*Thirteen*
He sighed. "I'm getting tired of breaking in and threatening you like this," he said. "If anything, you should be coming to me for information. Why is that?" He sounded genuinely confused. "Why do I show up and force you to let me tell you things?" A reflective tone wriggled into his words, then quickly dissipated. "Ah, I digress," he said, and dropped his arm to his side. Somehow, that gesture expressed the same informality with which he'd introduced himself to me five years ago, telling me his name "Krycek. Alex Krycek." and conceiving the original sin. It pissed me off. So I seized the opportunity and jumped him.
"Oh, what was that for ..." Krycek grumbled as he tried to push me off.
"For being a bastard." Overcome by my own violence, I drew him into the wrath, throwing him to the floor and punching him, punching him, punching him in the face, struggling as he fought me off and crushed his arm across my neck, rolling on top of me. Krycek discarded the gun and sent it sliding to the other end of the room, out of reach for either of us. I lunged at his throat and when that failed, attempted to clip him in the jaw, which succeeded in forcing him to abandon supporting himself on the arm he was strangling me with. He crumpled onto my chest, unable to hold himself up with his prosthesis alone. I clambered to get out from under him, but incredibly, he regained his strength and pinned me. I was actually impressed by how well Krycek had adjusted to his handicap, and for a moment I did nothing but lie beneath him. As he continued to wrestle against me, I became aware of something clouding our movements. At first it was too vague to identify. Then Krycek pulled away briefly, and I felt more conscious of the absence of pressure than I'd been of the pressure itself. I knew the discomfort of his letting up, but hadn't noticed the perverse comfort of his body against mine. In the instant he fell back upon me, I noticed it.
Despite my attempts to stifle it, a frustrated whimper slipped out of my throat. I prayed that Krycek thought I meant it in pain. To my mortification, he paused and looked right in my eyes. I bit my tongue and glared at him viciously. A hint of a grin appeared in the corner of his mouth, and he shifted slightly, making the friction between us appear less inadvertent. Then he forced his thigh between my legs and rocked into my groin. This time I heard him make a sound, one I thought I'd heard him make before, in the airport in Hong Kong. Kind of a growl.
"Mulder, I came here to tell you something about the case you're ah! fuck working on."
"What. That I'm right?" I panted.
"Of course you're right. But the vampires," he swallowed with difficulty, "the Syndicate is preserving them. They were created ... to be used as a control."
"What?"
"For the alien occupation." Krycek took a deep breath and slowly sat up. Then he lowered his voice and started to explain. "It was a Rebel idea. They made ... alterations, in the genetic makeup of a select group of life forms, causing those life forms to have superior abilities. Abilities that make them significantly resistant to the alien virus, Purity. But they were discovered, and now the aliens employing the Syndicate are in control. Preserving the supernaturals to perform experiments on, after colonisation." He was still breathing heavily. "They covered it up. This, and all those other shit cases you've been staying up nights trying to find answers for, all the vampires, the supermen and telekinetics. Cases that have been completely impervious to the FBI's high-tech investigative measures and for what. To prevent mankind from casting off the shackles of order and turning precious America into an anarchy? No. People will accept anything as long as it's presented right." Intensity burned in his eyes, those melodic green reservoirs. "Give it to them as the latest messiah of medical science. The worst that could happen is someone bottles vampire's blood and makes a killing ahem. Excuse the pun as a merchant for the Fountain of Youth. But no one would go even slightly nuts."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Are you saying ... that rebel aliens created biological anomalies in the inhabitants of Earth, and sustained them for millions of years, only to have the other aliens find out and end up using them as lab rats later?"
"That's the first time I've heard you say rat' without meaning me."
"Hey, for all I know you could be a biological anomaly." Nope, too late. You said it, Mulder.
Krycek giggled giggled, in the middle of his dead-crucial apocalyptic speech and I knew that wasn't a sound I'd heard him make before.
I sighed heavily, unable to quite take in what he was confirming. "Why are you telling me this? What can I possibly do about it?" I despaired.
Krycek looked offended. "Why the hell do you think I'm telling you this? Because I hate you? Because I abhor you so much that I'm willing to no, that I insist on breaking into your apartment to give you the information that could save your fucking life, not to mention the lives of about five billion other human beings?!"
"I don't know why you're telling me this! I don't understand a goddamn thing you do and I never have!"
"Understand this," he placed his hand on the back of my neck and pulled my head close to his, kissing me with such fury that in an second I forgot myself, my job, my life. Nothing was so wanted, nothing in the universe had ever been so blessedly anticipated. It was devastating.
He pushed me back onto the floor and held me as if he was afraid a tornado would come and sweep him away. He kept kissing me the same way he'd always attacked, expert and unrelenting, and moved his hand down my chest in a shameless and frantic caress. As much as my mind continued to reject the notion that any of this was really going on, there was no doubt in my body. It took me a while to find the power to respond, but finally I stirred and touched the shoulder of his real arm, pushing gently for him to let up. When he pulled away there were angry tears in his eyes. He stared at me briefly, then stood up and paced a couple of nowhere steps.
I rose cautiously, expecting him to snap and explode at me. He looked so crazy, such a victim of his own psychotic existence, my only thought was to get rid of this inner conflict am I supposed to console him or kill him? All this time. I did not have to admit it to anyone but myself. The passion between Alex Krycek and me had never asked for any more defining than that.
Is he gonna leave?
Get out.
Nothing's coming out of my mouth.
I hate you.
Someone I wouldn't be alive without.
Murder.
Those eyes.
Trust no one.
My own father.
The truth.
Every word a lie.
Forget it.
Your body.
Hit me.
Kiss me again.
"Alex." He wouldn't look at me. "Alex." I couldn't let him out of this now. I went over and held his face in my hands, gazing once again into the depths of his eyes until they were eclipsed by impossible eyelashes. I tilted my head and bent to lick his mouth, gently running my tongue along his lower lip, then harder, sucking his lip. He let out a ravished sigh and started to grind against me. I held his hips and pushed into him, crushing him to the wall. Everything around us faded.
We undressed and touched with vulgar need, making our way somehow to the sofa, kissing everywhere. Fingers like a inclement breeze over skin. Pulses thundering in time. Unspoken signals taking over as he sank to his knees, lingering in the quicksand of his ardour, and took me into his mouth, which was softer than could be believed. But all I could do was believe right up until the moment his soft mouth turned to fire, and an electrical current bolted through my body. I shuddered and verged on a scream. There were no questions. If I had imagined this before, I was off by miles. I am not capable of making this up. He was the most beautiful thing. So beautiful. The darkest angel, with the heavenly tongue of a demon. Drawing me in and making the tempest swell until I felt I would drown, never sure if I was breathing properly.
By one truly graceful move, we shifted position so that I had him under me, holding him by his hips as I dove again for his gorgeous mouth. Sweat pooled on our skin and ran rivers in our crevices. We were slick over each other, lustrous in lust, and I saw him arch up, his head thrown back, that divine neck bare. In my besiegement, I pierced him as Zeus should impale a storm cloud with a dagger of lightning. Over and over, I voiced my only intelligible thought: "Alex." I heard him moaning, but didn't know what he was saying.
"Pazhalsta ... oh ... ja lublju tebja ..."
We flooded together, and collapsed like a dam in a hurricane.
*
Consciousness became me in the form of quiet rain drizzling down my window. It was still dark, and I couldn't see the clock. As I came to, I noticed I was naked, and slumped over on my couch, covered by a blanket I didn't know I owned. Things sparkled back into my head one at a time. A fight with Scully. Hot tears. Then, Alex. I sat up with a start, hoping to god he hadn't gone.
"Alex?"
To my disappointment, nothing. Nothing but the silent shadows of my apartment. I wrapped myself in the blanket and went to sit by the window, watching the solemn indigo sky gradually warm to a tongue-coloured pink. The night picked up its stars and shuffled off to the other side of the world.
shuffle on