Mulder walks quickly away from the cafe and I am in hot pursuit. My body has its own memories—memories of pain inflicted when Mulder is pushed too far. It always amazes me—how quickly Mulder can turn violent—but it seems that it's only ever directed at me. It's not that I don't deserve it, most times, anyway.
    One of the advantages of being in a sparsely populated country is. . .so very few people.  Almost no one, actually.  He approaches the highway and a few cars pass. I look up and can see the heat ghosts gyrating on the surface of the pavement—the heat is so oppressive and heavy—and the only thing approaching is a transport truck, some miles distant, giving us both time enough to cross the road.
    Mulder doesn't stop, doesn't look back, and doesn't acknowledge my presence in any way.  I still follow.  He enters a small country lane; the dirt road beneath our feet is dry and cracked from the heat and lack of rain.  The trees, shrubs and wild roses crowd us, giving only enough room for one person to pass unmolested.
    The air is sweet and pure—unsullied by the urban decay I am so often forced to contend with.  Overhead I can hear the birds swooping and chirping as they dive for insects.  In the distance I can hear the loons and the fishers as they dive and splash, their lonely, haunting call registering in my ear as beauty would to my eye.
    Somewhere in the distance some settler of long ago must have planted a patch of lavender, now gone wild; the smell is rich and heady in the air.
    Still Mulder walks on.
    I can feel the sweat dripping down my back, between my shoulder blades. It feels good and wholesome for a change.  But I remember what it will do to that place where the leather harness holding my faux arm joins to my flesh.  I can practically feel the sting to come—the pain of the chafe I know will form.  But I don't care.
    Suddenly Mulder stops without looking back at me.  His hands grasp the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it up and off over his head.  I see that his back, too, is covered in sweat.  He coils up his T and ties it to his head to collect the perspiration caused by too much sun on an unprotected skull. I must admit I admire the long flank of his back and the muscles rippling there as he accomplishes this task.  He marches on.
    I have seen no one since we started this trek down this deserted lane—saw no one and heard no one.  So I decide to follow Mulder's lead, although I couldn't possibly match Mulder's fluidity of motion.  But I manage.  I notice that my chest is slick and oily with sweat, and with a chuckle I notice my rock hard nipples. Mulder, if you only knew what you do to me!
    Mulder is staring straight ahead as though transfixed at some point far in the distance.  He casually kicks a stone or two from his path and veers rather unexpectedly into a meadow, totally overgrown with wildflowers. For the briefest of moments I think I see children, dressed in costumes of long, long ago, playing with toys I can't even identify.  The vision soon melts into nothingness.  I think I hear the tinkling sound of breaking glass—I wonder if this is the sound my heart will make when Mulder breaks it—for I plan to offer it to him today. Don't I? "Ghosts," I voice aloud, "ghosts are everywhere."
    Toward the edge of the field there is an old barn, terribly weathered and unpainted.  It looks as though it hasn't seen a human in a hundred years.  Mulder suddenly unties his T-shirt and drapes it over his neck.  The effect of the field, the wildflowers, and Mulder traipsing through them reminds me, impossibly, of a painting by one of the old Dutch masters—my mother had a cheap copy of it sitting on her piano and every time I saw it, it would make things seem bright and sunny and happy.  I think I am losing it.
    Mulder turns around and looks at me.  Hard.  I can't read his look. It's dark and it's brooding.  He turns as quickly and goes toward the barn. Not for the first time since we entered this path, I think: what am I doing here—alone with a man who hates my guts?  He could kill me here and no one would find my body for months and months to come.
    But I'm a man on a mission, aren't I?
He approaches the building and turns, rests his back against the grey, weathered wood, chest heaving and covered with sweat.  I notice that his nipples are as hard as mine. He leans his head against the wood and closes his eyes.
    I approach slowly, and stop just out of arm's reach.  Mulder doesn't move.  I move in closer and frame him with my arms, bringing my face close enough to his to feel his breath.  My knee insinuates itself between his legs and presses upward to fell his crotch—reminding him that I'm there.  He smells fresh and clean and wonderful.  Manly sweat— pungent and glorious.
    I grow bolder and lift one of my hands from the building and place it over his heart to feel the raging beating of it.  His eyes flash open. He looks at my hand over his chest, then looks at my prosthetic arm braced against the wall. He nods his head toward the false arm.
    "Want me to take that off and beat you over the head with it?" he says without malice.
    I raise my eyebrows quizzically.  "I thought we weren't going to play like that anymore?"
    His mouth shows his approval. "What kind of answers do you expect to get from me, Alex?" he asks, his mood completely changing—suddenly, as though remembering who he is with, he eyes grow suspicious.
    "Answers! Hell, Mulder, I don't even know the questions."
    He smiles beautifully. I reach my hand up and remove a pearl of sweat from his nose. I place a small kiss in its place while I am at it. He doesn't flinch back from me; he just locks his eyes with mime, as though this was an everyday occurrence. I mutter something in Russian.  He doesn't ask for a translation.
    "Why me, Alex?"
    "Why you, what, Mulder?"
    "Why do you want me?  Don't deny it." he asks, truly dumbfounded.
    "Is this truth or is it dare, Mulder?"
    "It's truth, Alex, or as close as you can come to it!"
    I can't say that his barb doesn't sting me, because it does.  "Why not you, Mulder?"
    "Answering a question with a question, Alex.  That's a cop out.  You promised me the truth, now give it to me!"
    "The truth!  The truth!  It's always the truth with you, isn't it?  What if there is no truth, Mulder.  Can you deal with that?"  My voice is going up a notch as I tear myself away from him.  I take the T-shirt from my scalp, turning it into a rustic pillow, and lay down on the grass with it supporting my head.
    Not in my most fevered, wild imagings could I see what was coming next.  In none of my midnight fantasies could I come up with this one— he mimics my actions and he lays down beside me.  My heart stops for a moment, I'm sure. He takes my hand, lacing my fingers with his own, and I feel his warmth seep into my arctic soul.
    "Is it so hard, Alex, can't you just tell me?" He speaks quietly, almost a whisper.
    "I can't, don't ask. Please!" It takes all the strength I possess but I am able to hoist myself, using our locked hands for leverage, so that I am laying on top of his body—belly to belly, chest to chest, groin to groin. "I can't tell you, Mulder.  But I can show you."
    I look into his eyes and see the panic there.  "You want me too, Mulder.  I can feel it." I press our matching bulges together and we buck into each other. The heat in his cock radiating into mine, and mine radiating back into his.  This feels so right.  I take his mouth in a kiss, slowly and sweetly—it reminds me of a cherry, somehow. The kiss is chaste, at least in the beginning—until he returns it with his own.
    We are lost in the world of pleasure. Speaking that secret language known only to lovers.  Lost to both time and space.  His mouth opens to me and I ravage it with my tongue.  Tasting every bit of him.  Gaining secret knowledge of his teeth, his cheek, his lips.  Oh God! His lips taste like sweet summer wine. I am lost to all reason.  His tongue enters my mouth, taking that knowledge as his own.
    I am lost to bliss, like a man who suddenly, and without merit, is granted every wish of his heart and soul. Still lost in that kiss, my hips are gyrating and my cock is tracing the outline of his through the denim; I can feel its bulbous head with my cock, and my cock knowing that it has finally come home.
    I am near that point, I know.  One more thrust and it will be all over for me.  I raise my head to look into his eyes.  The sound of tinkling glass is in my ears again and the pain is in my heart.
    I don't hear his words, but I see them forming on his lips.
    "No! Krycek.  I can't do this. Not with you!"
    He tosses me off him like a bad dream.
    "I can't do this, don't ask me to."  He gets up and starts to run, leaving me his T-shirt as a reminder—a souvenir— of our near coupling.
    I scream at his retreating form, "I can help you, Mulder!"
    He is still running and shaking his head.
    "I will help you, Mulder.  I swear it.  I sear it on my mother's grave!"  My voice has risen to a wild roar, but he is still running, still shaking his head in denial.
    And soon he is gone, like a mirage dissipating in the summer heat, and I am left alone, again.  The only reminder that he was ever here is his smell, and that is all over me.
    I cast my eyes again over this Arcadian setting, noting its beauty once again.  Nothing left for me now but to pick myself up, brush myself off, and start all over again.  But I swear it, I swear to the vault of heaven, that I will help him, he will see—someday he will see.

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