching intently, and drives slow back in.  Again not choking me, not
going too far.

I whimper around his flesh, lowering my eyes to watch his penetration one
moment and then blinking back up to see his beautiful face, transformed
by arousal.  He grits his teeth and grunts, jabbing into me once but
still not breaching my throat.  I moan in response.  He does it again.

"Nnnn!"

I want to tell him to take me, to just do it.  I want it.  I suck harder
at him.

"Yeeesss…"  It's just a whisper.  I want him to say my name so badly.  I
can't want this.  It's so dangerous to want this.  I flash on a vision of
us lying on my bed, draped over each other's bodies, sheets crumpled
around and beneath us.  The sun is coming up.  We're naked.  We've made
love….

Oh God, this is not happening.  I feel what I've always feared the most
where Mulder's concerned.  I feel them and I want to bang my one
remaining fist against the wall in desperate frustration.  Tears.  Hot. 
Clogging my throat, building in my eyes.

Mulder, stop.  I suck at him as I think it.  I can't stop.  I can't.  The
tears flow now because I know my life is over.  I wonder when it was that
it happened.  How long I've…  The words are too damning to even think,
despite their horrible, definite truth.  If I think it, I'll die just a
little bit more.

It takes me a moment to realize he's stopped gently fucking my mouth. 
He's still.  I open tellingly wet eyes and look up at him, my mouth
coming sloppily off his cock, leaving us both glistening.  He's frowning.
 I look into his eyes.  He searches me.  As he does, his mouth opens on
words that stick in his throat, his hand strokes my cheek, thumb wiping
away my tears.

"Krycek?" he asks finally, uncomprehendingly.

My last name strikes me, a physical blow.  It shouldn't.  In the space of
ten wonderful, dreadfully impactful minutes, I've come to long for my
first name from his lips.  I'm ready to beg for it.  But I've been
knocked back down into my place.  I'm Krycek.  I betrayed him.  He hates
me.  He hates me….  Why are his fingers so sweetly stroking across my
face?

"Kuh…"

Before he can say it again, I lunge forward on a sobbing growl and wrap
my arm around his buttocks, grabbing at him blindly,  and taking him back
into me.  I sink onto him, this time feeling him push into my throat.  As
the tears stream steadily down my face, I start to bob my head back and
forth, working him quickly with lips, tongue, barest hint of teeth,
giving him everything, just to take this one thing.  I have to have this
one thing from him.  If I have it, I can let him go.

I feel his arms held stunned out to his sides.  I feel him watching me. 
I don't stop.  I don't want to ever stop and I can't wait for this to
end.  He'll come and I'll swallow and I won't kiss his cock clean.  I'll
just go.  I just want to go.  Everything's different now.  He can slay me
with one wrong word and he doesn't even know it.  Mulder, fuck you. 
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck you.

I don't know how long I've been madly sucking him.  It feels like
nothing, like a blink of an eye, and now he's panting…panting…and he's
coming, yelling the first half of profane words, head tossed back,
stumbling, and I hold him up as he empties into my mouth.  I barely taste
him.  If I catalogue his taste, if I memorize this moment, it will only
mean countless future pains, and so I shut down.  I suck him dry and pull
my mouth away.  But once he's gone, God, all I want is him back inside my
mouth.  I want to suck him hard again, and again, until he's wasted and
I'm wasted and I can't think about how much I want him anymore.

I want to leave.  To just walk out.  It would kill me to do that, I
think.  But it's killing me to stay.  In the end, I find I can't move
except to sit back on my heels with my head bowed.   I'm scared to look
at him.

I feel and hear rather than see him pull up his slacks and walk over to
the sink.  I keep my head down, looking at the floor in front of me. 
White tile with little black squares connecting them.  A paper towel
balled up and tossed over by the wall.  I hear the faucet turn on. 
Mulder's cleaning up.  The water splashes slightly a few times.  It turns
off.  Paper towels are pulled out of their metal house on the wall. 
Hands are dried.  Pants are zipped up.  A buckle is redone.

There's a moment of stillness and complete silence, interrupted by the
realization that I can still hear the music from outside, a faint
soundtrack to other people's lives.  I decide I need to remove myself
from Mulder, from what took place here, before he can break this, break
me.  So I make my heavy body uncoil.  I rise up, my muscles reluctant to
do my bidding.  They want to stay with him.  He pleases them…it…my body. 
It doesn't understand moving away from him now.  It yearns for him now. 
New tears spark behind my eyes and I turn to go.  I've taken but one step
when he stops me.

"Where are you going?"  There's the edge of belligerence in his tone. 
There was almost an emphasis on 'you.'  Like he was the one that was
going to walk out on *me*.

I turn and look at him looking at me in the mirror.  I want to ask him. 
What is this to you?  What just happened here?  Did you, for one instant,
feel anything like what I felt…what I feel for you?  But my instinct to
preserve something of my old self speaks loudly to me that to voice
anything of the sort would be to hand over my life to him on a plate. 
And *that* I just cannot allow.  Not in this lifetime.

And so I say simply, "I have someplace I have to be."  It breaks my
heart.  I turn to go again.

"Wait," he says, quietly and powerfully.  And even as I stop, I realize I
have given him this power over me.  I want, more than anything, for him
to have it.  I need him to save me now.

I wait with bated breath.  I hear him turn.  I close my eyes.  The door
can't be more than four strides.  And he's five or six strides behind me.
 I could make it.  I could re-establish everything I lost in here, I tell
myself.  I could forget about him.

I take another step, but his hand is on my shoulder.  I gasp and go
still.  Shit, when did he move?  I really am losing it.

"Wait,"  he says again, a little more insistently this time.

Fuck.  Oh, fuck.  He wraps his arm around my chest, closing his hand
gently around my shoulder.  He puts his lips to my ear.  He presses up
against me.  I wait for cutting words, for a punch to the ribs.  For
familiarity to rock me back into reality.  He continues, the low rumble
of his voice tickling my ear.  "You thought you could give me a fucking
amazing blow job and then just walk?"

I almost choke on my breath.  Fucking amazing?  My heart leaps
ecstatically in my chest.

Suddenly, his right hand has snaked around my waist and rests against my
stomach.  My cock swells back to life with his hand so close, the teasing
hint of paradise.  Then he says the impossible.

"Don't you want me to touch you?"  It's soft and suggestive.  And it
floors me.  I just want to lean my head back onto his shoulder with a
moaned, "Yyyeessss."  Instead, I'm speechless as he waits behind me, his
heart pounding against my back.

He's waiting for an answer.  Does that mean he really doesn't know?  How
can he not?  If he reached down…

"You're hard, aren't you, Krycek?"  he asks as if prompted by my
thoughts.  The question doesn't carry the smug easiness of arrogance to
my surprise.  Neither did his asking if I wanted him to touch me.  Both
inquires were…honest.

I realize lying would be about the stupidest thing in the world right
now, the evidence being so easily procured.  He's got me.  Does he want
me to beg?  I wasn't just being mean when I called him an arrogant
bastard before.  It informs so much of what he does sometimes.  I don't
usually mind it.  Not when I haven't just given over my soul to him to do
with as he pleases.  So now, if he wants to have that power over me… 
Well, I would be surprised if he didn't.  No sooner have I thought it
than he smiles against my ear.

"What's the matter?  Scared I'll hurt you?"

"Fuck yeah,"  I blurt, very nearly laughing.  It's out of my mouth
without a thought to how deeply it damns me.

He says nothing, but the smile disappears.  And very slowly…painfully
slowly…his right hand slides down, unbuttons my jeans, unzips them, and
then slips into my briefs to wrap around my dick.

"Ahhh!"  I cry out at the feel of his fingers closing around me, warm and
strong, somehow making me feel completely on edge and totally safe at the
same time.  An electric pulse shoots through my balls and up along my
cock.  I'm close already.  And then he pulls up, squeezing beneath the
head and then relaxing back down in a loose fist.

I feel him settle in against me, his hand pumping me once more, but then
he stops.  He takes his hand away.

"Nnnnnoh,"  I whine on an aroused breath.  Is this my punishment this
time around?  That he makes me show him how much I want him and then he
leaves?  Arrogant bastard wasn't strong enough apparently.  It's
everything I can do not to sob or beg him to come back as he moves back
away from me.

It takes half a second when his hand reaches under my jacket at my back
and finds my gun for me to stop breathing entirely.  My nerves are on
fire now, all senses heightened.  He pulls it out.  I close my eyes.  I
wait for the click of the safety.  Go ahead Mulder, I will him.  End it. 
End this.  Fulfill this dark destiny you and I have created.   I give in
to one final sickness and hope that maybe he'll decide to bring me off
before he pulls the trigger.

And still I wait.  Terrified.  Nobody else in this world terrifies me.  I
wonder if he knows that.  Frantically, I try to think of something to say
to him.  Maybe I can convince him that the mess would be a real nuisance
to clean up.  That Scully would not condone killing me in anything other
than self-defense.  That even though I killed his father, I did give him
great head even by his own standards, and shouldn't that count for
something?

Mulder, can't I just kiss you good-bye?

I feel those awful tears welling up again.  I've begun to wonder if the
real cruelty here is the waiting.  And I start to get angry.

"Just fucking do it, Mulder,"  I whisper brokenly.

I hear his clothes rustle behind me.  I hear my gun impact lightly with
the linoleum.  I hear it slide along the floor, see it go beyond reach
out of the corner of my eye.  Not breathing.  Not breathing.  I can't
yet, even as I hear him stand up, feel him come up behind me again, press
in close, arms around me.  I feel myself start to tremble.  His right
hand again slides down my jeans and closes around my cock.

"What?"  he asks innocently into my ear and jerks up on my cock with
enough force to shock me back into breath.

He could have killed me.  He could have had his sweet revenge.  Instead
his hand is securely wrapped around my cock and he's working me slowly in
his hot fist.  I think I might die for entirely different reasons.
Suddenly, I don't care how fucked up this is…we are.  Nothing matters but
that he made the choice to touch me.  Whatever the reason.  I don't
fucking care.  I lean my head back against him like I'd so wanted to do
before.  Life's too short, I decide, with a wry inward smile.  I can have
this now.  Hell if I'm not going to take the chance I've been given.

"Mulder…"  I sigh it like I was by myself.  In my bed.   Only imagining
him with me.

"Anybody ever tell you you're a slut, Krycek?" he asks at my ear, hand
sliding down to fondling my balls, weighing them with tender, sure
fingers.

I buck into his hand and his other arm tightens around me.  Yeah, I'm a
slut for you, Mulder.  I'd fucking do anything.  "For you…"  I groan, and
his hand seizes my shaft again, his teeth biting down on my earlobe
simultaneously.

"Get that jacket off,"  he commands, left hand coming around to the back
of my collar and jerking down, already helping to pull it off of me.

I shrug the heavy leather off and then his hand is up under my shirt, on
my chest, rubbing across my nipples, pinching them in time to the urgent
pulls on my cock.

"Ohgod!"  I cry, and he's grunting in my ear, licking it, biting it,
tilting his head and biting my neck, grunting.  I had no idea it could
be…that he'd want…  I'm close.  Oh God, so close.

"Gotta fuck you."

"Ggggaahhhh!"  I yell, all sensation now.  The very idea, his voice
saying it.  I can't hold back….

And his hand is closing tight around the base of my cock, hard.  He
knows.  He's not gonna let me.  Oh, Mulder.  Wanna come for you.

"Don't,"  he murmurs hotly in my ear, jerking me back into him with the
arm around my torso.  His hand squeezes tighter, staving off my orgasm. 
"Can I let go now?" he asks.

I shake my head violently.  "Nuh-nnnnnooooooo…."

He laughs a low, sexy chuckle into my ear.  That's not helping,
goddamnit!  God, Mulder, what more could you do to me?  Who are you now
that you can be this with me?  We're in our own little world here in the
men's room.  Maybe we could stay.  Never leave.  I swallow back a wave of
raw emotion.

"Now?" he asks, still amused.

I nod uncertainly and he lets me go, sliding his hand out of my shirt as
well.

"Wall," he instructs succinctly, and after the hot, prickly flow of
light-headedness recedes, I take the three steps to the wall and lean my
good arm against it.

He comes up behind me and his breath is hot in my ear as he pulls my
jeans and underwear down to mid-thigh.  Can't believe this….  Can't
believe…

I feel him look down at my bare ass, his breathing shuddering against my
neck.  His hand reaches out and strokes one cheek lightly.  I tense.  He
chuckles.  "Slut."  And then he squeezes hard, and while he does, I hear
his belt buckle once again coming loose.  The leather brushes my skin. 
He hastily finishes and his pants drop to the floor again.  The hand that
was on my ass, sneaks back around to hold my cock, and I feel him aim the
tip of himself between my cheeks, nestling his cock up against my hole. 
He brushes his cockhead around my opening and speaks roughly in my ear. 
"You have anything on you?"

I gulp and nod, words failing for a moment.  Then, "Jacket pocket."

"Fuck," he says in exasperation.  I imagine that he rolled his eyes.  It
makes me feel…proud.  He doesn't want to stop to get it.  He doesn't want
to leave me.  I hate the grand, false generalization of that statement. 
But I can have it here.  In this room, with this Mulder…I can believe it.

He squeezes my dick once and then moves away from me to pick up my jacket
from the floor, not having to walk away, but still unable to maintain
contact none the less.  I turn my head to look at him.  His pants are
around his ankles and his dick is bobbing happily and he's digging
through the wrong pocket.

"The right one,"  I tell him.

He pulls out a condom and a small bottle of lube.  I feel bad that he's
going to think I carry those around to let anyone who winks at me have a
go.  But even in this made up world, I can't bring myself to tell him
that they're for him.

I turn my face back to the wall as he throws my jacket aside once more.

I wait as he works the condom onto himself and slicks up his cock with
the lube, throwing wrapper and bottle to the ground before pressing back
between my asscheeks and gripping my erection.  There are no more words
now as he grips us both and pushes carefully at my hole.  We both groan.

After tenderly manipulating me to relaxation, he pierces the muscle and
pushes his way inside me a little.

Oh, shit.  He's not even all the way in and…

"Gonna…"  I tell him and that's all it takes.  He's squeezing the base of
my cock again, knowing my body so well already.

"Breathe," he tells me and the absurd desire to hear Madonna's "Like a
Virgin" strikes me.  He rocks into me a little farther.  "Don't come. 
I'm almost in,"  he murmurs.  Shut the fuck up, Mulder, or I'm gonna lose
my goddamned mind as well as any control I have left.

"Uuunnnnnnnnn…"  He releases one long groan as his dick slides all the
way up my ass.

His hand slackens a little, and I can't stop it.  I shoot my cum all over
the wall on a whining sob.  "Nomulderohgaaahhhhh!"

My ass squeezes strong around him and he moans against my neck. 
"Ohyeah…."

I pant against my arm as I finish, and his hand lets go of my barely
softening cock.

"That was good,"  he tells me, still deep inside.  He takes my hips in
his hands.  "But I'm not through with you yet."  He pulls out slowly and
then slides smoothly back in.  My half-swollen, over-sensitive dick jumps
as he hits my prostate.  I want to cry.

He holds my hips still as he fucks me, stretching my ass open and making
me ache.   I'm shaking against the wall, my body nearly refusing to stay
standing under the assault.   I've never been fucked like this.  He's not
even working hard at it yet and I don't know if I can take it.  He feels
too good.  It hurts just right.  And since he's already come, he's very
much in control.  My cock starts to stiffen again with each time he
pushes into me.  God, Mulder, what are you doing?  I can't handle this. 
Belatedly, I realize I'm crying.  The tears roll down my unguarded face
and something in me feels set free.

"Can you take more?' he asks silkily.

"Fuck, Mulder, no,"  I tell him, eyes nearly rolling back in my head.

He smiles against my ear again.  I wish he wouldn't do that.  It makes it
feel like making love.  It makes him glitter with danger.

"We'll see,"  he tells me and starts pulling my ass back onto his cock as
he thrusts faster and harder.  His lips are no longer teasing my ear. 
All I feel are his hands grasping my hips tightly and moving me, and his
solid, hard cock driving into me over and over.  My cock is painfully
erect again now.  The air alone feels like fire.

"Muh-Mulder…ohJesusfuck!"

He's grunting now.  He's slamming into my ass and I fight to stop the
shaking in my legs.  Please, Mulder.  Please.   I don't know how much
more I can take.  I certainly can't get harder, can't get more turned on.
 And that's when he chooses to slam into me and hold himself there,
shuffling his feet in closer and walking me in toward the wall more.

"If I'd known…" he says out of breath, "how much of a slut you are for
me…I would have fucked you sooner."

His hand finds my cock again and I cry out.  Mulder lets go of my hip
with the other hand and wrenches my head back by the hair, suddenly
plundering my mouth with his, sucking on my tongue, and then twisting my
lips with his, tongue-fucking my mouth repeatedly until we're both out of
breath and he tears his mouth away.

He keeps my head pulled back by the hair as he starts thrusting into me
again and stroking my aching cock.

It's too intense.  It hurts and it burns and it's easy and hard.  My body
hangs on the precipice of another orgasm and Mulder shifts his hold on me
so that his hand is up my shirt again on my chest and holding me back
against him.  I've never felt like this.  Never.  And I never will again.
 The tears flow.  I've long since stopped caring.  My body and my soul
are his now.   I didn't want it.  Didn't ask for this.  But it's what I
have.  Whether or not I have anything else, I have this moment.  I'll
have it long after he walks away.  Right here and right now, I feel like
I could fly if he asked me to.

And then it's like I am.  Mulder squeezes rhythmically and quickly up
under my cockhead on several particularly hard thrusts and my brain
hardly registers the long, groaning string of half-formed words coming
from Mulder's mouth as I scream, coming explosively.

And then I know nothing.

…………

I flinch as something collides with my face.  Something stings slightly. 
I lift my hand to brush it away and I hear a voice as though from the end
of a tunnel.

"Dammit, Alex, wake up."

I don't want to wake up.  I frown.

But it stings again.  Someone just slapped me.  My eyes come open quickly
and I find I'm staring up into…into the face of God.

"Mulder?"

It rushes back.  The whole night.  At the bar, mild flirtation, old
feelings of hurt, new feelings thick with confusion and trepidation and a
longing I'd denied for so long.  And then the bathroom.  Oh God, we…we
did everything!  My eyes widen, staring up at him remembering how it felt
to have him inside me.  He's beautiful now, looking down at me with a
crease between his eyebrows.  I feel my heart lurch in my chest.  I can
still feel that first kiss.

His expression changes as he looks down at me, his eyes dancing over my
face before coming back to peer deeply into mine again.  I have the
extremely eerie feeling that he just read my sappy, love-struck mind. 
Yeah, I thought the word.  What I told myself I'd never admit to aloud or
even to be let formed into words in my mind.  It's there and now he sees
it, too.  I can tell he does.  The tears haven't even dried on my face
and they're making my eyelashes stick together annoyingly.  I see
comprehension dawn on his face.  It feels like a death sentence.

Quickly, I close off to him, breaking eye contact and struggling to a
sitting position.  Jesus, I had my head in his fucking lap!  There's no
time to process that at all because there's a loud banging at the door.

"Is anybody in there?" an exasperated male voice calls.

Mulder and I look at each other.  He yells back without looking away from
me.  "Just a minute!"

We scramble to our feet.  I notice my pants are up and fastened. 
Mulder's are not and he redresses quickly.

"You go hide in one of the stalls," he tells me as he buckles his belt. 
"I'll go out first and I'll meet you…"

I interrupt him.  "No, Mulder."  He looks up, surprised.  I smile at him
sadly.  "You stay.  I'll go out first."

"Why?" he asks suspiciously.

I nonchalantly walk over and retrieve my gun.  I know it's not what he
expects when I level it at him.  "In the stall, Mulder."

His face hardens, but he walks backward and enters the stall just the
same.  I'm sorry, Mulder.  You don't understand.  But you will.  You have
to.

"Sit down,"  I tell him softly.  He does, but not without protest.  I
would expect no less from him.

"Coward," he spits.

I smile at him again.  He's so beautiful.  I decide to tell him.  In so
many words.  I lean in and brush my lips against his cheek and I whisper
the words in Russian.  "My love…so beautiful.  There are no words to
thank you.  I am a coward.  Maybe in the next life, things will be
different.  Please be safe."

I start to back away, but the look on his face stops me.  "Lyubimy," he
whispers on a slow smile.  It's what I called him.  Lyubimy.  My love. 
Oh, shit.  "Byers got me a Russian-to-English dictionary for my birthday
this year," he says, eyes now sparkling.  Son of a bitch.

I back away from him.  Nobody with a gun on them should look so pleased
with themselves.  "Arrogant bastard,"  I whisper to him, unable to
control my own small smile in return.  I unlock the door as Mulder closes
the stall door on himself.

"What the fuck were you *doing* in there?" a rather drunk and odiferous
man asks me when I exit.

"Sorry,"  I murmur as I walk past him and continue to the back door and
out into the alley.  I can't take the chance that Mulder will follow me,
so I take off at a run.  I run around the corner and down the street,
ignoring the looks I get as I fly past pedestrians and restaurant
windows.  I duck into the parking garage where I left my car and check to
make sure I haven't been followed.

He didn't want me to leave.  He wanted to talk about it.  Well, maybe he
did.  Maybe he wanted to have another round.  I shake my head of the
images that assault me as I make my way to my car.  Maybe he can just
continue on after what happened.  I can't.  I need time away from him to
think.  If I let him in now…stay in his presence and subject myself to
the full psychological work up he's sure to give me, I might as well
throw myself off a bridge.

I start my car and zip out of the garage with a violent roar of the
engine.  As I maneuver to the Beltway, I tell myself I did the right
thing.  Staying there, being with him in the aftermath of the most
incredible sex I've ever had in my life, would have been a nearly fatal
mistake.

Feeling an unpleasant draft from the vents, I flick the knob to heat and
frown.  It's then that I notice something awful.

My jacket.  I left my fucking jacket.

Shit.

I sigh, knowing there's nothing to be done about it unless I go back
there.  For almost a full minute…I consider it.  He already knows. 
Whether he believes it is something that remains to be seen.  My foot
actually comes off the gas slightly as I ponder it.  Being with Mulder. 
It would mean giving more than I have to give right now.  And on that
realization, I press my right foot down again and feel my car react
smoothly to the request for speed.

I drive the rest of the way home thinking not about what I was going to
do or what I should have done or anything really all that important. 
Except how he smelled.  Like sage and cloves and warm skin.  And Scotch. 
I think about how he sounded when he came.  I think about the fact that
no matter how hard I try, I can't stop fate.  I think about him finding
my jacket on the floor.  I wonder if he'll take it home with him or take
it straight to the FBI labs for analysis.  I wonder…if he does take it
home…if he'd put it in the closet next to his own things.

I shake my head again with a self-deprecating laugh.  He'll probably
chuck it in a dumpster or something.  I should probably begin shopping
for a new one.

Although…that is my favorite one…

End

Feedback adored at shannon@hegalplace.com!  Thanks so much for reading!
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