boy

by Shannon

Website:   http://themkshrine.angelfire.com

Rating:  NC-17

Keywords:  M/K

Spoilers:   The mythology up through Paper Clip

Summary:   "I'll *never* side with you.  *Nothing* you can give me will ever change that."

"Nothing?" the man asked, quietly.  There was a pause as Mulder looked at his implacable face, and Mulder very nearly flinched.  Then the old man turned and motioned to his thug.  And the dark figure was pushed forward.  Into the light.

Archive:  Yes, to lists it's posted to.  All others just ask.

Date of First Posting:  05/21/03

Disclaimer:  Chris thought 'em up, but his vision of their dynamic was somewhat myopic for my tastes.  This version of the boys is mine.

Notes:  The Crypt is actually a leather/sex shop in Hillcrest in San Diego and I just transplanted it to D.C.  Peter is a fictional character of my own creation and not an actual employee of that fine establishment.

Dedication:  I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that this is my wonderful Satina’s birthday fic.  4 months late. Ahem.  Still, it was a labor of such love.  I’ve enjoyed writing this story so much.  Happy Belated Birthday, Satina.  I hope my boy was everything you wanted.  :)

---

Mulder shuffled his feet in the gravel, hands in his pockets, breath clearly visible in the midnight chill. He looked around him again, bouncing on the balls of his feet, partly anxious, partly just freezing his goddamned testicles off.

He never should have agreed to it, he thought.  When the old man called.  Not Cancer Man.  The other one. The refined one.  The one Mulder was pretty sure didn't want to actually get his hands dirty with killing.  The one who had spoken to Scully at his father's funeral...God, was it just six months ago?  He'd called her young lady, she'd told him.  And tonight, he'd had a man call Mulder.  The man said the Brit requested a meeting.  Mulder had imagined a midnight talk in some drawing room, complete with a thousand 19th century hardbacked books lining cherry wood shelves and a desk...a chair...that kind of thing.

Instead he was freezing his goddamned testicles off on an abandoned gravel lot, off of an abandoned gravel road somewhere near an industrial complex.  It smelled like oil and fire and tar and dirt.  He'd parked the car a half a mile back as told.  His cell phone was in the locked glove box as told.  He had his gun, of course.  The old man couldn't legitimately ask him to part with it under such mysterious and suspicious circumstances.  But he was expected to be divested of it upon the prompt arrival of his host.

Prompt my ass, Mulder thought, blowing on his hands, teeth nearly chattering.  His gun would be useless if he froze to death.  Which seemed likely and could even have been the plan all along.  Yeah, lure Mulder out to this fuck-forsaken place and tell him you have something for him...an integral piece of the conspiracy puzzle...one he's been trying to get his hands on for some time.  Tell him it's an offer he can't refuse. Throw in something about his sister and he'll be there, waiting in the cold like some forgotten dog, ever- hopeful.  And he'll simply freeze to death.  The perfect plan.

He was about to prove them wrong, turn tail and hoof it back to the car and possibly over to Scully's for a frostbite remedy, when a car turned the corner and shone its headlights in his eyes as it parked.  He raised his arm, trying ineffectually to ward off the high-beams.  They didn't turn off as the car stopped, and a bulky man with a gun already drawn got out and walked over.

"Mr. Mulder," he husked.  "Your weapon."

"We just met," Mulder said, shivering.  "Shouldn't you buy me a drink first or s-s-something?"

He was met with a barely caustic stare to which he rolled his eyes and removed the gun at his back, handing it over to the thug warily.  The man merely took it and walked back to the vehicle.  He slipped soundlessly back inside...  And then nothing happened.

Mulder made a sound like a child ten seconds away from a temper tantrum.  He waited several moments more, trying to see past the glare and into the front windshield of the car to no avail.

"Oh come on!" he whined loudly through blue lips.  And just before he resorted to stamping his feet, the back door opened, and a tall, thin, elderly man stepped gracefully out.

He walked forward, unhurried to Mulder's chagrin.  He was in a long coat, hands in his pockets.  Casual. Like it wasn't 19 fucking degrees.  Like he knew without a doubt that the promise of something substantial for Mulder to sink his teeth into would keep the over-eager agent from inflicting physical harm on him.  Mulder balled bone-chilled fingers into fists and waited.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Mulder," the Brit intoned conversationally.

"No problem.  I like spending time on the wrong side of the tracks in the middle of the night during a winter storm watch," Mulder stuttered.

"I hope you can appreciate the necessity of meeting like this.  This is not the business of gentlemen. There is nothing gentle about our dealings.  Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Mulder?"

"You tell me,"  he said, wrapping his arms around himself in a desperate attempt to maintain some body heat.  He didn't care if the Brit saw it as a vulnerability.  He'd rather be warm and alive than cold and dead with his pride intact.

"I've brought you something," the old man said with a slight raise to his eyebrows.

"Is it a pony?" Mulder asked, feeling his sanity start to drift away in the gusts of cruel wind.

The old man just stared at him, eyebrows raised still further.

Mulder's brow furrowed in frustration.  Maybe the chill was slowing the vibration of the molecules in his brain.  The old man continued.

"What I've brought you...is a gift."

"A gift?"  Mulder asked, more than skeptical.  Scully would be so proud.  "Since when do you people give anything away?"

"Too true," the other man conceded gracefully.  "You've been in the game long enough to know that everything has a price.  Even human life.  Especially that.  What I'm offering you..." he said, then paused, giving the moment its due import.  "...*is* a human life."  He gave an almost imperceptible tilt back and to the left with his head and the door to the car opened again and the bulky man hauled another, smaller, huddled form out into the open.  The light of the car cast them in silhouette and Mulder strained to see in the extreme of dark and light.

A human life?  He could never accept that!  Why, he thought to himself, his heart racing in fear and a sense of impending doom.  What did they think he wanted with...it...him?  Was it a hybrid?  And therefore proof?  Jesus.  What could they possibly want from him in return?

"What we want is very simple," said the gentleman, placing his hand on Mulder's shoulder, making Mulder jerk away from the touch.  Mulder glared at the hand on his shoulder.

The old man looked at him for a moment, thinking, then removed his hand and said, "I see we need to talk, Mr. Mulder."

Mulder frowned at him for a moment, then cast his glance over the old man's shoulder at the two nondescript figures huddling in the pool of unnatural light.  He then brought his attention back to the Brit who was now gesturing in the other direction.  Mulder turned slowly and began walking away from the car with the old man, looking back over his shoulder once more at the dark outline of the human life he was supposed to want to take.  The Brit stopped a few steps away, out of earshot of the two men.

"The game has...changed, Mr. Mulder.  While you weren't looking.  While you were looking the other way."

"What are you talking about?" Mulder asked, becoming irritated at the too-slow leaking of information.

"The man you call The Smoker, The Cancer Man.  He and I do not always see eye to eye.  It has come to light that his methods...his ideology...conflicts with mine." He looked at Mulder meaningfully.  "Ours."

Mulder looked at him sharply.

"Don't look so indignant, Mr. Mulder.  We have more in common than you think.  We each have something the other wants."

Mulder narrowed his eyes.  It was obvious to him what it was that they had and he wanted.  Answers.  Question was, what would they ask in return?

"What do you want?" Mulder asked tightly.

"Your allegiance," the other man answered.  Mulder cringed at his words.  "I am willing to offer you something you desire very badly...as a token of our good faith."

Mulder firmed his jaw.  "I'll *never* side with you. *Nothing* you can give me will ever change that."

"Nothing?" the man asked, quietly.  There was a pause as Mulder looked at his implacable face, and Mulder very nearly flinched.  Then the old man turned and motioned to his thug.  And the dark figure was pushed forward.  Into the light.

Mulder's heart stopped.  "Krycek."  It was a whisper into the whipping wind.  He took one step forward. Another.  Leaning into the momentum finally as he ran at him, breath seething through gritted teeth.  He lunged at him, heart now frantically beating in his chest.  He grabbed at him wildly, feeling the leather squeeze tightly in his hands.  He pulled him roughly out of the large man's hold, blind to anything but the need for vengeance he felt taking over his entire body, his consciousness.  Everything else just went away with the first feeling of his fist connecting with flesh.

Krycek fell on his back on the ground, landing hard with a quiet groan.  He didn't get up.  Mulder stood over him, breathing heavily, chest heaving, jaw clenched, eyes burning savagely.

"Get up,"  he growled, but Krycek didn't obey, only rolling on the ground a little in response.  "Goddamn it,"  Mulder murmured angrily and reached down to grab him by the lapels of his jacket, yanking him partially up off the ground.  Krycek just dangled there, dead weight, head hanging back on his neck.  And it was then that Mulder actually saw him.

His brows creased as he stared down at the barely conscious man.  He hadn't hit him *that* hard.  Krycek had a black eye, obviously from a previous encounter. He had a split lip, encrusted with old blood.  His eyes were rolling, having tremendous trouble focusing on anything.  He wouldn't and possibly *couldn't* stand on his own.

Mulder looked over at the Brit.  "What is this?"

"He's yours.  To do with as you please."

"He's what?" Mulder asked in complete confusion.  He looked back at the man below him and, repulsed, let him drop back down to the ground.  It was then that he noticed that Krycek's hands were cuffed behind his back.  He didn't catch himself, falling on his arms and rolling to the side, moaning softly.

"Yours," answered the other man.  "We got what we wanted from him."  He leveled his gaze at Mulder.

The tape.  The answers.  They had it.  That's what they were saying.  They got Krycek, and they got the digital tape.  And now...?

"The knowledge that's on that tape...it can be yours, too,"  the old man informed him slowly.

It took a moment for Mulder's wide eyes to narrow down to suspicious slits.  He cursed the way the cold dulled and slowed him.  "If I join you."

"Well, of course,"  said the refined man.

Mulder looked down at Krycek.  <He's yours.>  To do with as I please.  "Why?" he asked without taking his eyes off Krycek.

"I told you.  He's my gift to you.  Don't you want him?"

Mulder clenched his hands into fists and swallowed. <Don't you want him?>  If his urge to grab him, sling him over his shoulder, and hustle him back to his car was any indication...  He had Krycek.  If he wanted to claim him.  He had vengeance at his feet.  At his fingertips.  He felt his fingernails cut into his palms, somehow not so cold now, existing in the exquisite heat of his anger.  Did he want him?  Fuck yes.

"Help Mr. Krycek to his feet, would you?" the Brit instructed his thug, and the large man bent to do as told, wrestling Krycek's limp body to standing.  "He's been given something to make him a little more...compliant.   It will wear off in a couple of hours.  But I don't think him capable of walking on his own just yet."

Mulder swallowed again, unaccountable excitement thrumming through his body.  He was actually sweating now in the freezing cold air.  Jesus...  His head was reeling.  He heard the old man as if through a tunnel. The words just kept washing over him.  Krycek.  His. Krycek.  All his.

"What if I don't...ally with you?" asked Mulder quietly.

"It makes no difference," answered the man with a shrug.  "As I said.  He is a gift.  You own him.  At no time will anyone come to reclaim him.  If someone does, you can rest assured they are not of our group and deal with them accordingly."

Mulder's hands were trembling.  But still the old man continued as if he had all the time in the world. "When I say he is yours, I mean in every sense.  If you wish to kill him..."  Krycek whined small in the back of his throat, seemingly incapable of protesting his own demise any more than that.  "Or you can turn him over to the authorities, of course."

Mulder looked up, ashamed that he had not yet considered that option.

"I would, however, advise you to consider your choice carefully, Mr. Mulder," the man went on.  "Were our associates to learn of his where-abouts, he would be eliminated very quickly.  And the information he has could be very dangerous in the wrong hands."

Mulder frowned, considering.

"Mr. Mulder.  Trust no one."  They stared at each other for long, intense moments, Krycek hanging in the thug's disinterested grip between them.  "You need time to think about this.  I understand.  We'll be in contact soon.  Expect a call or a visit in one month's time at which point we will discuss your involvement with us further."

Mulder barely heard him, his attention sliding back to the drugged and beaten man before him.  The thug then thrust him forward and Mulder flinched.  Krycek moaned, his head rolling.

The gentleman paused, waiting for Mulder to claim his gift.  "Go ahead, Mr. Mulder.  Claim him.  He's your boy now."

boy.  The word resonated through Mulder's mind.  boy. He shivered, repulsed and...excited.  He slowly reached for Krycek, hating that he would have to touch him in any way other than beating him, which he fully intended to do as soon as humanly possible.  Fuck, he *itched* to do it!  But now...  The thug helped Mulder thread his arm around Krycek’s back, beneath his bound arms, and Mulder reached a strong, resentful arm around Krycek's waist in the front in the disgusting parody of a hug, taking his weight, stumbling slightly as Krycek tipped off balance and almost took them both to the ground.  Krycek's head hung low down to his chest.

"Have a pleasant evening," the Brit said, holding Mulder's gun out to him.  Mulder took it awkwardly with the arm still around Krycek.  The side of the gun pressed hard into Krycek's side.  The gentleman nodded in greeting, then got into the car, and he and the henchmen drove away, leaving Mulder and his gift standing alone in the chilling darkness.

................

boy.

Mulder paced the apartment, unable to sleep despite the late night hour.  Despite the exhausting experience of being gifted with a human life.  Despite the struggle of half-dragging, half-carrying that...human (if you could classify him that way) half a mile to his car and then again into his building, into the elevator, down the hall, into the apartment, finally letting him drop on the living room floor.

Now he paced around him.  Alex Krycek.  Drugged and sleeping the fitful sleep of the damned.  Krycek.  His boy.  Mulder pinched his bottom lip between his thumb and finger, internally balking at the old man's choice of moniker.  Why?  Krycek may have had the soft, innocent-looking features of someone much younger than himself, but he was most certainly a man.   Behind the wide-set, glittering eyes...the small, pert nose...the pink lips...the admiring, green partner...was the black heart of a cold-blooded killer.  A traitor.  There was nothing boyish about Krycek's dark soul.

boy.

Was that what he was to them?  All those foul old men? Was he their boy?  Their errand boy?  Fetching the Cancer Man his smokes, getting tea for the Brit, getting Scully for their experiments...?  Mulder found himself cursing the drugs they'd given him.  He wanted him awake.  He wanted to see those eyes.  Full of fear...of knowing who owned him now.  He wanted to hit him.  Bloody his lying mouth.  Make him cry and beg for forgiveness Mulder would never give him.  But he wanted it just the same.  He needed it.  He needed to break him.  Physically, mentally...every way there was to break a man.

He nudged him roughly with the toe of his boot.  When he got no response, he did it again, this time delivering a harder kick to his side.  Just a plaintive groan.  Mulder knelt at Krycek's side and pulled him up by the jacket again.

"Wake up," he spat.  "Wake the fuck up."  He shook him. When he didn't stir, Mulder shoved him back away from him, feeling a small amount of satisfaction when his head thudded against the floor.  He stood staring at the still form of his nemesis.  His former partner. His...

There were other...connotations...associated with the word...boy, Mulder thought.  Unbidden came a sick flash of Krycek being forced to his knees in front of a withered, old cock, of his mouth being forced open around the offensive flesh...of the others watching... Mulder closed his eyes as if to rid himself of the vision by removing its unwitting star.  He walked away from the unconscious man on the floor, his hand coming to his forehead.  Is that what the old Brit meant? Well..even if it was, Mulder knew that as much as he wanted to punish Krycek, to beat him and shove him and make him face up to his sins, he didn't want *that* from him.  He shook his head as the image of Krycek on his knees persisted against the dark of his eyelids.

Mulder walked to his kitchen, the unfamiliar sensation of leaving Alex Krycek alone on his living room floor raising goosebumps on the backs of his arms.  He pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge.  It had been opened.  Half of it was gone and there was a collection of water droplets clinging to the misty inside of the bottle.  Mulder unscrewed the cap and took a drink, one hand on his hip.

He thought about calling Scully.  She'd just tell him to call the police.  She'd just feed the guilt already making his mouth taste sour.  He took another swallow, unaware of the stale quality, masked as it was by the cold and by his preoccupied thoughts.

Mulder considered calling Skinner.  But it was all too recently that he'd found Scully's gun drawn on him in his apartment...that he'd had the tape.  He'd helped them after that, but it didn't erase that image from his memory, and like the old Brit said, trust no one.

He was sighing in indecision, exhaustion weighting his eyelids, when he heard a sharp groan behind him in the other room and his eyes flew open, wide, excited, angry, and ready.  He turned toward the sound, walking back through the doorway, and saw Krycek rolling onto his side and off his bound wrists.  He walked to him, put a foot in his back, and shoved.  No thought was involved.  Mulder wanted the gift of acting purely on instinct with Krycek as much as the gift of the man himself.  Krycek fell onto his stomach with a grunt.

"Get up,"  Mulder ground out, on fire with the need to have revenge.  He remembered what the old man had said about calling the authorities and the pounding guilt in his throat made him even angrier.

Krycek coughed, his throat dry.  He was probably thirsty.  He could suffer, Mulder decided.  And the ex- agent got to his feet slowly.

"Turn around,"  Mulder husked.  Krycek didn't hesitate, but he didn't hurry as he turned to face Mulder.  The bruising around his eye just made his iris appear greener...eerily so.  Mulder found himself frowning at it in distaste.

They faced off, Mulder seething in anger that had steeped for months, Krycek silent, sick-looking, waiting.  Mulder realized he hadn't seen his face since he almost shot him.  Though he'd imagined it countless times.  He looked harder now.  His hair was shorter and spikier and he was a little thinner.   They'd beaten him.  Even in the frigid air of the night, Mulder had deduced that pretty quickly.  They beat him to get the tape.  He wondered how many men it had taken to wrench it out of his greedy hands.  He couldn't help but let his gaze flit over the bruising on Krycek's face.  Some gift.  He was obviously used goods, somebody else having made the marks Mulder had fully intended to make himself.

"Do you know why you're here, Krycek?"  Mulder asked, not sure why he wasn't just beating him back into unconsciousness yet.  Maybe he'd fantasized about this moment for so long that he didn't want it to end that soon.  When Krycek just stared at him enigmatically, breathing shakily through his raw mouth, Mulder prompted him.  "Fucking answer me,"  he muttered hoarsely, making fists and then releasing them over and over again.

Krycek blinked once.  "Yes."  His whisper was almost a croak, coming from a throat unused in quite some time.

His whisper seemed to fill the room.  Mulder noticed suddenly that Krycek was his same height.  He hadn't remembered that.  It felt odd to share the small space with a man of his size.   The sound of the fish tank buzzed in his ear.

"You're going to give me answers,"  Mulder informed him, voice shaking with emotion, maybe with the improbability of his demand being satisfactorily met. "You're not going anywhere," he continued, some part of him eternally hopeful that something could come of this.  That if he just hit him enough, that if Krycek had to experience Mulder's pain up close and personal, he'd have to give him something...real.

Mulder decided that, in some way, it didn't matter *what* Krycek said.  Just so long as he could exhaust his anger hitting him.  He took a shaky breath.

"Whether you lie to me...or you tell me the truth...I fucking own you."  What did it feel like for Krycek to hear that?  He gave nothing away.  Was he...used to it? Was Mulder just another in a long line of owners.  It didn't seem like Krycek to be owned.  It felt strange and bitter like a good stout in Mulder's mouth after he said it.

Mulder took a step forward, the kinetic energy barely reined in under his prickling skin.  "You lie to me, Krycek?...and I'll have you wishing you'd never been born.  Understand?"  He felt a little like he was reading from a movie script, drunk on champagne.  The air around the other man's face distorted and blurred. Mulder's lips had made the words, feeling like the vowels filled his mouth with rancid air.  He only hoped he was making sense.  His head rang.  Alex Krycek.  The man who killed his father...  Why shouldn't he just kill him?  The fingers on his right hand twitched and he became aware of the stoic push of gunmetal in the small of his back.

Krycek only swallowed, betraying nothing in his look or his small reaction.  Mulder drew back his tingling right hand and back-handed him across the face, already so angry at not having more from him...not having enough.

"I asked you a question, Krycek,"  he said, now towering over the man doubled over to the side.  He watched Krycek slowly straighten up, and the other man finally nodded, blinking slowly once as he returned to full height in front of Mulder.

Mulder took a deep breath.  He never got his question answered before.  He'd been waiting so long.  He almost didn't want to know.  It wasn't even so much that he had to know it.  He already knew it.  He just wanted Krycek to say it.

"Did you kill my father?"

He waited, studying Krycek's features for a reaction, and getting next to nothing.  And then finally, "No."

"Fucking liar,"  Mulder whispered, and he planted his hands in his chest and shoved him backward as hard as he could.  Krycek stumbled and fell against the table by the couch.  He sat on it awkwardly, unable to use his hands and was barely on his feet again before Mulder slapped him hard across his face once and then again and then grabbed the hair at the top of his head, tilting Krycek's battered face up, making his throat arch.  His face was nearly expressionless.  Well, maybe there was a hint of apprehension there.  In the eyes, a little wider than they were before.  In his breathing, which was rather fast.  The tension held in his parted lips...

Mulder looked into his eyes, standing close, the only contact between them Mulder's tight fist in Krycek's short hair.  Krycek stumbled slightly, still not looking away from the rage in Mulder's eyes.

"You shot him in cold blood.  You shot him and you ran, you prick," he spat, pushing Krycek's head away from him and then taking a different hold, under his chin, thumb squeezing on one side, fingers pushing into his face on the other.  "How dare you fucking lie to me, Krycek?"  Then he threw him down with the hand on his face and Krycek stumbled sideways, not quite falling all the way to the floor, which made Mulder angrier, and he pushed him with both hands until Krycek fell to his knees near the coffee table. Then he kept pushing him until he was flat on the ground on his stomach, rising up off him quickly and taking a swift vengeful kick to his side.  "Lying *prick*."

Krycek moaned once and curled in on his abused stomach, around the leg of the table, and Mulder wiped his mouth with his hand and stalked away.

............

Once he calmed down enough to think straight, he realized if he wanted anything from him, any answers, lies or not, he needed to keep Krycek alive.  The other man had passed out again.  Mulder guessed that whatever they'd given him was powerful and packed quite a hang- over upon departure.  Krycek hadn't thrown up, but that could have just been for lack of anything in his stomach.  He looked green and somewhat out of it, still.  Mulder didn't think, if Krycek wasn't drugged, that he'd be able to sleep in Mulder's presence.  He was probably trained to stay awake for days if he was in any imminent danger.  And here he was unconscious on Mulder's hard floor.

Mulder waited until he was awake, doing little beyond studying the man's features in the meantime, as though trying to glean secrets from the creases around his mouth and the set of his jaw, studying the positioning of his eyelashes on his cheeks like tea leaves in the bottom of a cup.

He sat facing the wrong way on his computer chair, fingers drumming impatiently on the chipped wood. Watching.  Krycek breathed in and out like any other human.  His chest rose and fell.  Mulder was mesmerized by the normalcy.

As 2 AM became 2:30, Krycek began to stir.

Mulder wanted to question him again.  He had so much to say...to ask.  But the one question that mattered to him had already been asked and the answer had most likely been a lie. He didn't think he could stomach another one, and if he didn't give Krycek some water soon he was going to be of no use whatsoever, and he wouldn't have even had the satisfaction of taking an active part in killing him.  Thirst.  That was no justice.

So Mulder wordlessly got up, passing the waking Krycek, and got him water.  In a bowl.  He set it on the floor of the living room and stood back from the man, now sitting up, looking heavy and useless.  Possibly more alert, but also more cranky.  He wore a scowl on his face that spoke volumes even if he was still steadfastly silent.

"Go ahead,"  Mulder said evenly, looking down at him. The other man was so thirsty that he hardly hesitated before he bent over the bowl on his knees and began lapping at it like an animal.  Mulder felt a fire wash through his bloodstream watching Krycek like that.  But when he realized he'd been standing and staring for all of two long minutes...  He gulped and turned away, sitting at his desk and booting up his computer.

He found himself straining to see Krycek's reflection in the screen as the computer went through start up. He had Alex Fucking Krycek on his living room floor, beaten and cuffed, drinking from a bowl on the floor. He shifted in his chair, taking a deeply and hardly calming breath.

His email came up.  He clicked on 'compose' and typed in Scully's address.

    Hey Scully.  Something's come up.  Family business.  Don't worry.  I'm sorry I can't talk to you about it in person, but it's pretty urgent.  I have to leave town and take some vacation time.  A month.  I'm sorry.  I know what an awkward position this puts you in. Hell, maybe it doesn't.  Maybe you can get some stuff done without me there to hound you with the paranormal.

    I'll handle Skinner.  I don't want you to worry about that.  I don't want you to worry, period. I'll be in touch.  Email me at this address if you need to talk to me.  Take care of yourself.

    Mulder

As he hit send, he heard Krycek clear his throat behind him.  He changed his focus, looking at Krycek in the screen rather than the words.  He was kneeling still, but no longer bending over his water dish.  He was looking at Mulder, and then down in exasperation, then back at Mulder again.

"Mulder."

"Shut up,"  Mulder said dispassionately without turning around.

"I have to..."

"You don't *have* to do anything except shut the *fuck* up, Krycek."

"I'm gonna piss on your floor, damn it!"  Krycek nearly yelled.

At first Mulder thought it was some kind of threat, but then it occurred to him that he, of course, *would* have to use the bathroom by now.  Probably had to a long time ago.  And since he didn't want Krycek losing control of his bladder all over himself, he decided he'd better figure out a way for the man to take a piss.

"Mulder," Krycek hissed.

"I heard you, I know, shut up," Mulder answered, dropping his head down into his hand.  "Those cuffs," he said, and then lifted his head, looking at his worst enemy.  The bruising around his eye was starting to pale.  "Know where the key is?"

Krycek swallowed and looked down at his jeans and back up to Mulder.  "Front right pocket," he answered in a husky whisper.  He looked like maybe he was trying not to look hopeful.

Mulder looked from Krycek's face, down to his hip where his jeans were slung low, then back up again.  "Stand up."

Krycek got easily to his feet, unfolding his tall body and grimacing slightly.  Mulder stood as well, slowly, delaying the inevitable, cursing in his mind and trying to keep his expression dry, if not a little put-out. Nothing more.

His heart beat faster as he approached Krycek.  He was finding it did that when he got close to him, more right before he started hitting him...and when he *did* hit him, the rush of adrenaline was almost unbearably incredible. It had been that way when he'd caught Krycek outside of his building even through the haze and distortion of the hallucinogens.  He had certainly felt it when Krycek had come out of the darkness tonight, presented as his boy.  And it was here now.  A flutter of pulse.  Too much saliva, then not enough. The stench of his own nervous sweat.

He took a breath and they looked into each other's eyes.

"Hold still," Mulder husked.  Then he pulled Krycek's pocket out as far as it would stretch with one hand and reached into it with the other.  As he fumbled for the key, still looking into Krycek's unreadable eyes, the back of Mulder's hand brushed the other man's cock. Krycek gasped and Mulder ripped his hand away quickly, key held tightly in his fist.

Mulder searched Krycek's eyes for a moment, focusing on one and then the other, darting back and forth.  But Krycek betrayed nothing.  Like the gasp was a figment of Mulder's over-active imagination.  Mulder swallowed. He felt himself wanting to look down between Krycek's legs as though to assess the threat of the man by the look of the outline of his cock.  It was animalistic and base and Mulder felt it fit right in with wanting to dominate Krycek through violence.  They were rams...lions...wild and driven by the same set of rules.  Survival of the fittest.  Kill or be killed.

He was repulsed by the train of his thoughts.  The words with which he defined himself in relation to Alex Krycek.  Who he became when in his presence.  And now he wasn't going to be *out* of his presence.  It scared him.  More than scared him.  The man in front of him had the ability to transform him.  He knew he wasn't playing by his own rules much less the FBI's.  It was so discomfiting, Mulder denied the dark thoughts the light of his analysis.  He just focused all his feelings of anger, rage, even hate...on the man in front of him.  When it was all said and done, all he wanted...more than the answers...was Alex Krycek scared for his fucking miserable life.

He searched Krycek's unfathomable eyes and felt his jaw tighten even more, his eyes harden.  He walked around behind Krycek, pulling out the small gun that had been resting in the back of the waistband of his jeans, and pushing it into the man's back.  Mulder fit the key into the cuffs roughly, breathing harshly on Krycek's neck.

"If you so much as breathe too hard, I'll kill you," he told him as he snicked one cuff loose.  "Just hold them at your sides."  Mulder was almost impressed that Krycek didn't gasp, didn't inhale sharply with the pain of moving arms that had been imprisoned far too long as he did as told.  He knew it hurt like a bitch.  And Krycek didn't make a sound.

Mulder dropped his eyes to the chaffed wrists and then brought them back to glare with narrowed eyes at the back of Krycek's head.  "Turn around.  Slow.  Nice and easy, Krycek."  His voice was breathy, the excitement of actually letting Krycek's strong hands get free for a moment taking over and changing his voice.  Krycek turned to him.

"Wrists together in front,"  Mulder demanded and Krycek obliged silently.  Mulder made quick work of recuffing him, trying not to focus on the red marks around his wrists.  He didn't think he'd have to remind himself all of what Krycek had done to deserve those marks and any others he'd brought upon himself with his traitorous actions, but...those marks were angry.  Raw. Mulder swallowed and backed away.  The fucker deserved every pain Mulder could inflict.  He deserved to die for what he'd done...the pain he'd caused.  He had to stop thinking of this man as human.  He was inhuman. As much as any alien.  The blood may have been red, but it ran cold through his veins.

Mulder suddenly didn't think he could stand to look at him anymore.  He wondered why he still was.  Oh that's right.  He hadn't told his *boy* he was excused. Krycek stood before him, any truths or vulnerabilities hidden behind the cool green of his eyes.  And he waited.

"Bathroom's in there,"  Mulder said motioning with his chin.  "Leave the door open.  If you're not out in three minutes, I'm dragging you out by the hair."

Krycek turned to go and soon, after an inexplicable whispered curse from the interior of the bathroom, Mulder could hear him relieving himself, the door having been left open as ordered.  Mulder made a show for himself of walking over to the desk and absorbing himself in some spam email about penile enlargement. Then he heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on. What a fucking gentleman.

Seconds later, Krycek exited appearing minutely more relaxed.  Mulder thought it wasn't so much more relaxed as a fraction less tense.

"Sit down.  On the floor,"  Mulder demanded and though his tone was almost bored, he felt that same familiar excitement thread through his veins.  "Since if I don't feed you, you'll die," he droned, opening his desk drawer and pulling out a Tiger's Milk bar, "...and I'm not through with you yet..."  He turned toward his prisoner and threw the bar in his general direction. "Here."

Krycek picked it up, his face once again unreadable as he began ripping open the foil packaging after a moment's hesitation.

Mulder continued.  "When you're done, I'll cuff you to my radiator and that's where you'll sleep.  I don't wanna hear dick from you, Krycek, unless you're about to piss yourself again.  I'm through with even looking at you tonight."

To Mulder's surprise, Krycek nodded slowly in acquiescence, chewing on his meager dinner.  Mulder flipped on the television to a basketball game and sat down on his couch.  "Not a fucking word," he warned the suddenly agreeable Krycek with unnecessary venom bleeding through his tone.

He was feeling more than a little awkward about what he'd formerly perceived as one of his ultimate fantasies come true.  Krycek.  His.  Now that he had him, though, he wasn't sure what to do next.  He had questions.  It wasn't that.  It was just that suddenly, he wasn't sure if he wanted Krycek's answers.  Even if they were the truth.  That realization shocked him. And he found himself wondering if Krycek was good for anything more than whatever half-truths he might leak.

When Krycek had finished his meal, he reached for his water bowl, hands now being in a much more desirable position for picking things up.

"Stop,"  Mulder said evenly.  "I didn't say you could use your hands."

The only reaction that betrayed anything stronger than annoyance on Krycek's part was the tightening of his hands into fists...before he bent to lap up more of his water, the sight once again exciting Mulder beyond all reason.  Mulder got up from the couch, not letting Krycek drink his fill as he toed the other man's chin away from the bowl.  Not strong enough to bruise, not gentle enough to be considered tender.   Mulder bent, quickly and roughly securing his nemesis to the radiator, where Krycek laid down without resistance and shut his eyes, seeming for all the world like he himself had chosen this spot and took no issue with sleeping on the hard floor, one arm awkwardly lifted off of it over his head slightly, no pillow, no concessions...nothing.

Mulder glared at his composed face for a moment, then he went in and turned on the gas oven for heat since the radiator didn’t work anyway and there was a man cuffed to it now besides.  He cranked it to 450, opening the oven door, then went back to the living room and pretended to watch his game.  Around four in the morning, after a long hour of unending, circular thoughts about the situation, Mulder fell into a restless slumber.

.............

"It’s third and goal for the Patriots here in the fourth quarter and Bill, I gotta tell you, if Dallas doesn’t get some defense fast they are gonna be sayin’ goodbye to a bid at the Super Bowl."

Mulder slumped farther into the couch, lamenting that there were no good basketball games on.  He fingered the remote and waited to see if New England decided to pass.

"Touchdown, New England!  Looks like this game is over, Mike,"  said Bill decisively, and Mulder flipped the station.

The screen flashed images into the darkening room, light erasing the previous shadows and creating others. Krycek had been so quiet, Mulder wondered if he was asleep.  He cut his glance over surreptitiously. Krycek sat very still, head slightly bowed, legs crossed.  Mulder found himself taking the opportunity to stare.  Krycek was a mystery to him and Mulder hated that.  Even now, watching him swallow, his Adam’s apple moving in his throat, analyzing the pallor of his skin and the way the leather on his jacket was cracked in several places...  It wasn’t enough.  It didn’t give him anything real.  Because Krycek was never what he looked like he was.  From the very first day, he’d been lying, wearing that suit like he’d just graduated from the academy.  Mulder’d thought it looked like an outfit he’d wear to his upper class future in-laws’ fancy dinner soirees, where they’d look him over up and down, judging, but always silently as it would be bad form to openly criticize.  His look was flawless in all its cheap, cheesy flaws.  And in the end, he’d out-smarted arguably the best profiler in the Bureau.

And now...  In this leather and jeans and dirty white T-shirt...heavy boots...short-clipped hair made more efficient and lower maintenance without the Dippity- Do...  Who was he now?  Who had he ever been?

What had he worn when he’d taken his first hit?

Mulder swallowed and slow-blinked his eyes back to the television, distracting himself from the morbidity of the thought with thirty second sound bites.  He realized he’d stopped on the Travel Channel and they were doing a special on Great Gay Get-Aways.  He hastily changed the channel and couldn’t help looking over at Krycek on the floor.

The morning and afternoon had been awkward with few words and oddly electric glances.  Mulder had fixed Krycek a bowl of Wheat Chex.  When he’d placed it in front of him on the floor, Krycek had looked up at him from under his long lashes.  Perhaps wondering what he’d done to merit a spoon.  Mulder couldn’t be sure. The eyes hinted at so much but said so very little in and of themselves.  It was infuriating.  Mulder had simply walked away, unwilling to ask for anything from this man, even if it was for Mulder’s own psychological comfort.  A thousand questions had bombarded his brain: Is this how the others treated you?  Why aren’t you screaming to be let go?  Why don’t you beg for a couch cushion, some sugar for your cereal, forgiveness?  Do you like Wheat Chex, Krycek?  What was your mother’s name?  Is she alive?

He’d avoided Krycek all day just to avoid the questions.  To avoid the life swimming in the wet, jade eyes.  It was so much easier to hate him when he was this nearly mythical shadow forever on the edge of his life, not sitting quietly and enigmatically on his hard living room floor.  And so he’d steered clear of Krycek.

Until now.  And once again he found himself staring. Mulder sighed absently and, after hours of withdrawn stillness, Krycek lifted his head minutely and brought his eyes to Mulder’s.

Mulder held the gaze, wondering if he would feel it an accomplishment to make Krycek look away first.  But no one looked away, and before the moment grew too awkward, Mulder drew a deep breath and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Who beat you?"  he asked, his voice rough from not speaking all day.  He cursed that it made him sound emotional over the thought of Krycek being beaten.

Krycek blinked, seemingly unsure if it was safe to answer being that he’d previously been told not to utter another word.  He must’ve decided that Mulder’s continued stare qualified the question as more than rhetorical because he answered in a voice just as husky if not more so.

"The old guy ordered it."  He paused, squinting at Mulder in the dark.  "Is that what you mean?"

Mulder tilted his head and nodded, blinking.  He didn’t have to know whose actual hands were on him.  Did he? He picked up a half-eaten bag of sunflower seeds off the coffee table and popped one into his mouth, looking speculatively around the room as if he’d not seen it before today, like somebody waiting in a doctor’s office.  He worked the seed in his mouth and looked at the television again, feeling ridiculous.

His next question was out before he’d made the final decision to actually ask it.  "You fight back?"

He had to look up when something like a laugh came from the man.  Aborted and humorless, but a laugh none-the- less.  Mulder looked into dark-fringed eyes.  There was nothing of amusement there.  In fact...the other man looked like he was trying not to tremble.

"You think I wanted to give up that tape, Mulder?" Krycek asked, averting his eyes.

"Why didn’t they just kill you?"

Krycek raised his eyes to him once more and this time held.  He took a breath and fairly shivered the words out.  "Either you don’t like the truth,"  he said and paused, taking a short, choked breath, then letting the rest out in a half-whisper.  "Or you don’t listen," Krycek’s quiet voice scraped along Mulder’s skin like a serrated blade.

Mulder watched Krycek tremble before him on the floor. He squinted into Krycek’s eyes and the other man looked down, still trying to control his breathing.  Mulder realized that Krycek had no doubt about the purity of his desire for the truth or his listening skills. Krycek knew Mulder already knew the answer to the question.  And he didn’t want to tell him again.  To shove it in his face.

Mulder reined in his anger.  "You’re not a very good ‘boy’, are you, Krycek?"

At that, Krycek looked back up.  He caught Mulder’s eyes with his own.  And he licked once at the healing cut on his lip.   His look was almost a promise.   Not a promise.  An invitation.  To find out.  Mulder clamped his mind shut on all the things Krycek had probably been as somebody else’s boy.

He continued on.  "So their immediate conclusion was that I’d want you."

"Don’t you?"  Krycek’s eyes stared at him, all rugged, unperturbed innocence.  The question hung in the room like a poisonous fume, too powerful for being just two little words, too full of...hope.

Mulder took a deep shaky breath.  He’d asked for that. Didn’t make him less angry about having it so blatantly put out on the table.  If he hadn’t wanted Krycek with something like maniacal possessiveness, he wouldn’t be here.  And everybody knew it.  Mulder felt his face flame.

"I want what you know, Krycek,"  Mulder told him.

Krycek somehow became more tense at hearing this.  He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut for a moment before opening them and focusing on a spot on the floor.  "Ask me."

Mulder could barely hear the words.  Krycek’s lips hardly moved as he spoke them and they came out as a tortured breath.

So now he was attempting to be the boy Mulder wanted, obedient, cowed.   Maybe Mulder should have relished in the power.  Maybe the pretense, if that was all it really was, should have at least been somewhat comforting.  Instead, Mulder felt so sick he had to turn his face away and close his eyes.

"You’ll tell me lies,"  Mulder murmured under his breath.  Then he stood and picked up the remote.  "Go to sleep."

Krycek opened his mouth to speak again, his inhalation stuttered.

"I said go to fucking sleep!"  Mulder yelled, throwing the remote down on the couch and walking past the man on the floor to get to the bedroom, where he sat heavily on the musty sheets, head resting in his hands, knowing he wouldn’t sleep for all the questions in his head he couldn’t yet bring himself to ask.

............

It was finally light enough to see after hours of straining to.  All that was visible from this point was Krycek’s boot.  His right foot, ankle...little bit of the length of his shin.  His jeans were caked in gravel dust.

Mulder had slid down off his bed, sitting at the foot of it on his floor.  He’d thought about calling Scully. He needed her.  And yet she would take this away from him, his one opportunity at vengeance...and then answers...and then vengeance again.  She would try to help him.  But in the end, she wouldn’t understand. But he was so tired.   He just wanted to hear her voice and know a little sanity for a while.  Instead, he asked silent questions of Krycek’s boot.  They had been incessant, a mental litany of inquiry.  All remaining unanswered, maybe unanswerable.  It was torture. Knowing that even though he had him here indefinitely, he may still never have anything he could trust.  Still his mind asked.  Over and over.

Where did you come from?

What are you thinking?

Are you scared of me?

What do the aliens want?

Have you seen them?

Do you know where she is?

Is she alive?

Why her and not me?

Mulder felt an aching pain in his chest then and the questions vanished to give it room.  His whole body ached.  Some aches were physical, the left-overs from the exertion of pulling a drugged Krycek all over town. Some were not that.  He wished for once they’d just go away.  Leave him alone.

Why, Krycek?

Why you?

Did you always know, from the moment you held your hand out to me to be shaken, that you were going to kill him?  Was his death a red, dry erase pen mark on a calendar?   Was it your destiny to do this to me?

Was it your choice?

Pain sliced behind his eyelids and between his temples. He touched his hand to his head.  His hand was very cold and his head was too warm.  He pulled himself slowly to his feet.  He was still in his jeans and henley from yesterday.  He thought about changing to something else,  something softer and clean, but that felt like too much of a vulnerability.  All he allowed himself was the removal of his shoes and socks.

He walked barefoot past Krycek who appeared to be sleeping still.  A crease dug a canyon on his forehead running vertically between his eyebrows.   Maybe the rat bastard had bad dreams.  Another sharp pain ripped through Mulder’s head, so he continued on into the kitchen.  He took three Advil and returned to sitting on the couch.

It felt better there.  Where he could see him.  Better and worse.  The last thing he knew was that he was watching him sleep.  Heaviness pushed his head down onto the back of the couch and dragged his eyelids down, too, finally.  And Mulder didn’t know he’d fallen asleep.

.............

He woke from his nightmare.  He couldn't see for a second, the clock on the VCR going from a green blur to 7:26 after three or four deep, fast breaths.  He looked around the apartment, the image of his father's completely black eyes still vivid in his mind.  It was always the same.  His father hugged him.  It turned into a squeeze.  He was suffocating.  He always managed to push him away only to see those eyes.  Black as death.  Black voids, masking a silent evil he felt permeate his skin as his father began to walk toward him with slow purpose.  Then there was the shot.  And he would wake.  Did wake.

He was home.  His father was not here.  His father was dead.  He loved his father.  His father had been a *good* man.  Mulder felt the tears sting his eyes and schooled his breathing back to normal.

"Jesus..."  It was a frightened yet fascinated whisper from across the room.  From the radiator.  From...

Krycek.

<He's yours.  To do with as you please,> he heard the Brit say in his head.  His memory.  Oh God, it was all true!  He was here...and Mulder owned him.

Mulder surged up off the couch, no clear intention on his mind except that he had to get something from him...anything.  He had to make him accountable.

Hadn’t he told him to be quiet?  Hadn’t he ordered silence from him?  Mulder felt the black rage fill his lungs with each breath.

"No words," he said, fighting back tears.  "No. Fucking.  Words."  He fell to his knees, grabbing an astonished looking Krycek from the floor and hauling his upper body up and into him.   "Can't follow simple instructions, huh Krycek?" he quavered.

"I just..."  Krycek stammered, looking between Mulder's wild eyes.

"You just what?  You couldn't help but FUCK with me again!?  Too fucking tempting!?"  He knew he was barely making sense...knew he was going on pure emotion rather than intellect.  His dead father floated bloody behind his eyes still.

"No, Mulder..."

"What!?"  Mulder jerked up on the front of Krycek's jacket.

"You were..."  Krycek’s voice shook.

"I was what?"  Mulder yelled into his face.

"You were..."  It was a whisper.

"Did you kill my father!"  Mulder yelled, and it was more a statement, his anger holding back the grief for the time being.

Krycek took a breath.  And then he spoke in a quiet, impactful hush.  "It doesn't matter how many times I say no, Mulder.  You know I did.  So why do you keep asking?"

Mulder wanted to yell.  He wanted to scream.  His face screwed up in a rictus of agony, lips pouting and tears brimming.  This was NOT what he wanted.  It wasn't how he'd seen it.  "Goddamnit..."  he half-whispered, half- sobbed, holding Krycek loosely now by the leather.

Krycek blinked.  "Mulder,"  he whispered softly, and it halfway woke Mulder from the spiral of his pain.

"Nnnoooo!"  Mulder yelled, releasing one fistful of jacket and hauling back, tears now coursing down his cheeks, and he punched Krycek in the face.  Once, twice, a third time.  Hard, pounding punches.  Then he took Krycek's bloody face and pushed it sideways down into the floor, falling on top of him, his own face now transformed by a horrible mixture of his hate and pain. The tears kept coming as he began to sob, holding Krycek down and shaking with the force of it.

He was lying on top of him, pinning him with his weight.  He took Krycek by the hair with both hands, jerking and turning his head so Krycek would see him. He had so much to say.  This man killed his father.  He admitted it.  He finally said it.  And Mulder realized he'd wanted it not to be true all along.  He might as well have just killed him again in that moment.

"I hate you,"  Mulder cried, the cursed pout securely back on his face, his fat tears dripping down onto his enemy.  Krycek didn't struggle.  He just laid there bleeding from his mouth, out of breath.  "I hate you, Alex."  And then he collapsed on top of him, face buried in the crook between Krycek's neck and shoulder. He sobbed, hands loosening on the other man's scalp. He shook against him, his whole body fairly convulsing.

He shook on Krycek’s tense body, something in his chest breaking open, and he couldn’t help it.  Mulder wished he could kill him.  He deserved to die.  He deserved nothing more than he gave his father.  A sob ripped from Mulder’s constricted throat and he would have sat up, pulled his gun, and fired the kill shot...except that the body under his was so warm.  And he hadn’t cried about his father in months.  And he couldn’t make himself leave.

Suddenly, he became aware of movement.  Very small.  An arm rising.  Krycek’s free arm.  He inhaled against the stubble on Krycek’s throat, ready for the fight.  But Krycek’s hand just hovered in the air beside Mulder’s body, waiting.  Before it then started to close the distance.  Slowly and hesitantly.  Mulder held his breath, his skin prickling, heart thudding against the other man’s.  He squeezed his eyes shut, awaiting the touch.  So good...so bad...  And then he felt it. Krycek’s warm palm lain against his back.

It sent him whirling again into the blackness of his rage.  "Fuck you!" he yelled again, leaping back from Krycek, the very idea of him conceiving to offer any kind of comfort however small...it made him want to vomit.  He scrambled to standing, wiping his eyes.  He yelled down at his captive.  "You say one more thing...*one* more..."  His voice broke.  "I will kill you."

He left Krycek there on the floor and stalked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

...........

For the next three days, he fed Krycek.  He filled his water bowl.  He let him sleep at night.  He didn't hit him.  Didn't touch him at all.  Hardly looked at him. He actually thought about killing him once or twice. Just because when he did have to look at him, it hurt so much.

Mulder left the house a lot.  Left Krycek bound to the radiator.  Left him with a box of cereal or a banana and, as always, the water.  Once when he'd been out for about six hours, he even brought him back a Big Mac. He walked in the door, threw the thing down at Krycek's side without looking at him, the sad, hopeless look feeling like it was permanently affixed to his face now, and just kept walking into the bedroom, closing the door behind him and not coming out till the next morning.

After the third day, he realized this...boy thing...just wasn't working.  He began making plans for the return of his gift.

On the morning of that fourth day, Mulder awoke in a sweat.  He awoke from a dream.  A very nice dream.  A disturbing dream.  He woke up with a hard-on so massive it was close to pain.  He sat up on the couch, looking over at Krycek on the floor.  He didn't appear to be awake.  He turned guilty eyes away from him and buried his face in his hands.

Images kept torturing him behind his eyelids.  Images of him...and Krycek.  He shook his head.  He thought of his father, dying on the white tile.  His erection began to soften.

He went to the bathroom to take a piss and brush his teeth.  He looked at the green toothbrush lying on the edge of the sink.  The one he'd given Krycek.  He'd finally relented and allowed him his dental hygiene. Although he had still not permitted a shower.  Krycek had begun to reek kind of powerfully.  Mulder found that he didn't hate his smell.  Not like he hated the actual man.  The smell...hot, salty, and gritty, was actually strangely pleasant...invigorating.  He remembered drawing that smell in with each tear-choked breath as he’d lain atop him.

Mulder was chagrined to find his dick reacting yet again with his train of thought, the dream still too close and far too real.  He washed his mouth out and looked at himself in the mirror.  He had to get rid of Krycek.  He had the one answer that mattered.  He'd had *that* all along.  Now he just wanted the man out of his life once and for all.

Mulder exited the bathroom and nudged the sleeping man with his foot.  "Get up."

Krycek gasped and rolled into a sitting position, wincing at the way his wrist twisted with the movement. At the very least, Krycek could look forward to being released from those cuffs soon.  Mulder knew he already had some nerve damage.  He didn't feel bad about it. He could have inflicted much, much worse.

He knelt and unlocked the cuff from the radiator, securing it to Krycek's other wrist so he could stand up.  Both men rose and Mulder really looked at Krycek for the first time in days.  Dark circles under the jade green eyes...

Jade green eyes looking up at him before he enveloped Mulder's bobbing cock in his mouth...

Mulder squeezed his eyes shut and then reopened them, seeing this man here in front of him now, not the one from his dream.

"I'm letting you go,"  Mulder told him.

Krycek's eyes narrowed.

"Well, not free.  I have to give you to someone. Perhaps the police."

Krycek inhaled deeply, assimilating the information, not betraying his thoughts.

"I don't know,"  Mulder continued, searching for the answer out loud, biting his lip and looking away. "Maybe I'll give back the gift,"  he said, sneering on the last word.  "Maybe I'll return you to your former employers."

Mulder looked up at Krycek's soft gasp.  It was the first sound he'd heard from those lips, that throat, since that night.  It was Mulder's turn to narrow his eyes.  "What?" he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him even though the last thing he wanted was Krycek thinking he cared about anything he had to say anymore.

His reply was so soft, Mulder had to ask him to repeat himself.

"They'll kill me."  The whisper was barely that.  It looked like it hurt him to try to speak.  And that wasn't something you wanted to say *any* day.

Mulder looked from one intense eye to the other.  Kill him?  The skinny Brit?   God, of course he would.  Why wouldn't he?  If he gave him to the police, the Syndicate would have him offed in his cell that very night.  And if he gave him back to the Brit...

<We got what we wanted from him.>

They had the tape.  The only reason they *didn't* kill him when they had him was because they thought they could get something out of Mulder with him.

Mulder decided to play it cool.  "So?  That's what I would've ended up doing eventually, anyway."

He watched Krycek's Adam's apple slide slowly up and down his throat as he measured the falsehood behind unreadable eyes.  Well, not totally unreadable.  He was afraid.  Maybe not of Mulder dealing him the death blow, but of Mulder's willingness to transfer him over to someone who had the moral depravity to carry out his own dark fantasies.

If Krycek only knew his latest dark fantasy, Mulder thought before he could stop himself.  He tried to mask his own inhalation of excitement and epiphany with the idea that sprang from that thought.

"Why shouldn't I give you back?" Mulder asked.  "You're no good to me.  All you are is your lies, Krycek.  And I'm done with those."

Mulder stared hard into the other man's eyes, watching the very real fear grow there.

"I didn't think..." Krycek croaked out of his disused throat.

"That I'd do it?  Give you back?  Why, because you're so damned *special*?"  He spat the words.

Krycek shook his head, eyes wide now.

"Didn't think I had it in me?  Didn't think I could be cruel?  Like you?" he offered with a small smile of triumph.  He could physically *feel* the power shifting in the room back in his favor, his confidence growing in his new plan by the second.

"I--"  Krycek began and cleared his throat.  "I have things you want."

"I told you.  I don't want your lies,"  Mulder said easily, his deep voice reverberating through his chest.

"I'm more useful to you alive, Mulder."  His voice, usually so confident, carried an edge of panic Mulder had rarely heard.  He *really* didn't want to go back...was *sure* they'd kill him.  Well, he would know, thought Mulder.

"What can you give me?"  Mulder asked.  "Except more of the same?"

"Anything,"  Krycek whispered, brows crinkling for a moment.

"I'm listening."

Krycek took a breath.  A shaky one.  "I can get things for you."

"What things?"

"Information.  Contacts...  I can deal you into the game, Mulder."  His bound hands flexed open and closed.

"No deal."

Krycek's voice rose a little more.  "I can *give* you a key player.  Take out a hit..."

"I don't want any of those things anymore, Krycek." Then quietly, "Maybe I never did."  And louder again, looking smugly into Krycek's face.  "You can't give me what I want.  It's over for you.  Now let's get this over with."  Mulder reached for Krycek's wrists and the other man pulled them away, taking a step back. Mulder's eyebrows rose.

Krycek didn't make any noise when he tried to speak, but his lips moved.

"What?"  Mulder asked, already knowing the weighty word.

Quietly, eyes squeezed shut.  "Please."

"I'm sorry, I still didn't quite hear you, ratfuck. What was that?"

Krycek pinned him with an imploring gaze.  "Please."

Mulder stared back at him.  "Begging.  I like it."  He crossed his arms and widened his legs a little.  "Why should I keep you?"

"Please, Mulder, they'll kill me."

"I've heard that one.  What will you do for me?"

"Anything, Mulder.  Please."

"Anything?"  Mulder asked, raising his brows.

"Anything...anything..."  Krycek breathed.

Mulder took the three steps needed to come nearly up against him.  He took the key out of his pocket and unlocked Krycek's cuffs, taking them off both wrists, freeing him.  Krycek looked at him, disbelieving.

Mulder stepped back.  "All right, you can stay." Krycek looked at him in amazement.  Mulder leveled him with a hard stare.  "Take your clothes off...boy."

Krycek gasped again and Mulder held him fast with his eyes.  He had to control his *own* response when, without question, his enemy began to undress.  Jesus! Mulder's cock bounded up toward his belly, restricted by his blue jeans.  He wasn't hard because he wanted Krycek.  That wasn't even really what the dream meant, he knew.  It was just the power.  The sheer power...having it over another human being.  *This* human being.   It was unreal.

Krycek's mouth was slightly open.  He was breathing through it.  He watched Mulder through hooded eyes.  He let the jacket slide off his arms to the floor.  Mulder watched its descent and then when it landed with a thud and a chink, he brought his gaze back to Krycek's, his own eyes hooded, lazy, though his pulse was racing.

Next Krycek took hold of the bottom of his sweaty t- shirt and peeled it up his torso, revealing his taut stomach and muscular chest and shoulders.  He pulled it off over his head, sending his hair into riotous spikes.

Mulder's cock twitched, hard, and he grunted quietly, absently.

Krycek dropped his hands to his button fly, licking his lips and closing his mouth.  He tilted his head to the side slightly, still watching Mulder.  His legs were slightly spread and the denim was stretched tight around his strong thighs.  Mulder looked down to where Krycek's hands hovered and fiddled with the first button.  Just seeing his hands so close to his...

"Take 'em off,"  Mulder commanded hoarsely, breathlessly.

And Krycek unfettered the buttons.  One at a time. Holy shit, thought Mulder.  He's doing it.  He's fucking doing it.  He wondered how far he would go...how much power he had over him now.

His thoughts had turned inward as Krycek bent, pants unbuttoned but still relatively intact, to take off his boots and socks.  While he was crouched, he removed both pants and underwear, and then straightened back up to full height.

Mulder's shocked stare dropped down to Krycek's cock. Fully fucking erect and dusky pink against his belly. Krycek, his mortal enemy, a man that hated Mulder as much as Mulder hated him...was standing before him, completely naked.  And he was so. very. hard.

For him?  For Mulder?  He...*wanted* this?  He wanted this.  He wanted Mulder.  Mulder's head spun as he made himself drag his greedy eyes back up Krycek's body to look into eyes that seemed all pupil.

This changed everything.

"You want to live?"  Mulder asked around the lump of intense excitement in his throat.

Krycek's answer was a throaty whisper.  "Yes."

"You want me to keep you?"

"Yes."

"Can you do what it takes to be my boy, Krycek?"

The other man whimpered quietly before answering and his cock twitched.  Mulder controlled the desire to lick his lips.  "Yes."

Mulder looked deeply into Krycek's eyes.  "Good."  He walked slowly forward, seeing the other man’s breath catch.  When he got close, Krycek began to drop to his knees.  Mulder reached out a hand and caught Krycek on the shoulder, and though it practically burned, he left it there.  "No way.  You think I want that dirty mouth on me?"  Then he shoved Krycek backward toward the radiator.  "Wrist,"  he said, holding up the cuffs again.  Krycek presented it to him breathlessly, and Mulder secured him to a point higher up so that he’d be forced to stand.

"Stay there.  Don't move except to bat those pretty eyelashes.  And don't say anything unless I ask you a question."

With that he turned around, and he left a naked, bewildered-looking Krycek in his living room.

..........

Mulder closed the bathroom door behind him, turning on the water, strong and hot.   He stripped off his clothes as fast as he could, hissing as his jeans scratched over his straining erection.  When he was naked, he stepped in under the spray.  He took himself in hand immediately, closing his eyes.

"Awfuck," he cried, hand slapping fast on his cock.

The POWER!  He had him.  He hadn't really felt like it before.  Had felt like he had no control of himself much less this enigmatic man.  But now...  He thought about him out there, holding still, not touching his cock.  That cock...  It had been hard.  Krycek had a weakness.  And that weakness was Mulder himself.  It made Mulder's dick pound.

He grimaced and squeezed around the base hard, looking down at himself.  He watched his own cock swell and jump.

Krycek had begun to kneel for him.  He had been about to...  It was just like the dream.  Just like the dream.  How did he know?  Mulder started to jack himself again, closing his eyes.  What if he’d let him? What would it feel like to have a man’s mouth there? Alex Krycek’s mouth.  What would it feel like to choke him with it?  To ram the lies back down his throat. His hand moved fast.  Could feel him...

"AhfuckmeAAAAHHHH!!"

He came long and hard, jets and jets of cum bathing his hand before being washed away down the drain.  He breathed through his mouth, milking the last out of himself.  And then he caught his breath with one hand planted on the shower wall.

..........

Mulder sat on the couch, flipping through his magazine. An ad for Hugo Boss caught his eye, or rather, he pretended it did.  He made himself stare at the grey silk, nodding slowly for ten seconds.  Then as he turned the page, he kept his eyes trained down.

How much longer?  How long had he *been* there?  By Mulder's internal clock, it seemed like about an hour. Maybe more.  He decided the man's knees had probably had enough.  Without looking up, he spoke.

"Get up.  And turn toward the wall."  His tone was distracted.

He felt movement off to the side and flicked his eyes in that direction just in time to see Krycek, still naked, still uncuffed, turn away from him.

It had taken several days to work up the courage to actually do it...let him free for a while.  But something made Mulder want it.  Something powerful. And he had not been disappointed by the decision.  The power of controlling Krycek with his words only was heady.  Mulder knew how reckless it was, even stupid, because even a naked, unarmed Krycek could kill swiftly and without much warning, most likely.  But that’s what made it good.

"Put your hands up flat on the wall.  Head down." Krycek did it.  And now Mulder was presented with his pale, round ass and broad back.  He didn't let himself get a really long look.  Those looks were for Krycek's benefit, not his.  They didn't do anything for Mulder, after all.  Only the power turned him on.  That and Krycek's own arousal.  Something about seeing how ramrod hard he got at the slightest provocation from Mulder...  It felt so good it should have been illegal. He already knew it was a sin.

He flipped casually through five more pages before he just had to look up at his captive again.  "Clench your butt cheeks,"  he commanded on a whim.

He watched it happen.  Jesus fucking Christ.  His breath actually caught.

"Harder,"  Mulder demanded softly.  He tilted his head to look at the squeezing globes.  What would that feel like around his...  "That's enough,"  he said sternly, as much to reprimand himself.  Krycek's ass relaxed and just as Mulder was about to go back to his perusal of Vanity Fair, he did a double take on Krycek's raised wrists.

Shit.  He'd forgotten.  And they were worse than the last time he'd thought to look at them.  They were violently red, obviously infected.  Lacerations cut deeply into the flesh and there was extensive, black and purple bruising all the way around it seemed.  They had to be excruciating.  And Krycek hadn't said a thing.

Mulder slammed the door shut on the burgeoning feelings of admiration he found himself experiencing.  This was fucking Alex Krycek.  He'd shot his father in the head! He was nothing to be admired.  He could suffer through this relatively small pain.

Mulder flipped past a tampon ad angrily and stared down at the article on George Clooney, not really seeing. Then he threw the magazine to the side onto the couch and sighed, looking at his coffee table in prideful indecision.

Finally, he stood.  "Come on."

Krycek's head turned to the side, but he didn't move.

"I said come on,"  Mulder repeated and waited until Krycek took his hands slowly off the wall and turned to face him before drawing his gun and pointing it at the naked man.

Krycek’s inhale of surprise and fear should have been a victorious moment for Mulder.  Instead, he found himself wanting to explain that his death was not imminent.

"Go into the bathroom.  Turn on the light,"  he instructed.

Krycek obeyed, walking tensely past Mulder and doing as told.

"Sit on the edge of the tub.  Wash your wrists off."

Krycek’s head turned slightly, a loud question on his mind, but he didn’t voice it.   Then he did as told, sitting down gingerly, turning on the water, hissing as he began to clean his wounds.

Mulder lowered his gun arm absently, watching Krycek treat the garish red lacerations.  It was almost mesmerizing...watching the simple actions of Krycek’s arms turning slowly under the spray of water.  He put his gun back into the waistband of his jeans at his lower back.

"Keep ‘em under there.  Don’t fucking move, Krycek," he said, feeling strangely like he was playing two roles at once.  Doctor and prison guard.

He crouched down on his heels and peered, eyes squinted, into the dark space beneath the sink.  Mulder felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, feeling Krycek off to the side of him.  Krycek hissed again and Mulder nearly jumped.

He turned his head to see Krycek cautiously treating his own abrasions.  He felt the absurd urge to apologize, but quickly squelched it as he turned back to his task of finding his first aid supplies.

"You can stop now if you want."  The second the words were out, he regretted them.  He heard the water turn off and didn’t let himself turn, still rummaging through the items beneath his sink.

He gathered up the antiseptic spray, Neosporin with maximum pain relief, and bandaging and stood, turning, to see Krycek's sizeable body precariously balanced on the thin edge of porcelain, shoulders slumped, soft dick hanging down between his legs, wet wrists dangling off his knees.  He looked...ridiculous and Mulder fought the smile off his face.  It wasn't so much how he looked but knowing how cold that tub must have been against his ass.

Mulder knelt in front of him, pulling a towel from the rod at his side.  "Hold out your wrists."

Krycek hesitated, his brow furrowing in what must be his utter confusion at what he must have perceived as care-taking.  Mulder hardened his look.  "Do it." Krycek held out his mangled appendages and Mulder looked at the angry wounds in front of him, sighing. Then he held the towel loosely on top of his open palms and gently pressed them to Krycek's injuries, patting all around them slowly and carefully, once hissing himself when he squeezed too tightly and Krycek grimaced.  Krycek looked up into his face then, and Mulder threw the towel aside, picking up the antiseptic.

He shook it vigorously, his jaw tight and tense, and then sprayed it over both wrists messily.  Krycek gasped, but Mulder had no reaction at all this time. When he was done with the spray, he angrily mashed the lid back on and set it loudly down on the floor beside him before picking up the ointment and squeezing a generous amount onto his fingers.  Then he looked back at Krycek.

Heaving another put-out sigh, he very tenderly dabbed the medicine onto the lacerations and places rubbed raw by the cuffs, working the stuff very gently into the infected areas.  Krycek breathed deep and slow.  Mulder wished he'd flicked the fan on so he wouldn't have to sit there listening to it.

He made swift but careful work of wrapping Krycek's lower arms, and when he was finished, he stood up fast and backed away, his arms crossing over his chest. "You smell,"  he told the other man, shortly.  "I'll let you bathe tomorrow.  I don't want to get those bandages wet,"  he continued, not meeting the other man's eyes.  "I still have to use the cuffs tonight when I go to sleep,"  he explained and became frustrated with himself for feeling the need to give such explanations.  "You can go back in,"  he said quietly, gesturing with his head to the living room. But as Krycek stood and walked past him, he went on. "I'll get new ones tomorrow."

The naked man stopped in his tracks, head lowered, not looking at Mulder.  But his lashes fluttered.  And then he nodded, the motion small, and walked out of the bathroom.

.........

Mulder looked at his watch.  10:25.  He was going to have to cuff Krycek to that radiator soon.  He changed channels at the speed of light.  He wondered if it was driving Krycek insane.  He glanced up to see the man standing facing the corner.  He was like a statue, unmoving and...  Mulder shook his head to clear it.  He felt frustrated and he wasn't sure why.  He looked at his watch again.  10:26.

The thought occurred to him again.  He didn't like the thought.  He had been pushing it out of his mind all night.  But still it came.  He glanced over again and then back to the TV where he'd stopped on a show about mummies.  Was Krycek rolling his eyes, thinking him so predictable and cliché?  Did Krycek...*like* shows about mummies?  Mulder conducted an impromptu test and switched channels, looking at Krycek's bare back. Nothing.  Mulder sighed and put it back.

10:27.  "I'm, uh, I'm going out,"  he told his statue. He half wished Krycek would spin around and argue with him.  Mulder got up off the couch.  "Go sit on the floor next to the radiator."

Krycek obeyed, turning from the corner, and Mulder reluctantly picked up the ungiving steel cuffs, walking over to him.  He watched as Krycek sank down in front of him, folding his legs underneath him, then he knelt down, too, a frown on his face.  Why did he so not want to do this?

Krycek held his right wrist up against the metal of the radiator without being asked, waiting.  Mulder exhaled loudly and clicked the restraint into place both on the man's wrist and the heater.

"Look at me,"  Mulder said quietly.

Krycek now looked up into Mulder's face.  There was no resentment at being yet again cuffed, his abused arms chaffed all the more even with the barrier of the bandaging.  Mulder was at a loss, not having any passion, any anger to react and respond to.

"I'll be back soon."

He stood and scooted the water bowl carefully over to the man on the floor.  Then he went into the kitchen and brought out a slice of American cheese and a red apple which he put next to him.

"Don't fucking move around too much," he told him, frown still firmly in place.  "I don't wanna have to redo those bandages."

Krycek lowered his eyes and began unwrapping his processed cheese.  Mulder picked up his keys and, without a backward glance, he strode out the door.

.......

"And what can I interest you in tonight, honey?" the thin, black man in blue eyeshadow and burgundy lipstick asked him.

Mulder should never have come here.  It was a horrible idea.  The worst.  And yet he just couldn't get it out of his head.

"You gotsta speak up, baby.  This is The Crypt.  You say what you lookin' for and darlin', we got it.  So what'll it be?"

Jesus, did he have to have *this* guy following him around?  All he wanted was to pick out his purchase in peace, pay for it quickly and with cash, and leave. Now some of the other people in the store were starting to turn and stare.  Jesus fuck, it's not worth it, he thought.

And then he flashed on his captive.  Chained up.  With those wrists.  And he looked at his helper with a scowl and spoke quietly.

"Cuffs."

"Oh honey, we got cuffs!" he exclaimed and then conspiratorially and ridiculously dropped his voice and spoke out of one corner of his mouth, leaning in to Mulder.  "You got a man or a woman?"

Mulder cleared his throat and tried not to choke on the word.  "Man."

The salesperson, (Mulder looked at his name tag.), Peter, looked him up and down.  "Unh huh, unh huh, all riiight.  Follow me, baby."

And he led Mulder back to a glass case.  "We talkin' wrists, baby, or ankles, or what?"

Mulder had to clear his throat again.  "Wrists."

"Ooo, we got some nice ones here, real affordable, too for bein' leather and all."

Mulder pulled at his bottom lip and didn't look at the man.  "Anything...lined?"

"Oh you mean with sheepskin?" Peter asked, laying a limp hand against Mulder's chest and then taking it away.  "You just follow me."

Mulder skulked behind him, nearly shuffling his feet, when something caught and held his eye.  In a vertical glass case hung a one and a half inch wide silver, steel collar, shining brightly like a beacon in the pink and white lights of the store.

Mulder stopped.  He walked to the case, peering inside.

"Mmmhmm,"  agreed Peter.  "That's reeeal nice."

"Leather-lined?"  Mulder asked.

"Oh yeah, oh yeah.  Topa the line, hun.  That's a real fine collar.  Say, your man real butch or he kinda femme?"

"How much?"  Mulder asked, voice rougher.

"Okay, okay.  Lemme go check.  I'll be right back," said Peter, recognizing no nonsense when he heard it.

"Wait,"  Mulder stopped him.

"Sho, baby."

"I'm also going to need about four feet of chain. Good, strong chain.  I'm not playing around.  It needs to be able to withstand a lot.  You have anything like that?"  Now Mulder looked at him and he saw the fear and awe enter the other man's eyes.

"Okay," he whispered now.

"And padlocks.  Two of them.  You sell padlocks here?"

"Uh...yeeeah.  I think I got what you lookin' for. Just a sec."  And then he went off in the direction of the back muttering something under his breath about all the good, brutal tops being taken already.

Mulder just stared at the collar.  Krycek's collar. His boy's.  He'd ask himself what in fuck he was doing but he was pretty damned sure he didn't want to know. He just pulled out his wallet.  And waited for Peter to return.

.........

He was...nervous.  There was no denying it.  In the way his palms became clammy against the steering wheel, in the way every song on the radio had irritated him beyond measure until he finally hit the button, silencing the crass DJs and alternative rock.  In the way he kept eyeing the pink plastic bag in the passenger seat.

Mulder swerved to avoid the blue Cadillac pulling out away from the curb and cursed under his breath.  He wondered if he would find Krycek asleep or awake.  The surreality of the moment slammed into him like a cannonball to the gut.   Krycek’s naked body flashed across his vision instead of the mostly deserted road. He glanced at the bag again and sighed, resting one elbow on the door of the car and leaning his head into his hand.   Hegal Place sped up on his right, but instead of making the turn to go home, he kept going straight ahead, unsure himself of the decision, but honoring the need he could feel tossing unpleasantly in the pit of his stomach.  It was the need for more space, more time, less Alex Krycek, less pain, more asphalt disappearing under his car, more miles between them, more perspective than Krycek’s pale, heavily silent presence would afford him.

Mulder looked at the bag again...flashed on a dungeon, a large man in a black, leather hood with a whip.  A thin man chained to the wall.  Wall sconces.  Low flame.  Metallica playing.  Mulder grabbed the bag and threw it into the backseat, then turned the radio back on, finding a song he didn’t know the words to, and turning it up.

He turned onto the freeway entrance and sped up, wishing he had more than a four cylinder engine.  He thought about actually using his trust fund to get himself a decent car.  Something not a Taurus.  He’d never particularly cared what kind of car he drove as long as it got him from here to there.  But he found himself wanting to go faster now.  Needing to.  He pushed the pedal down and waited less than patiently for the speedometer to climb over seventy.

His trust.  All the money his father didn’t give to his mother.  Half of it should be his sister’s.  For that reason, as well as countless others he preferred not to acknowledge, he wouldn’t use it.  It sat in a bank somewhere in Massachusetts collecting dust.

Mulder thought of the picture he’d been shown, of his father outside that mountain-side facility in West Virginia.  He’d looked so young.  All that dark hair. And he’d looked so serious.  So...lost.  His eyes staring into the camera, but not seeing anything except the insides of his tortured mind.

Mulder chose to believe he was tortured then.  His father was a good man.  He would be tortured by what they were doing.  Wouldn’t he?

<Did he ever ask you to make a choice?>  His own voice pierced through the memories.  His mother’s face... That was tortured.  She hated him.  She’d actually hated him and apparently still did.  Was she...glad he was...?

Mulder pushed the pedal down farther, feeling the car vibrate unhealthily at just under eighty.  It didn’t stop the thought, which seemed inevitable.  Fated. Like he was driving toward it instead of away from it.

Would she be grateful to him?  Throw her weak arms around his neck and hug him?  He could almost hear her tear-clogged voice.  "Thank you, Alex...."

He turned the dial violently, throwing the radio into loud static, punctuated with bursts of an annoying commercial.  He felt like the world was tilting.  He briefly entertained the idea of an earthquake, but dismissed it.  It was merely the lightness of being produced by a severe, unwanted shift in paradigm.  Not that it was true.  It didn’t ring in his ears with the persistence of pure truth.  But it did settle strangely against his heart, carving a place, creating a horrible doubt in the form of a bloody cut into his tender tissue.

A good man.  Scotch in hand.  "Get out of the way of the TV, dammit!"

His mother.  "He just wants..."

"I don’t care what he wants!  Get out of here, Fox, for God’s sake.  I can’t stand to look at you!"  His voice slurred, eyes red whether from tears or alcohol or no sleep...

"But Dad..."

He stood up.  Fox backed away.  He saw the Scotch spill from the tumbler in his left hand.  Didn’t see the right until it was too late.  "I said get out!"  The hit was somewhere between a slap and a punch, but it landed on the still tender bruise he’d left the last time, and the look in his eyes stung worse than the loose fist.

Fox ran out into the night.  It had begun to snow lightly.  The flakes were wet against his face.  No tears.  He ran....

Mulder swerved into the left lane to pass a slow truck. His bottom lip trembled.  Unbidden, another night swam up behind his eyes.  A night where his father had actually hugged him.  And Mulder had forgiven him everything in that moment.  He didn’t realize that he had.  That there were other memories about another man. A distant, sad, angry man who clutched his drink close and pushed his son away, pushed his daughter away farther.  Many memories piled on top of one another. Instantly forgotten or painted a different color in his mind by that one night.

He’d hugged him and then he’d died.  The good man was taken away from him.  By Alex Krycek.  At least, that’s how it’d always felt.  He hadn’t allowed himself to look past the pain of loss and the swirling black of rage.  It had danced in front of him like a lady with a scarf.  His hatred for Krycek was attractive like that. In the way that hating his own father was grotesque and nearly unthinkable.  Nearly.

He thought of his mother again.  Her voice had never sounded so passionate in her life as when she had condemned him.  She sounded like part of her wished she was the one to have pulled the trigger.

His world tilted again and he thought he was going to have to pull over and vomit.  Instead he just eased off the gas and took the next exit, turning around under the highway, and getting back on going in the direction he’d just come, heading back home.  He saw a sign for a Days Inn and briefly thought of pulling off...staying the night.  He wanted to be away from him, while at the same time some part of him was practically busting open with the need to collar Alex.

Alex.

He wasn’t supposed to be Alex.  He was supposed to be Krycek.  Liar.  Murderer.  Rat.

boy.

His mind supplied the new label easily, almost challengingly.  His fingers tightened around the wheel. He realized he was still listening to loud static and flipped the radio off yet again.  He drove the rest of the way in silence, putting miles between him and his thoughts of his father.   Getting closer and closer to home.  To him.

.............

He opened the door to see Krycek lying down.  He pushed it behind him, purposefully slamming it shut and watched Krycek’s head lift sharply off the floor and turn to him.  But his expression wasn’t one of annoyance, and the fear there was even over-shadowed by something else.  Something distinctly hopeful-looking.

"On your knees,"  Mulder commanded.  As Krycek obeyed, Mulder withdrew a frightening looking length of heavy chain from the bag and let it drop to the floor.  He stared at Krycek, searching discreetly for a reaction. The other man’s eyes lowered to look at the chain and then rose back up to him, accompanied with a slow swallow.  It was something.  Mulder’s heart pounded furiously.

He reached into his pocket and took out a key, tossing it toward Krycek.

"Uncuff yourself."   Mulder watched and, after Krycek was done, instructed him further.  "Now slide the key and the cuffs over on the floor."

Once again his order was obeyed and Mulder picked up the now useless steel and set both key and cuffs beside him on his table.  Then Mulder leaned down and grabbed the end of the long chain and threw it over next to Krycek.  He was rewarded with a small flinch as it landed loudly just a couple of inches from Krycek’s naked thigh.   He then took one of the padlocks out of the bag and threw it.  Krycek caught it in two cupped hands and looked at him.

"Attach that to the radiator,"  he told Krycek blandly and while the other man turned and did as he was told, Mulder rummaged in the bag and brought out the collar and second padlock, tossing the bag aside and picking up the other end of chain.  As he waited for Krycek to finish his task, he felt himself begin to get hard.

But it was when Krycek clicked his lock in place and turned to see what Mulder was holding and gasped that he felt a hot jet of pure fire surge through his cock and stiffen it painfully.  Mulder felt his eyes blaze with impatience and possessiveness.   He let his arm relax at his side, loosely holding the restraint, and he watched Krycek’s eyes follow its movement as though charmed.   Mulder licked his lips absently.

"Get over here,"  Mulder growled and Krycek blinked fake-innocent eyes up to his.  "Stay on your knees," he elaborated and watched with barely under control breathing as Krycek began to walk over on his knees. Mulder felt his eyelids get heavy as Krycek crawled gracefully across the hardwood of his foyer.  Mulder hadn’t thought anybody could do that well...could actually look good doing it.  He watched Krycek easily and slowly shift his weight from one kneeling leg to the other as he maneuvered his body forward toward Mulder.  His dick was slightly swollen against his leg. Mulder merely glanced at it, enough to notice its dusky color, but not long enough to analyze shape, size, or texture.  All he’d taken so far were those types of stolen glances.  He balled his free hand into a fist. And then he let his gaze drop once more, just to make the other man more uncomfortable.  But as he watched, it seemed to swell more, did swell more.  It rose up against his hip now, deep pink...smooth.  Mulder blinked and raised his gaze to Krycek’s face, now close beneath him.

"Stop,"  he ordered, but it was a whisper and he cursed the weakness even he heard.  Before he’d even thought it through, he drew back his open hand and slapped Krycek across the face.  His head snapped to the side and Mulder was presented with his left cheek and the remaining bruising there on his cheekbone, yellow and green now.  He felt his face twist with guilt and anger, but when Krycek’s clear, verdant eyes came back to peer into his, what he saw there wasn’t recrimination.  It was just acceptance.  They were back to hitting again.

"Don’t look at me,"  Mulder ordered and as Krycek’s eyes looked away from his, Mulder felt a little more like he could breathe.

He lifted the collar and heard the change in Krycek’s own respiration.  He could feel the other man’s breath against his hand and fought down a shiver.

"Ever been collared, Krycek?"  Mulder asked as he fit it around the man’s neck, trying not to let his fingers brush skin.  He closed it, fastening the padlock in place through both the chain and the strong loop set in the front of the collar at Krycek’s throat.  And then he pulled on the chain and watched Krycek stumble forward slightly on his knees, losing his balance momentarily.  "Answer me, boy."

"No,"  Krycek said so low it was almost a whisper. Almost.  The unfamiliar sound of Krycek’s voice reverberated along Mulder’s spine.

"C’mon, Krycek.  boy like you probably had a collar for every day of the week and a cock down his throat every night."  Mulder didn’t realize until it was out that he’d all but categorized the act of collaring Krycek as something sexual, or something that would lead to sex, or more correctly, to rape.

Krycek’s eyes fluttered closed and his eyebrows drew in and down.  Did he think Mulder was going to rape him? That Mulder wanted to?  Mulder tugged up on the chain and the man’s eyes opened again, but as instructed, didn’t seek out Mulder’s intense stare.  Mulder grabbed him by the hair with his free hand and tugged back, exposing the pale throat and shimmering steel around it.  Krycek still hadn’t spoken up to refute the theory.  Was he just not going to talk because he knew that would carry a punishment?  Or...did that mean it held an element of truth?  Mulder nearly shuddered.

"Did they use your mouth?"  Mulder asked, his perverse curiosity getting the better of him.  He felt a little sick at the thought, but as he gazed down at the conflicted face in front of him and felt the soft crush of his hair in his fist, his cock thrummed with life, with blood, with appalling excitement.

"Did they?"  Mulder asked, and his voice was thick and rough.  He shuffled his feet in just a little more, wrapped the chain around his hand, pulling it a little tighter.  He held his breath for an answer.

It came out as a halting whisper.  "Yes."

Mulder’s mouth came softly open on a slow breath.  He’d said yes.  They’d used him.  Someone had used him. Krycek sucked cock.  That pretty, pink mouth had wrapped around a dick -- Two?  Three?  Ten?  Twenty? - and he’d sucked them off.

Oh God, his chest hurt and his erection fucking ached. Mulder felt himself feeling sorry for him, feeling ill at the images that erupted in his mind.  Of Krycek being forced to give blow job after blow job as they all stood around him in a circle, dark suits in the low light, leering eyes and cruel smiles, laughter even, crude words yelled in encouragement...  <Take it, boy! Oh yeah, look at him go!>  <All the way!  All the way!> And a cock was rammed into Krycek’s mouth.

They chanted in Mulder’s head as he looked down at Krycek’s face in front of him.  <All the way!  All the way!>  They cheered and jeered.  And the Krycek in his head opened his mouth, his jaw, wider as they got louder.  They chanted still, feverish in their need, and Mulder moved in closer, gripped Krycek’s hair tighter.

<All the way!  All the way!>

Mulder leaned his hips forward.  Just an inch.  Maybe not even.  But it was enough.  It brought his clothed crotch close enough to gently brush Krycek’s lips.

Oh, God.  Fire!  A blaze of liquid heat coaxing his cock to twitch toward that mouth, those parting lips. Again.  Just a small press forward, a bump into his face.  And then a slow, smooth thrust.

<All the way!  All the way!>

Krycek groaned, a strangled sound, but unmistakably aroused.  Mulder opened eyes he didn’t realize he’d closed.  He looked down at Krycek who now was unabashedly looking up at him, a flush coloring his cheeks.  And Mulder knew it wasn’t Krycek who had groaned.  It had been him.

Mulder took a quick step back and Krycek swayed forward.  Mulder saw his tongue just barely peeking out against his lower lip before he regained his balance and licked his lips.

Mulder threw Krycek away from him, then, and the other man fell back onto the floor, erection bobbing in front of his hard belly.  Mulder looked at him, breathing hard, wanting to yell a thousand things, wanting to shove him away again, farther, shove him down to the floor, wanting to do things...horrible things...wonderful things.  The hate he felt for himself in that moment spilled over as one tear streaking its thin trail down his face.  Whatever had happened here...whatever had almost happened...just couldn’t again.  Mulder swallowed it all back, everything from lust to bile, and wiped angrily at the moisture on his cheek, now itching annoyingly.

He wanted to affect some damage control.  Explain away what he had done.  But nothing would come out of his mouth.  Because nothing made any sense.  Nothing was more true than that he had wanted to do it, to feel what it would be like.  Nothing would come because he could think of nothing else but the want and the need and the ache and the way just that smallest bit of contact had felt.

He closed his eyes on Krycek.  And then he walked away. He went into the bedroom and he shut the door.  It was dark and quiet.  He leaned against the door and put his hand over his eyes.  He could still feel Krycek’s lips on his cock.  God, he could still feel it.

He pushed off the door and walked over to the bed, lying down on it.  He couldn’t, wouldn’t, touch himself.  He tried to think of anything but the man chained up out in his living room.  It was long moments before he succeeded and his erection flagged.  It was long hours before he drifted into a restless sleep.

.............

Mulder awoke the next morning to the bright light of day.   He barely opened one eye and swallowed past the thick, musty taste in his mouth.

He felt like shit.  He let his head fall back down onto the pillow, momentarily entertaining the thought of just staying in bed for the day.  That moment turned into another, and then that one to another.  Soon, he had lain there for an hour more and what finally prodded him out of bed wasn’t a desire to get up, to eat, to start the day...certainly not to lay eyes on his prisoner.  It was merely that he had to take a monster piss.

He rolled out of bed, still in his wrinkled clothes from yesterday and smelling acrid and foul.  He trudged out into the living room, keeping his eyes down cast as he went directly to the bathroom and shut the door behind him.  He relieved himself, moaning quietly at the pleasurable sensation of all the toxins exiting his body en mass, then he flushed the toilet, brushed his grimy teeth, and started a near scalding shower.

As he soaped himself, feeling every cell in his body being either shed along with the dirt or luxuriously reinvigorated, he couldn’t not think of Krycek chained out there to his radiator.  How many days had it been? He still had not bathed.  Mulder thought of how miserable he must be and how he’d decided to let him have the common allowance all prison bound criminals are afforded and actually let Krycek take a much needed bath or shower.

Mulder dropped his chin to his chest, closing his eyes, and let the water run over his head and down his body. He rolled his head on his neck, trying to stretch the tight muscles there.

He supposed it was really the only humane thing to do. Why did being humane to Krycek feel almost impossible? Why did it feel like with every kindness he was forgiving him for everything horrible he’d ever done? Why did he turn into a raving lunatic around Alex Krycek?  Why did Krycek’s punishment, and likewise Mulder’s revenge, feel so horribly, awesomely satisfying, only to dull and turn sour and stale and empty in the aftermath?  Why couldn’t he just be one or the other?  And why couldn’t he just get it out of his system for good?

Mulder stepped out of the spray, turning the faucets off, and shook the excess water out of his hair.  He stood there looking at the mint green tiles, thinking about a day when Alex Krycek was still just a green, badly dressed agent.  Still a human.  He thought about that day at the pool.  How exhilarating that was to be nearly naked in his presence.  To rise up out of that water like a Greek god and feel his eyes on his body. It had been a rush, an adrenaline high, to feel those eyes.  Even though at the time he’d never construed the other man’s attention to mean anything...sexual.

Mulder absently grabbed for a towel hanging over the shower rod and started drying himself slowly and thoughtfully.  It was pretty clear Alex Krycek was...attracted to him.  Mulder shivered in the cooling air as he ran the towel over his arms, then stomach. He didn’t want to believe it was possible.  Was afraid to believe in anything about Krycek, even with the sizeable evidence of the erection he often got in Mulder’s presence.  Maybe he had a...medical condition. Mulder’s lips actually twitched up at the thought, suddenly visualizing a visit with Scully and a full examination of Krycek to determine the possible causes for his extraordinary horniness in such an extremely deterrent situation.

Mulder caught himself grinning and guiltily trained his features back into their comfortable scowl, stepping out of the tub and wrapping the towel around his waist. It was like that that he stepped out of the bathroom, still absently pondering his strange relationship with Krycek.

It wasn’t until he heard the gasp that he looked up.

And then he had to control the drool that was collecting under his tongue.

He looked at Krycek...naked and collared...and it was like reliving that exchange by the pool.  Krycek’s eyes blazed a sparkling, penetrating green.  Mulder watched the other man’s chest rise and fall with his deep, slightly shuddering breathing.  He felt the hot, liquid trail those eyes left along his body and only then realized he was just a towel away from naked himself. And Krycek was brazenly devouring every inch of skin he could search out on Mulder like he wanted to memorize it and save the image for later...maybe forever.

It was heady.  It was intense.  It was dangerous.

Mulder glanced down, his own breathing shallow and arrhythmic, and took in the sight of Alex Krycek’s cock filling with blood and rising against his hip.  He felt the stray water droplets trickling down his torso, between his shoulder blades...felt how low the towel rode his hips, felt his own cock tingle with the energy building taut and electric between them.  His whole body felt completely and utterly alive.

He balled his hands into fists and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he didn’t look directly at the other man.

He had to clear his throat to talk.  "You need a bath."

As he inhaled and realized he could indeed smell the other man more now that he was clean himself, he couldn’t help but notice how different Krycek’s scent was.  It wasn’t sour, wasn’t sharp.  He just smelled like...warm, salty skin.  He smelled like dirt and grime and...skin.   Mulder looked up at Krycek , schooling his expression to something vague, unpredatory, and as disinterested as he could manage. He wondered if Krycek could see right through him to the turmoil underneath.

"How are your wrists?" he heard himself ask and nearly cringed.

Krycek swallowed and cleared his throat.  He looked at the floor, then back up at Mulder, but he just nodded, unspeaking.

Mulder accepted that as his way of saying he was fine. He felt a strange little disappointment at not hearing his voice.

"Take ‘em off," he instructed, nodding toward his wrists, trying not to feel the simmering power being almost naked near an absolutely naked Krycek conjured. But even devoting all his mental energy to the unwrapping of his bandages, there it was...just hanging in the air between them, obvious and enormous, truly taking on the characteristics of an elephant.  An extremely horny elephant.

Mulder felt the absurd desire to laugh, but decided it would call into question his sanity which might affect the power dynamic even with Krycek bound and naked.

As Krycek stripped away the last of the bandaging, Mulder realized he was going to have to get closer to examine the wounds he himself insisted on being able to see.  He contemplated running off into his bedroom to get some much needed clothes on, but that alone felt like a defeat of some kind, so he stayed.

"Stand up," he ordered softly, cursing the seductive quality that issued forth, wholly unwelcome.

Krycek got to his feet and once again Mulder was struck by how tall he was.  He felt more dangerous here, naked and incapacitated in his living room, than he ever did toting his gun and lurking in shadows, clothed in dark denim and leather.

Mulder walked forward, subduing the ever-present urge to shove him, to punch him, to punish and assert dominance.  He felt it even now as he prepared to play doctor.  He swallowed and stepped within arm’s reach of the other man.

"Let’s see."

Krycek brought his wrists up and Mulder tore his eyes away from the man’s face to look down.  The markings were less garish, now turning darker with bruising as the lacerations began to heal and lose their fiery, red intensity.

Mulder felt the heat coming off of Krycek and it carried his frustratingly less-than-repulsive smell. Mulder took a step back, turning his head.

"They look better.  I’ll be right back."  As he turned to go back into the dubious sanctuary of his bedroom, he cursed under his breath.  "Why don’t you just say excuse me next time," he murmured as he shut the door between them.

He dressed hurriedly, thinking only of the clothes he was putting on until he had to come back out and thinking about Alex Krycek was unavoidable.  That aggravating scent lingered in the room.  The whole rest of the apartment except for Mulder’s bedroom seemed to smell like Alex Krycek.  And Mulder hated that he didn’t hate that.  He’d never even halfway enjoyed how another man smelled at any given time.  Why did his worst enemy have to ooze sweat-scented pheromones out of his every pore?

Mulder stalked over to the table in the foyer, feeling more settled and grounded by the grey t-shirt and jeans he’d thrown on and oddly more cranky as well.  Like the clothes themselves held a negative energy that now seeped into his skin.  He blamed his mood in part on Krycek’s continued stinkiness, and swiped the key up with agitated determination.  He turned to the other man.

"Don’t move," he instructed as he got close enough to unlock his collar.  Close enough to feel his breath again.  He stepped away as soon as the task was taken care of.

"Go get yourself clean," he said, waiting for Krycek to move away from him.  He just stood there, appearing uncertain.  "Go on,"  Mulder prodded.

Krycek nodded again, brows knit, and then walked away. Mulder fought the urge to watch his bare ass as he retreated, but lost, feeling unable to look away and unable not to feel disgusted with himself for wanting to see it.

As the door closed behind him, Mulder raked both hands through his hair and sighed.

..........

He heard every drop.  Could tell which ones hit the tile.  Which ones fell on his body.  Mulder’s whole body yearned to see, to fully experience,  what he could now only hear.

He sat on the couch, his head in his hands, his foot bouncing nervously.  This shouldn’t be happening. This...longing.  Unnamable, fierce, misdirected certainly.  Undeniable.

So much water.  Hitting all that pale skin, stretched over efficient, strong muscles, bulkier than his, bigger than his...all that power...his....

One hundred drops, a thousand, touching down on his hot skin, sliding off along his stomach, dripping off his dick.

Mulder grabbed roughly at the remote and flipped on his stereo, turning up the volume to drown out his horrible thoughts.  He waited for them to be carried away on the grinding guitars.  He waited for this feeling to recede back into his subconscious.  Waited for the pull to stop...the draw to walk to that door, fling it open, and...  What?  He didn’t know.  All he knew was that he wanted something.  He needed something from this man. Needed to maybe watch him get clean, to see for himself that no amount of soap could rid Krycek of the dirt forever discoloring his soul, that nothing could change him.  Nothing.

He felt the familiar jolt of hate that usually accompanied his thoughts of Krycek, paired with the vague but powerful longing to do something, to see his wet, slick body, to feel it under the assault of his hands...fists...mouth....  It was torture.

He got up.  Paced in front of the couch.  His breathing was quick and excited.  Sick.  He felt sick.  The energy built.  So did the music.  Driving him closer to the closed door, the sounds of Krycek’s shower ending. Driving Mulder closer to the edge of some internal cliff.  He could sense the edge and a little, spiteful, devil-angel voice whispered at him:  Step off.

He leaned his hands against the door jamb, dropping his head.  Breathe it off, he told himself.  Breathe.

But with every breath the voice seemed to get louder. With every tense moment, with every drumbeat, every humid second of this small distance between them, this flimsy door...it spoke to him.  Louder.  A shout. Undismissable.

Then the door opened suddenly and Krycek stood there, naked and glistening.  Mulder’s eyes snapped up and caught Krycek’s.

Fire.  Hate.  Need.

The voice:  Take it.

And with something akin to a growl, Mulder grabbed Krycek by the shoulders and slung him up against the wall to the side of the bathroom door.  His back and head impacted with a thud and Krycek grunted.

Mulder pinned him there with his body, holding his hands against the wall with his own, up and out to the side from Krycek’s head, and he growled into his ear as he started humping his denim-clad crotch against Krycek’s naked one.

"Nnnaaahhhh!" Mulder snarled into Krycek’s ear, squeezing his hands tightly and thrusting hard against the thick, hard rod that was Krycek’s cock.  Mulder rubbed himself painfully erect against it, listening only to the crazy thudding off his blood through his body and the ringing in his ears, the driving music, the evil voice:  Do it.  Take it.

And he did, hips working between Krycek’s thighs, punching him with his aching cock instead of his fists. He breathed and whined into Krycek’s ear, eyes squeezed shut, nerve endings alive and thrumming, his whole body rocking into Krycek’s until he was pounding him into the wall, grunting with each impact.  He felt each time in his cock and his grunts turned to moans, his balls drawing up tight to his body.

OhGOD, the ache!  So good.  So rough and so bad and so fucking right!

He drew back and reached in-between their bodies, fumbling with his pants.

Do it.  Take it.  Feel it.

He had to feel it.

Mulder ripped his jeans open and freed his cock, and pressed himself into Krycek once more.  Their cocks touched and...

"Oh shit..." Mulder cursed through gritted teeth.

Krycek moaned low and deep and hot against Mulder’s cheek, and Mulder answered it with a growl as he started thrusting again, this time feeling his own naked cock hitting Krycek’s every time.

Too good...  Unbelievably good...  Like pain.  Like nothing else.  He felt himself building to orgasm. He wanted it.  Needed it.  Couldn’t not have it now.  He almost didn’t hear the whimpered voice in his ear.

"Mulder..."

But when it registered...

Mulder stepped quickly back away from Krycek.  Hands letting go of his bruised and just now healing flesh. He felt wild.  Out of control.  He looked at Alex Krycek up against the wall in front of him, cock hard. Like his own.  Alex Krycek.  Sick.  He felt sick again.

Without thinking, he hauled his fist back and let it fly against Krycek’s face in a vicious backhand. Krycek stumbled to the side, drops of blood flying from his mouth.  He watched him through a haze of residual lust and the growing sickness.

And then it became too much, so he turned around and quickly shoved his straining cock back into his jeans, buttoning them up with shaking fingers.  He stalked over to the stereo and hit the button, silencing it. He kept his back turned, feeling the weight of the other man’s energy.

Long moments passed before a low voice broke it.

"Mulder."

Unthinking, an animal, Mulder turned and let the momentum of his anger carry him back.  He pushed Krycek up against the wall again, holding him just under the chin, around the throat.  But he found he had nothing to say.  To his horror, tears welled up in his eyes as he looked into Krycek’s.  He squeezed his throat.

"Fuck," he hissed as Krycek began to choke.  A tear fell from Mulder’s eye and he released Krycek who began gasping for breath.  Mulder raked his hands through his hair again and then covered his face, bending almost in half with the pain and the fear and the longing and a thousand other things that seemed to rush his body like disease.

He heard Krycek catch his breath, and Mulder sank down to the floor, sitting with his knees drawn up into his body, his tears falling against his will.  What the fuck was happening to him?

"Mulder."

"Shut the fuck up," he cried.

He waited for something.  Anything from him.  Attack. Retreat.  Anything.  He waited within his own little world of pain and confusion, until finally he heard Krycek moving.  He heard the other man walk across the room away from him.  He heard the sound of chains being dragged across his wood floor.  Then he heard a click, and the small sound of metal sliding along the floor.

Mulder lifted his head.  And saw Krycek.  Recollared and sitting leaned against the radiator, looking at him with sad, deep eyes.  Mulder gasped.  He looked across the room at the key shining in a bit of light, out of Krycek’s reach.  He looked back at Krycek.  Into his eyes.  Pain lanced through Mulder’s chest.  And it wasn’t attached to hate this time, or to betrayal, mistrust, rage, or injustice.

And it hurt more than all of those things.  So much so that he had to get up and leave, stumbling blindly into his bedroom and shutting the door, lying down on his bed, and drowning his pitiful cries into the fleshy cotton of his pillow.  Until his eyes were dry and he was irrevocably empty.

..........

He woke with a start, sitting up in bed and breathing heavily.  He could almost still smell the gunsmoke, the acrid smell that accompanied the blood.  His heart was beating fast and hard in his chest.  And then he was hit with the surreal vision-memory of Krycek’s dead body and his father standing over it and laughing.

His gut twisted and he tried to clear his head of the image.  He looked out the window and it was dark.  He looked at the clock.  It was past ten.  At night?  He felt disoriented and heavy and exhausted from the nightmare.

The images began to fade and become more dream-like, less reality.  But his stomach was still in knots.  And it growled.  Loudly.

Shit, he’d never eaten.  And neither had Krycek.

Krycek.  Fuck, Krycek who he’d humped like a mindless dog.  Krycek, whose cock felt like silk and who now smelled like Mulder’s soap and who killed his father and who had made him cry.

"Jesus," he muttered to himself, rolling out of bed. He felt spent.  Totally without the energy to feel much of anything anymore.  For that he was thankful.

He stalked out into the living room, looking over at a sleeping Krycek and taking in his hard, naked body in repose.   He closed his eyes briefly, the still, dead Krycek of his dreams flitting before his eyes, so he opened them again and went to pick the key up from the floor.

He walked silently on bare feet over to Krycek and knelt down.  He wasn’t even through moving when hands had grabbed him, spun him around to land on his ass, and his back was up against Krycek’s chest, one strong arm wrapped tightly around his throat,  the other gripping his hair painfully, ripping a handful out by the root.

He didn’t even have time to struggle.

Then he heard Krycek gasp in his ear and his hold loosened somewhat, but not all the way.  "I’m sorry," Krycek whispered on another gasp.  "I’m sorry."  And then he released Mulder completely and Mulder crawled out of Krycek’s now non-existent grasp and turned to face him, regaining his breath.

Mulder nodded, stunned, and rubbed the place where Krycek’s arm had been around his neck.

"Did I hurt you?" Krycek asked quickly.

"N-"  Mulder cleared his throat and felt the humiliation settle in, post-adrenaline.  "No."  Not just humiliation.  The incomprehensible slap of knowledge that Krycek could take him.  And he didn’t.

Krycek just nodded and then closed his eyes on a sigh. "I’m sorry," he said again softly.

"It’s okay,"  Mulder found himself saying wryly, dryly, though his insides were turned upside down and backwards.  "You owed me one," he added and was careful not to look at the other man as he moved in once again with the key.

Krycek’s eyes flew open, alert and ready and Mulder froze.

"I’m just going to take it off," he explained.

Krycek looked suspicious for a moment longer and finally asked, "Why?" in that hushed, gravel voice of his that always made Mulder think of alleys and guns and old, conspiratorial men, and his tired, one-track life.

"What, you don’t have to piss like a son of a bitch?" he asked, still not looking at him now, but moving in and releasing the lock quickly and with a bare minimum of touch.  He didn’t wait for an answer, standing up and wiping his hands on his jeans like they’d been wet when they hadn’t.  "Go pee, Krycek.  I’m gonna fix some food."

"Thanks," Krycek murmured and Mulder practically flinched.

"Don’t thank me," he said roughly, and turned to go to the kitchen.

..........

Mulder ate his eggs and toast on the couch and Krycek ate his across the room on the floor.  They ate in silence except for the news broadcast that Mulder had on low.  A male reporter with plastic, golden-brown hair smiled into the camera and told a bad joke.  His female partner laughed patronizingly.  Krycek snorted quietly and Mulder nearly choked on a bite of egg.

He looked over to the still naked man on the floor with his dinner half eaten.  He had a lopsided smile on his face.  When he saw Mulder staring at him he murmured, "Sorry," and went back to eating.  Mulder continued to stare for a moment and then went back to eating himself.  But only or a few seconds and then he turned his attention back to Krycek.  He found himself watching how he ate...how he chewed...how he sat.  He held the fork in his left hand.

Mulder opened his mouth to say something.  It started as an order, but died on his tongue.  It changed into a request and that wilted even faster.  Why was this so hard?  Why was his heart racing?

"C’mere."

Krycek looked up in the middle of a bite of food and stopped chewing, just looking at Mulder in surprise.

"I said, c’mere," Mulder said with a sigh.

Slowly, Krycek unfolded his body and stood, bring his plate with him as he walked over to the couch.

Mulder stopped him.  "There.  Sit down.  On the floor."

Krycek lowered himself onto the floor next to the coffee table, a few feet from Mulder’s legs.

"Put your plate down," Mulder said, becoming more comfortable by the second.

Krycek set his plate on the table.

"Eat,"  Mulder said softly and with just the barest hint of a smile on his lips.

And Krycek did, bringing a fork full of egg to his mouth carefully.  Mulder went back to his own meal, watching the flickering of the TV in front of him and allowing Krycek to watch or not as he pleased. Together they ate until all the food was gone from their plates.

Without a word, Mulder got up and took his and Krycek’s plates to the kitchen, filled them with more of the scrambled eggs warming in the oven and added two more pieces of bread, this time just buttered but not toasted, onto their plates.  He felt exhilarated.

He sat back down, placing Krycek’s plate in front of him, and then turning his attention to the television again.  The newscast ended and Mulder picked up the remote, chewing and changing channels.  He got to Comedy Central and was about to move on...but the memory of Krycek’s aborted laugh tickled his mind and caused him to stop.  He set the remote down.  And he waited.  Not wanting to hope.  Not wanting to want.

"I’m not a pussy.  You’re a pussy, pussy," the gnome told Cartman and Krycek immediately started choking.

Mulder looked over, almost reaching out, feeling his hand twitch and lift a little.  "You all right?" he asked, not quite expecting that response.

"Uh, yeah," replied Krycek, swallowing wide-eyed.  He nodded, cleared his throat, and kept watching.  Mulder turned his attention back to the screen thinking that this might not be the best idea.

He picked up the remote just when Cartman retorted, "Little pussy gnome, don't call me a pussy.  Pussy gnome," under his breath.

"Haaa!!"  Krycek burst out abruptly and then silenced himself.  He glanced over at Mulder who was now looking at him with wide, curious eyes.  "Sorry," Krycek apologized, lowering his lashes.  Mulder watched as they didn’t stay lowered and Krycek looked up at the TV once more, his eggs all but forgotten.

"Someone mind telling me why we’re following this little pecker?" Cartman asked the other kids.

Krycek let out a whooping laugh that almost scared Mulder.  And this time he could only quiet it back down to some barely controlled, choking giggles.  Mulder felt himself watching Krycek more than the show.

The gnomes launched into their underwear stealing campaign and Krycek lost it again, this time laughing so hard he teared up.  And he couldn’t seem to stop. Mulder looked on in awe.   Krycek dissolved into a fit of giggles, but then when something else funny happened, he exploded in a roar of laughter again.

And Mulder started to laugh, too.  He turned back to the TV and a cart full of underpants landed on Kenny and killed him.  Kyle exclaimed heatedly, "They killed Kenny!  You bastards!"  And Krycek nearly fell over laughing.

Mulder looked at him, amazed.  When Krycek got himself under control, he noticed that Mulder was staring at him again.  He stifled his hysteria and lowered his eyes again.

"What’s the matter, Krycek, never seen South Park before?" Mulder asked, trying to control the smile that wanted to take over his face.

Krycek looked over at Mulder sheepishly and shook his head.  "No, I haven’t."  He sobered, looking at Mulder, but then someone said something revolting and over-the- top again on the show and as Mulder continued to look into Krycek’s eyes, he saw the other man start to crumble, his bottom lip trembling and his eyes tearing up again.

"I’m sorry," Krycek said again just before he melted back into hysterical laughter.

Mulder said it to himself quietly, wonderingly.  "It’s okay."

............

It was after one in the morning and Mulder had been watching TV with Alex Krycek for hours.  It had been tense and weird and surreal at times.  After the South Park episode was over, an uncomfortable resurgence of awkwardness settled between them.  And it stayed there to some extent the rest of the night.  It was there now.

Mulder was finding it more and more difficult to pretend that they could do this.  That he could just have this and not feel like he’d somehow helped pull the trigger.

Krycek had not tested Mulder.  Had only taken what he’d been given and not pushed for more.  Mulder hated him for that.  He hated not knowing a fucking thing more about him in this moment than he had when the Brit had first summoned him into the glare of the headlights. His boy...

Mulder hated that he sat there naked and didn’t ask for more of the coffee Mulder had let him drink out of a mug.  Didn’t complain about having to watch the replay of the Duke/Arizona State game.

He hated that he never fought back when he hit him.

"You’ve never hit me."

Mulder held his breath, wondering why he said it, but knowing in the static anxiousness of waiting for his answer that he knew exactly why.

Krycek didn’t even look puzzled.  But he did look like he was worried about giving a reply.  Mulder looked at him and raised his eyebrows, expectantly.  Krycek looked down.

"No."

Mulder swallowed and summoned the courage to push forward.  "Why?"

Krycek’s eyes danced over the floor.  Mulder watched his mind tumble toward a solution.  The truth?  Or something he’d make up to keep Mulder from going into a rage?  The age old dilemma caught high in Mulder’s chest and ached.

"I don’t want to hurt you,"  Krycek answered simply, glancing up for only a moment.

Mulder felt his body get heavy, felt the old hurt settle in his heart once more.  "Then why have you?" he asked, voice thickened.  Krycek opened his mouth. Paused.  Closed it and swallowed.  When he opened it again and looked at Mulder, Mulder stopped him. "Nevermind."  Then a whisper, "I don’t want to know."

Then Mulder stood.  And he walked around the table, around behind Krycek, facing the bedroom.  He didn’t turn around when he spoke again.  "C’mon."

After a pause, he felt Krycek stand, and then Mulder walked away from him, trusting that he would follow, as he turned off the living room light and entered the bedroom.  When he was standing beside the bed, he spoke again without turning around.

"I want you to sleep on the floor.  You can leave in the middle of the night.  You can kill me in my sleep. It doesn’t matter."  He turned to look at the man he’d been calling his enemy and who now...who now he knew he couldn’t kill, arrest, ever truly hate, or even hit again.  And all because he’d heard him fucking laugh. He looked at Krycek, into his eyes, and told him plainly, sadly, "I won’t make you.  Either leave...or lie down."

He watched with wary eyes as Krycek took another step into the room.  And then another.  His breath caught as he saw him advancing like a cat, rather than taking the offered out he was given.  He couldn’t quite believe it as Krycek lowered himself to the ground, all the while looking into Mulder’s eyes, and then curled up on his side, hands pillowing his head.

Mulder swallowed, looking down, not believing his eyes, not knowing what to do, what to say.  He watched as Krycek closed his eyes, displaying his own trust, offering something to trust in return.  Mulder felt the sting behind his eyes and noticed his hands had begun to tremble.  He stopped them by stripping his shirt off over his head.  Krycek’s breathing changed, but he didn’t open his eyes.

Dumbfounded, Mulder crawled into his bed, still in his jeans, and settled beneath the covers.  He closed his eyes before tears could build in them, telling himself that just because he’d stayed now didn’t mean he’d be there in the morning.  Didn’t even mean there’d be another morning for Mulder.  He told himself again that it didn’t matter.  It was mostly true.  His world wasn’t his anymore.  He laid there still and tense and tried desperately to fall into the abyss of sleep.

.........

He woke suddenly and his first response was to roll over and peer over the side of the bed to see if Krycek was still there.

He wasn’t.

Mulder sucked in a breath and held it, willing himself not to fucking lose it, not to fucking scream and cry and find his gun and blow his fucking brains out.  He was gone.  He’d told him he could go.  And he left.  He was just...gone.

When he finally had to release the breath, it came out as a loud, hopeless sob.  He pulled in another agonizing breath and couldn’t control the same violent, horrible soul-shattering tears that had begun the second the realization had sunk in.

Gone.  Fucking gone.  Mulder looked down at his upturned hands as though he’d just been holding him and he’d slipped away like a ghost.  And he cried.  He cried because he knew only now what he wanted from Alex Krycek, and it wasn’t answers.  It wasn’t excuses or apologies or a punching bag or even his father back from the dead.  He didn’t want any of it.  He just wanted HIM.  Just the man.  Here.  With him.  And he was just.  Fucking.  Gone.

It was then that Mulder heard the toilet flush.  One last sob wrenched from his lungs.  And then he froze. It hit him full force that Alex Krycek had not, in fact, left.  And that he, Mulder, had fallen completely apart thinking that he had.

He heard the water turn on in the bathroom just before his ears started to ring and all other sound faded away.

Still here.  Still here.  And he was a SLAVE to that. It was more than his mind could wrap around.  It made him too sick for his stomach to roil.  It broke him too hard for him to cry.  It scared him too bad to run. And so he sat on the bed, vision narrowing to a small bit of carpet, breath halting...shallow.  Heart broken, put back together again, and then exploded into a million pieces.

Something moved out of the corner of his eye.  He didn’t blink and couldn’t look.  If it was Krycek, he was seeing him like this, and there was nothing Mulder could do.  The ringing got louder.  He became light- headed.  He felt his face wet with tears but couldn’t lift a hand to wipe the wetness away.

As if summoned on that thought, he felt a presence by his side.  Heard the ringing turn into sharp, chaotic buzzing sounds.  Then there was a face in front of his, getting in the way of his piece of carpet.  He stared as if he could see through to it, stay connected with it.  It was the only thing holding him in his body right now.

And then he felt something.  On his face.  His cheek. His skin felt thick and it tingled where the thing was.

Gone.  He was gone.

Not gone.  Right here.  Right here.

"I’m right here, Mulder, look at me," the far away voice seemed to say.  It sounded like his name at least.  He almost wanted to look at the face now taking up his entire field of vision.  He felt the tingle in his face become warmth.  And then he knew what the thing was.  A hand.  Alex Krycek’s hand.  And his fingers were brushing away his tears.

He wanted to say no.  He wanted to push his hand away. He wanted to disappear.

"Mulder, look at me,"  Krycek whispered urgently.

He wanted to ask why.  He wanted to do it...so wanted to see him, feel him.  Here.  Not gone.  Right here.

"I’m here.  Mulder.  God, Mulder, please look at me. Come back to me."  The voice got clearer.  "Please." And then all the ringing stopped.  He could breathe again and every time he did, it hurt.  Fucking Christ, he needed him.  It made him sick, but that was it.  The bottom line.  He needed Krycek.   Every moment he continued to let the other man stroke away his tears was a defeat.  And a salvation.

"Mulder?" Krycek asked, wiping across his cheek with his thumb.  Mulder blinked.  Krycek’s other hand came up and he cupped his face, sifted through his hair. "Mulder..." he whispered.  Mulder blinked again.

Every feather-light touch burned.  Every second, Mulder wished he could go back and refuse his gift.  Because this was no gift.  It was a curse.  He hadn’t gained a ‘boy’.  He’d lost himself.   Krycek stroked through Mulder’s hair.  And Mulder let him.  Because it felt phenomenal.  Nothing had ever felt better.  And the physical pleasure was all he had now that he had nothing else.  And if Krycek took that away...

Mulder closed his eyes.

"Mulder.  What happened?"

Mulder shuddered as Krycek’s left hand caressed lightly behind his right ear.

"Here, lie down.  Lie back,"  Krycek said softly and it sounded so good that he complied, lying back into the mattress and letting Krycek help move him up the bed. "I think you’re in shock," he said, brows furrowed in concern.  He started to draw the blankets up under Mulder’s chin, but Mulder stopped him with a tiny whispered word.

"No..."

Krycek’s hands froze, the blanket lifted up off Mulder’s torso.  "No blanket?"

Mulder shook his head, the effort like climbing a steep hill.  He forced his next word out, swallowing what was left of his pride and hoping Krycek would recognize some semblance of his old, domineering self.  That he would give him that.

"You."

Krycek stood over him looking confused for a moment.  A moment in which Mulder almost cried he was so miserable anticipating the rejection.  But realization settled over Krycek’s features.  And the fact that he looked more than a little nervous was a balm to Mulder’s shattered sense of what was true in his world.

Krycek threw the covers off in silence and Mulder looked down his body, shivering slightly and feeling each second of no touch as years.

And then Krycek crawled up over him.  Mulder was forced to look up into his face.  His beautiful, looming face...as he laid himself on top of him, resting his elbows at the sides of his head, holding Mulder’s face in his hands.  Their bodies aligned, chest to chest, and Krycek’s naked crotch settled in against Mulder’s clothed one.  Krycek cocked his head to the side, investigating this changed man under him it seemed and Mulder had to close his eyes it was so like being psychically read.

But the warmth was so good.  The weight.  The proximity.  Krycek’s hot skin and his hot breath, the movement of his body as he breathed, as he stroked Mulder’s hair and face.

"Like this?" Krycek asked, the concern evident in his gravelly voice.

"Shut up," Mulder whispered.  He felt Krycek take it in and slide into the next moment easily, without attachment to the last.  He felt him shift and situate himself more comfortably, felt the swollen length of his semi-erect cock nestle next to his soft one and that subtle aligning of their flesh caused Mulder’s cock to surge to life.

"It’s okay, Mulder,"  Krycek said soothingly and it made Mulder want to smack him in the face.  It made him wish it weren’t unthinkably impossible to wrap his own arms around him.  He ached he wanted it so bad.  He gripped the sheets instead.  "Whatever you need," Krycek murmured.

He needed the last year of his life back again.  He wanted to be able to do this right, and that could never, ever happen.  This would always be them.  The tragic realization that your hate has turned to love and it will never have the chance at life because when it was hate it hated too much.

Krycek snuck his right arm under Mulder’s body, cupping his shoulder blade and laid his head on Mulder’s chest, scooting down slightly.  Mulder closed his eyes.  He let the silence drag into long minutes, maybe an hour. He couldn’t tell when he went to sleep, and he couldn’t tell if he was dreaming when he dreamed, because nothing seemed more dream-like than reality.

............

He woke at dawn, the light barely hinting at itself, a lavendar-grey suggestion against the inside of his eyelids.  And Alex Krycek was draped over him like a spent lover.  Pressed up against his right side.  Hand on his chest.  Head on shoulder.  Leg thrown over and between his.  And his own left hand was on Krycek’s back.

Mulder released a quiet, indulgent sigh.  He was finally touching him.  Just touching him.  Without violence and accusations.  It was incredible.

Fingers brushed against his skin once and he stopped himself from gasping at the light, unexpected touch. He couldn’t tell if Krycek was awake or sleeping still, and he didn’t open his eyes to find out.  He felt his whole body come alive under the other man’s body, though, as a complete awareness settled over him.  He dissolved into all the little places Krycek’s body was touching his own.  He deepened his breathing just to feel Krycek move with it, just to get his fingers to shift a quarter of an inch across his chest, just to feel how it brought his nipple closer to the other man’s mouth.  Still, he kept his eyes shut.

Mulder laid there breathing...waiting for Krycek to awaken...for a spoken word or even a shift in sleep that would change things, end this.  But nothing happened.  Krycek’s weight was solid and heavy against his side and across his chest.

Mulder took another deep breath and became very aware of his own hand on Krycek’s back.  Just under his shoulder blade.  How warm and how strong the body under his hand felt.  Mulder breathed in slowly and then held it.  And he very achingly gently and slowly, brushed his thumb across Krycek’s back and around to his side.

He waited.  Expecting Krycek to startle awake.  But there was nothing.  Nothing but the otherworldly rush of being able to touch him.  And so he let out his breath, eyes trained closed, so badly wanting to see the man on top of him, but feeling so much safer in the purplish dark of his own mind...and he stroked his thumb back across Krycek’s skin.

Incredible.  The smallest touch set his heart racing and his cock started to fill quickly with blood, throbbing against his leg inside his jeans.  He did it again, tracing the path he had before, so slow...not wanting to alert Krycek to the fact that he was being caressed.  He felt the soft skin of his back turn into the softer skin of his side and then felt just the edge of his hard chest.  His next breath was shuddering. The power was fucking exquisite.

And then he felt Krycek’s breath flow quickly out between his lips and across his overly warm skin.  As though he’d been holding it.   Mulder allowed his lips to part, his eyelids stretching over his eyes with the desire to open and see what he was touching, but he wouldn’t let himself just yet.  The anonymity, artifice or not, was empowering.  And he shifted under Krycek, fitting the other man’s leg more securely between his, so that the strong thigh was pressed against his growing erection.  Krycek’s head turned and his open mouth caressed Mulder as he breathed, shallowly now, but quiet.

Mulder felt like devouring him, the urge animalistic and raw and potent.  But he breathed it back.  He shifted his strokes closer to Krycek’s chest, moving his hand slowly and subtly so that he could reach the very outside of his nipple.  He didn’t touch it...just came right to the edge before retreating in a smooth, teasing stroke. Even when Krycek’s breath hitched and came out a quivering almost-whine, Mulder just let the smallest triumphant smile grace his lips, acknowledged that his cock went harder than granite...and kept stroking.

After two...five...eight more passes of Mulder’s thumb on Krycek’s chest, he finally, slowly, let the pad of his thumb lightly rub over the tight nub and felt Krycek jerk against him once, his cock mashing against Mulder’s hip, before melting back into repose.  Mulder took his thumb away for a moment, stifling his own urge to massage his cock against Krycek’s leg, just letting it throb there against the other man, and waiting until Krycek was totally relaxed again.  Then he pressed his thumb down on his nipple hard, circling it slowly, and Krycek moaned into his chest, his lips vibrating on his flesh.

Fucking unreal.  Mulder allowed himself a near silent sigh, his head tilting back on the pillow, body stretching against the other man’s luxuriously.  He relaxed the pressure on Krycek’s nipple, leaving it with a tiny flick and eliciting another small moan. The fight to keep his eyes shut was now maddening, but also, in a way, addictive.  It felt so fucking good to stay like this, pretending...escalating...but not looking at him, not truly acknowledging him, or even really himself.  It was too good.  He couldn’t leave it just yet.

Instead he found Krycek’s nipple blindly again with eager fingers and pinched it, at the same time sneaking his right hand in and laying it surreptitiously against Krycek’s back, holding him in close, unable to wiggle away from the tortuous touch.  Krycek jerked and Mulder increased the pressure.  Krycek’s head lifted away from his chest and he could feel him breathing fast and aroused through his open mouth.  He couldn’t help but smile.  As he then pinched tighter.

"Ahgod..."  Krycek gasped out a choked cry, and Mulder let his breath out in a rush, twisting his nipple now and gritting his teeth, the sound of the other man’s aroused voice ratcheting up his own arousal to the point where he couldn’t stand staying still any longer. Mulder started thrusting his hips up into Krycek’s thigh and pulling and twisting the man’s nipple in earnest, grunting himself now as Krycek whined and cried and gripped his shoulder tightly, just riding it out until Mulder finally released him.

Mulder took no time though to let Krycek catch his breath.  He flipped them both over quickly and roughly so that Krycek was lying on his back beneath him. Mulder buried his face in his neck, biting and breathing and licking as he ripped his jeans open one handed, all his weight resting on his left arm and Krycek’s shocked body as he worked his pants down his thighs and finally off all together, throwing them to the side before jabbing his hand underneath Krycek’s lower back and holding his body in close while he started to hump.

Mulder’s left hand gripped Krycek’s hair as he rubbed their cocks together and they both groaned, Krycek up to the ceiling and Mulder into the side of Krycek’s neck.  Mulder slid his hand down to Krycek’s ass and squeezed hard as he thrust against him.  He had to grit his teeth again to keep from doing it too hard and hurting them both with his out of control passion.  But it felt too good to be true, pinning Krycek down with his body and marking him as owned.  And still with his eyes squeezed shut tight.

He felt the night melt away and a new power take hold inside him, a new kind of control.  He felt the sheet come untucked at its corners from Krycek’s pulling at it, heard the desperate, inarticulate cries, felt Krycek’s thighs spread for him wider, felt the hard, hot cock against his own, bumping it, felt the smooth asscheek in his hand tighten with Krycek’s own clumsy attempt to fuck himself against Mulder.  He growled against the other man’s neck.  And then he stopped.

He let go of Krycek’s hair with his left hand and slid his right around to stroke up Krycek’s torso.  He took hold of Krycek’s arm, sliding up his tricep, over his elbow, until it was over Krycek’s head.  He skipped over the man’s wrist, avoiding the still tender area and took his hand in his.  Then he did the same with his other arm, until they were laid out with Mulder completely covering Krycek’s body with his own, fires blazing where their skin touched, Krycek’s cock weeping against his, the heads kissing, wetting.  Mulder waited for a moment, holding Krycek’s hands together above his head with both of his own.  He breathed against his neck, brushed his pliant lips against his earlobe. Then he opened his eyes to hooded slits and whispered.

"Grab the headboard."  He felt Krycek shiver and groan, and he let go of his hands.  As Krycek obeyed and took a tight grip on the wooden slats, Mulder planted his hands on the bed and slid down the man’s body a little so that his lips hovered over the nipple he had taunted earlier.  Now he saw it, close and hard and ready for his mouth.  He licked his lips.  And then he licked Krycek’s nipple and his eyes closed again as the man under him gasped.  He peeked up to see Krycek’s eyes squeezed tightly shut as his head thrashed on the pillow and his grip tightened.  He smiled and then sucked the nub into his mouth and worked it with his tongue.

He’d only ever been with a woman and he hadn’t thought doing this to another man would be anything like the same experience.  And it wasn’t.  The power he felt at making Alex Krycek writhe under the assault of his mouth was beyond anything he’d ever imagined.  The groans were deeper, the reaction more violent, more base, and Mulder’s reaction mirrored all of it, answering the throaty groans with deep, animalistic groans of his own.  He bit down harder than he ever could with a woman and Krycek growled loudly.  Mulder felt the sound rocket through his cock and he felt like growling himself because not only was this not a woman crying and sighing under him like he was used to...it wasn’t just any man he was making sound this way, do these things.  It was Alex Krycek he was driving completely fucking insane.

Mulder lifted his head, breathing hard, holding himself just an inch or two above the other man’s body.  He glanced up at Krycek’s tense, slightly distressed features.  Then he flitted his eyes closed and pressed his lips to his chest, first on the hard, round pectoral muscle, then the sternum.  His lips tingled whenever they touched his body.  They became dry and salty with Krycek’s taste.  He found himself getting lost in trying to kiss as much of Krycek as he could, feeling the muscles jump here, and when he bit there, a gasp...lick there, a sigh.  It was all such an awesome experiment.  He felt like he could keep at it for an hour, just teasing Krycek’s sensitive chest...and now his ribs.  But then the other man spoke.  He almost didn’t hear.

"Don’t...."   It was a stressed whisper, and Mulder looked up to see his eyes shut, his lashes...moist. His biceps bulged with the tension of gripping the bars.

Mulder felt his heart pound excitedly in his chest. Don’t what, Krycek?  Don’t kiss instead of hit you? Don’t make you feel good?  Mulder allowed a small smile, his lips hovering over his belly now.

"No talking," he said devilishly, lowering his mouth to the taut stomach under him and searing wet, biting kisses into the salty-sweet flesh.

Krycek groaned, head tossing to the side again, one foot pounding the bed in agitation.  Mulder just kept kissing across his stomach, licking into his navel languidly, dipping in and then retreating to travel to his side, sucking at him, Krycek still dutifully holding the headboard even as he writhed and tried to get away from Mulder’s persistent mouth.

Mulder kissed down to his hipbone, laving it gently, and then leaving wet kisses along his thigh.  He settled one hand on Krycek’s other leg, as he licked and kissed back up his hip just to the side of his massive erection.

"No..."  Krycek cried, trying to cover his face with his arm without releasing his hold.  "No, Mulder... Please...  Don’t do this."

Mulder lifted his head, watching Krycek throw his arm off of his face and flex his hands against the slats. And then he watched a tear squeeze out of the corner of Krycek’s eye.  He almost felt bad for what he was about to do.

"Look at me," he demanded smoothly and he watched Krycek’s wet, deep green eyes open and find him hovering between his legs.  Their eyes met and the contact was almost painful to Mulder.  He made himself hold it.  His heart was ready to explode out of his chest and he willed his voice not to shake as he spoke. "Shut up, Alex."

And then he lowered his mouth to Alex Krycek’s cock and sucked.

"Ohshiiaahhhhh!!!"  Krycek yelled, his whole pelvis coming up off the bed, his dick pushing past Mulder’s lips and into his mouth making him gag briefly before he pulled off a little and then Krycek’s hips lowered back to the bed.

Jesus*FUCK*!!!  Mulder felt like he was going to come. He felt restored to all his power.  He felt magnificent, high, so goddamned fucking fantastic!  He slurped off of Alex’s cock and groaned open-mouthed as he tongued the head enthusiastically, brows knit, eyes closed in rapture.  Perfection.  This was it.  Sucking Krycek’s cock and making him make that noise...they were born to do this.  All the hitting, all the fighting, all the hurt...  It was all to get here and experience this.  As he stretched his mouth open to suck his shaft into his mouth again and Krycek cried out once more, he knew it even more.

"Nuh...  Nuh...  Ohgodmulder..."

Mulder hummed around the cock in his mouth, amazed that he was actually doing this with another man...blown the fuck away that he was doing this to Krycek...and that it was so exquisitely good.   His hands roamed aimlessly over Krycek’s legs and stomach and chest, just trying to touch as much of him as possible.  He didn’t know what he was doing.  He had no plan.  Just touch.  Just taste.  And after all of this time with Krycek existing in his life, in his apartment, quiet and enigmatic, to have him like this!  Crying and moaning and cursing and on the skinny edge of control...  He hadn’t realized how much he wanted this, how sad and wrong and empty it had been before now. Was this here all along?  Just waiting to be his?

Mulder was so caught up in the experience he almost missed the subtle change in Krycek’s voice.

"GonnacomeMulderno.  Gonnacomecomecomenoooo!"

Mulder opened his eyes and saw Krycek’s upper body surge up off the bed, wild eyes beseeching his.  He took one last long suck and then smiled above Krycek’s glistening cock.  He watched the other man breathing erratically for a moment before he spoke softly, the power rushing his body like a drug.

"Lie back down," he ordered, and Krycek did, looking relieved.  "Let go," he added and watched Krycek’s grip loosen and his arms lower back down.  He didn’t wait even a moment.  Mulder took hold of Krycek’s shoulder and threw him over onto his stomach, using as much brute strength as he could muster as well as the element of surprise to get him rolled over quickly before sliding his own body back down on top of the other man.

His cock slid up between the cheeks of Krycek’s ass. Mulder took hold of his arms, feeling their sweat slickened bodies coming together perfectly.   His lips were at Krycek’s ear.   "Can’t come till I do," he murmured, smiling against him and starting to slide his cock against Krycek’s ass.  Krycek bit his lip, closing his eyes tightly again and another fat tear rolled down his face.  Mulder watched it, still moving, knowing Krycek wasn’t crying because he was told he couldn’t come yet, but because he knew Mulder would make him come eventually.  As Mulder smoothly stroked himself through the intimate valley between Krycek’s hard, pale cheeks, against his tight little asshole over and over, he knew why Krycek was crying, knew why this wasn’t okay with him.  The violence was all he knew.  It’s all he’d ever known.  He had no idea how to be with a Mulder that actually wanted his pleasure rather than his pain.  And the kindness strangely hurt him in a way the cruelty never did.

Well.  He was just going to have to get over that.

Mulder let go of one strong arm to stroke his fingers through Krycek’s hair, pulling gently as he thrust his cock gently as well.

"Alex," he whispered, lips at Krycek’s ear again, eyes closing.

"No..."  he whimpered, sadly, almost strangled.

Mulder thrust harder once and then stilled.  "You’re my boy, Alex."  His hand sifted softly through the dark brown hair, petting.  "You’re mine.  No one else’s. Not anymore."  He kissed the wet trail the tear had made then.  "Mine."

And he started a slow undulating thrusting again that had him groaning and once more closing his eyes, leaving Alex to deal with it one way or another.  He felt the man beneath him start to shake with barely controlled sobs.

He turned his head and kissed down Krycek’s neck to his shoulder, keeping his cock sliding at a slow, even pace as Krycek’s body trembled as he cried.  He couldn’t help that rocking Alex Krycek’s world felt pretty damned good even as he tried to calm and relax him back into the experience with the tender rocking of his body.  Still, it was feeling too good, both breaking through the silent, hard wall he himself had helped Krycek put up, and the extraordinary feeling of nearly fucking him.

Fucking him...  Oh God, it sounded so damned good and so frightening and so...inevitable.  His cock certainly wanted to...was so hard and thick and ready it almost hurt.  Mulder slid it out from between Krycek’s asscheeks and slipped his hand between instead, marveling that it felt good there.  Warm and moist from sweat and...inviting.  He found Krycek’s hole with his fingers and Krycek inhaled sharply, tensing.

Mulder eased himself back down closer so he could whisper in Krycek’s ear again.  "Relax," he said soft and deep.  And Mulder felt him gradually let go.  When he did, Mulder began tenderly circling the clenched opening with his middle finger.  Krycek started to tremble again, and without a word, Mulder took his finger away and moved his hand down to one leg, shooing it with a gentle flick of the backs of his fingers against Krycek’s inner thigh so that it would open wider for him.  Krycek obeyed and he tapped the other leg, commanding silently that he open himself and become more vulnerable.  Krycek complied and Mulder slid his finger between Krycek’s now slightly separated cheeks and touched the puckering hole again.

He settled in, upper body on top of Alex, hips and legs pressed into his side as he manipulated his asshole until it relaxed enough to allow Mulder’s middle digit to push inside.  He worked it smoothly in up to his hand where he curled the rest of his fingers in and out of the way.  He felt Krycek’s ass close tight around his finger and hug it firmly.  Mulder ran the fingers of his other hand back into Krycek’s thick hair, scratching along his scalp and closing into a loose fist as he started fucking him with his long middle finger, slowly loosening the way for his still aching cock.

Krycek moaned and made a fist around the corner of Mulder’s pillow.   Mulder watched his face.  Watched how he grimaced and it looked like pain and Mulder almost stopped, but then it would relax, the creases around his eyes disappearing and teeth ungritting, lips becoming soft as he’d moan again.  And then it looked like ecstasy.  And Mulder moaned, too, eyes flitting closed as he laid his cheek against Krycek’s back while he thrust his finger in and out and moved his own hips against Krycek’s body, his cock trying to feel it already.  Fucking Krycek...  He was going to fuck Krycek.  He felt dizzy and had to remember to breathe deeply and slowly again.

He lifted his head off the other man, still finger fucking him lazily, and opened his bedside table drawer, rummaging as quietly as possible for the condoms and small bottle of lube he knew were there. He hoped the expiration date was still good.  He found the box and fumbled one out, and grabbed for the nearly full bottle of lube, not bothering to close the drawer again, too intent on the man lying at his side, panting.

Mulder withdrew his finger and moved so that he was straddling Krycek’s hips, his thighs going hard with holding him up away from the other man as set the bottle down and ripped the packet open.

Krycek’s eyes opened and his head lifted slightly.  He turned his eyes to Mulder looming over him, cock standing up nearly to his belly.  He looked down at the condom in Mulder’s hands and whimpered.  Mulder let a lazy, lopsided smile dangle at his lips as he smoothed it over his cock slowly, watching Krycek’s eyes fill with arousal and uncertainty...a little fear.  Maybe a lot.

It occurred to Mulder as he slathered his cock with lube, then dropped his hands to Krycek’s ass and began squeezing and rubbing the hard, smooth muscles appreciatively, both working himself up into a heightened level of anticipation and trying to calm Krycek’s tensing body so that the fuck would hurt as little as possible, that he should be the one who was afraid.  He was the one who was about to fuck a man for the first time.   He was the one about to change his relationship with Alex Krycek irrevocably.  But he wasn’t scared.  As much as maybe he should be...he wasn’t.  He was...ecstatic, ready, so excited he could hardly breathe anymore.   He closed his eyes, unable to stop touching the amazing body beneath his.  He felt right. The man under him felt right.  Doing this...was *right*.

Krycek whimpered under him and Mulder opened hooded eyes to peer down at the reality of the man beneath him.  He repositioned himself so that he was yet again lying atop Krycek, his weight leaned to one side on his left arm, so that his right hand could grasp his cock. He was nearly shaking as he lined himself up with Krycek's opening.  He merely tickled around the hole, letting Krycek feel him and know he wasn't going to just shove himself inside brutally.  That even though part of him wanted nothing more than to pin him down and brand him with a hot cock up his ass in one swift, decisive thrust, he breathed it down, knowing he wanted this to be what it had been up to this point, something different than he'd even given Krycek before...than he'd ever, himself, taken.

Mulder lowered his parted lips to the damp skin of Krycek's back and kissed him.  And then he breathed into his skin, "Not gonna hurt you, Alex."

He circled his dick at Krycek's asshole coaxing it open to receive the head.  He took several moments, not rushing, as much enjoying the teasing feel of Krycek's hot, soft, vulnerable skin against his cockhead as letting the man under him get used to the idea that Fox Mulder was going to be fucking him.

Mulder smiled at the thought.  He felt...he couldn't name it.  This thing that was curving his lips, squeezing tight in his chest one minute and then breaking wide open the next.  He guessed it was freedom.  From who they were.  From anything having to do with what they had previously meant to each other. Nothing would ever be the same now.

On that realization, Mulder felt the head of his cock pop past the tight muscle and heard Krycek cry out under him.

"Ahhh!" Mulder cried out abortively in answer to Krycek's shout of surprise and possibly discomfort, he wasn't sure.  Mulder took several fast, panting breaths through his open mouth, the desire to push all the way in right this fucking second nearly too great.

Then, still breathing like he was in a triathlon, he looked down at where his shaft was barely inside Alex Krycek and had to clamp his hand around the base of it to stave off the now overpowering urge to just COME! He shut his eyes on it and just waited.

When Mulder opened his eyes, it was to find Krycek looking back at him with an unreadable look on his face.

"Okay?" Mulder found himself asking breathlessly.

Krycek's lashes fluttered as he blinked rapidly.  And then he nodded.  "Yeh..."  He swallowed and turned his forehead back down into the pillow as he merely nodded again.  Mulder thought he heard a whispered yes, this one sounding more a surrender than the first, gasping one.  It made his cock fill with pride, with a rush of blood, hardening and lengthening him even more such that he pushed a little farther into Krycek's ass without having decided to thrust.  And it felt so goddamned good he *did* thrust then.  Slowly. Steadily.  He slid inside.  Inch by aching inch.

"Nnnnnnfuuuuhhh..." he groaned on a sigh as he slid home.

"Nnnnaaahh!" Krycek yelled on the rush of his expelled breath, and then he whimpered as Mulder settled in against him, shifting his weight onto his right elbow as well as his left now.

"Ohshit..." Mulder breathed, lips moving on Krycek's back sensuously.  He stayed still for a moment, feeling his dick throb inside the other man.  Krycek whimpered again softly and Mulder lifted his head, looking at him.

"Hurt?" he asked, unsure if he could stop now no matter the answer.

"Yessss," Krycek hissed, gripping and regripping the pillow.  "It's good," he breathed something more than a whisper and Mulder felt it tingle along his skin at a frequency that revved up his entire body from brain to balls.  "Mulder'sgood," he finished on a groan and Mulder answered it.

"Unnngod..."  And Mulder pulled his hips back, dragging his long cock about halfway out before pushing smoothly back inside.  Their twin grunts echoed off Mulder's apartment walls.

Mulder fucked him slowly.  He wanted to memorize what it felt like to be inside Alex Krycek.  He cursed that it felt like his brain was actually melting.  The thought made him smile, as with eyes closed, he rocked his cock into and out of him and his sweat-shined body slid easily across the horrible, wonderful, impossible, perfect, wretched man beneath him.

He leaned down, encouraged by the desperate moans dragged from Krycek's throat, and licked between his shoulder blades as he stroked into him.  He bit lightly at Krycek's shoulder as he ground against him.  He slid one hand down to his hip and held him, and he bit harder.

"Naaaah!" Krycek yelled, head turning to the side on the pillow.  Mulder pulled on his hip, adjusting him in even closer, titling his hips back a little more, squeezing, and groaning at the change in angle.

"OhAlex..." he breathed, head tilting back and eyes rolling behind closed lids.

Mulder started to move faster, the friction against his cock almost painful now.  He knew he wasn't going to last long.  That this would be over soon.  Unbidden, the spark of tears stung his eyes and his brow furrowed.  He carefully wedged his hand under Krycek and found his drooling cock, fisting it and squeezing, feeling reckless and letting the adrenaline guide him rather than the towering intellect he was purported to have.

He felt Krycek lift his hips, both driving him back into the cradle of Mulder's pelvis, impaling Mulder's cock impossibly deep in his ass, and giving Mulder room to jack him.

Mulder smiled against Krycek's neck and kissed him quickly behind the ear.  "Thanks," he whispered.  And then he started fucking earnestly, uninhibitedly, fast and dirty inside Krycek's now quite relaxed ass and pulling sloppily at Krycek's naked cock.

To Mulder's surprise and delight, Krycek started pushing back into him with his limited leverage, taking the fuck even a step further, making it even harder.

"Shit..."  Mulder grimaced.  "Alex, shit."

"Muh...Muldergodnoaaaaahhhhh!!!"  Krycek cried as he came in Mulder's hand and on Mulder's rumpled sheets.

Mulder followed him, his world narrowing to only the hot, tight tunnel squeezing his cock. "Aleh...ohffffffuuuuuuhhhh!!!"  He ground against Krycek's ass as he emptied himself on panting, gasping breaths, head thrown back, body quaking.

When he was done and couldn't hold his spent body up anymore, he let himself relax down fully onto Krycek's glistening body.  He let his cheek rest on his back. And he willed his cock to stay hard long enough to stay inside just a little longer.  Together they breathed. No post-orgasmic words were exchanged.  And Mulder was still on top of him until he had to pull out, holding the condom in place and then rising up off of Krycek completely to go take it off and toss it in the bathroom waste basket.

On his way out, he caught his own reflection.  He caught and held his own eyes.  Clear, green-brown, sparkling eyes.  Mulder let those eyes travel over the rest of his face, blushed to high color from the exertion of fucking Krycek.  He swallowed and trailed his eyes down his neck and chest, shiny with not-yet- dry sweat.  When was the last time he'd been sweaty from sex?  God, was it...Kristen?  He realized he could hardly remember even being with her.  And his face had not looked like it did now.  Certainly not his eyes. He'd been pale and sallow and exhausted after that, only wishing never to see her face again, never wishing to have to see Scully's face behind his eyes as he tried to fuck away the pain of her loss.

Not only was this not anything like that.  This was like nothing he'd ever felt before.  He looked...great. He chuffed a modest laugh at himself and wiped the beads of sweat from his brow.  He looked great...because he felt great.  Fucking Alex Krycek had made him feel like he was a goddamned god.

Mulder wiped his hand over his whole face before he could let himself smile.  Then he turned out the light and walked back into the bedroom. Krycek...Alex...still lay on his stomach, probably in a small puddle of his own cum.  Mulder's nose wrinkled involuntarily.

"Why don't you shower and I'll change those sheets," Mulder said into the otherworldly quiet and Krycek jumped and lifted his head.  Then he nodded and crawled gracefully off the bed.  Mulder watched, his eyes savoring every ripple of tired muscle, as Krycek stood and began to walk out without looking at Mulder.

Mulder reached out when he was almost past, stopping him with a hand across his upper abdominals, standing side by side.  He felt the other man's breath shuddering out of him and he watched his face in profile.

"Don't be long," he said softly, and then he left Krycek to stand in the middle of the bedroom or go shower as he would and started to strip the bed.  When he turned around to toss the extremely soiled sheet in the hamper, Krycek was gone and shortly Mulder heard the water turn on.

He resurrected some only slightly dusty forest green cotton sheets from the seldom visited linen closet and put on a new fitted and loose sheet.  Once that was done, however, he found he wasn't all together certain of how to proceed.  Stay naked, lie in the bed, and proposition Krycek for seconds upon his return?  Put on clothes and fix food?  His stomach rumbled at that one, but he settled his hands on his hips and looked at the newly made, previously debauched bed in thought.  Maybe they really ought to...talk.

It seemed like a more alien idea than actually having sex with him had.  Mulder swallowed and decided a combination of the second and third choices could be a good thing.  And maybe the first could come later if things went well, his lascivious brain supplied as an after-thought.

Mulder got clean boxer briefs and sweats for himself and put them on, deciding that a few layers would benefit the situation considerably and guard against steering away from the plan to put off a discussion with more mind-warping sex.  He desperately needed an unwarped mind, he knew, while at the same time he actually feared being clear.  What if in the cold light of day they both became what they had been before? What if, instead of Krycek lying to him now, he was just lying to himself?  There was really only one way to know.

He was on his way out when the thought occurred to him that he might not actually be capable of talking coherently to a naked Krycek anymore.  He went back and rummaged through his dresser drawers again, settling on a pair of grey sweats and throwing them across the foot of the bed.  He squelched the urge to straighten them out and walked out into the living room, hand raking through his hair, listening to the sound of Krycek's shower.

He really didn't feel like making breakfast.  Didn't want to eat anything he had in the apartment, nor prolong the inevitable by pretending to slave over a hot microwave with two frostbitten Swanson TV dinners while his brain gave him a thousand and one reasons not to talk...to just go back to the way things were and hope it was enough.

No.  He couldn't do that.  The need to get some things out on the table was like an itch he couldn't scratch by himself.  It was just under his skin.  It couldn't wait.  Not one more hour.

Mulder picked up the phone and dialed the number he'd long since memorized for Flip's Twenty-Four Hour Pizza Delivery and waited for the thickly accented answer.

"Ya."

"I'll take..."  Mulder stopped, realizing he didn't know what kind of pizza Krycek liked, realizing on the heels of that that he cared what kind of pizza Krycek liked.  "Uh...two large.  One pepperoni and uh..."  He gestured to the room in indecision, holding his breath. "Pineapple," he finally said, rolling his eyes at the strange choice, but sticking with it.

"An' th'other,"  the man prompted shortly.

"Extra cheese," he said, feeling his stomach lurch in hungry agony at the thought.

He finished the call and hung up, realizing he wasn't listening to water anymore.  His pulse quickened and he tried not to breathe too loud.  He sat on the edge of the couch, hands clasped to keep himself from pacing the floor like a maniac.  It felt like no time before Krycek emerged.  Still damp.  Still very naked.  He spotted Mulder right away and stopped, blinking. Mulder swallowed, letting his eyes travel the beautiful, long, pale body in front of him for a moment and wanting to say to hell with telling him he could wear clothes, but then he looked back at the other man's face...saw the escalating uncertainty there, and felt slightly chagrined.

"There're sweats on the bed."  Mulder tore his eyes away and looked down at the floor, suddenly nervous, his stomach turning with something other than hunger. "Put 'em on."

He heard Krycek's quiet footsteps and waited for him to dress.  He came back out moments later and Mulder motioned that he wanted him to sit on the couch as well.  Krycek hesitated, but then sat on the edge, like Mulder, and rested his hands seemingly casually in his lap.

Mulder sat back, pulling one leg up and resting his arm along the back of the couch.  It felt better to face him, to not cheat with sideways glances, but to give him his full attention unguardedly, a silent statement that this was really something.  He wasn't going to be made to eat off the floor or stand naked for Mulder's ocular pleasure.  This was nothing of the same and everything that was different.

"Alex," Mulder started, feeling the strange name roll off his tongue with a self-consciousness doubly thick and obvious than while they were in bed.

Krycek turned his head.  His lips were parted, but he didn't look relaxed.  He just waited for Mulder to continue or to prompt *him* to speak.

Mulder swallowed around the lump of nervous energy clotting his throat and spoke softly, forcing himself to look into Krycek's shifting gaze.  "Did I hurt you?"

With what he guessed from Krycek's expression were unexpected words, Krycek's eyes blinked up to his and they stared at one another for a moment that seemed more like an eon.  Then Krycek's lips turned up slowly and he dropped his eyes.  He shook his head and looked back up at Mulder, his eyes clearer now.  "No," was all he said.

Mulder shifted slowly on the couch, almost afraid that a quick movement would scare him away like a bird. "Good," he murmured, feeling his heart pound and feeling sure that Krycek would be able to see it if he looked down.  He held his next thought for a moment, fearing the lack of some kind of script or guidelines, but pushing ahead anyway.  "Did they...hurt you?" he asked pointedly, dropping his chin slightly.

It was Krycek's turn to swallow.  "You want to know if they..."

"If they...*hurt* you."  Mulder's voice had gone rougher, and he waited impatiently for whatever answer the man next to him had to give, cursing his lack of ability to just say it.

"You want to know if they raped me,"  Krycek stated matter-of-factly, in that gravelly tone that Mulder used to hate but now...

He took a breath, but before he could clarify or affirm, Krycek spoke up again.

"*They* didn't."  He dropped his own chin, searching Mulder's eyes now, trying to see, Mulder guessed, if he was understanding who They were.  He was.  He closed his eyes once in acknowledgement.  Krycek scooted back into the couch a little farther and continued.  "But I was...rented."  His voice held somehow a tinge both of bitterness and amusement.  Mulder's stomach flipped again and he wanted to close his eyes to hear the rest, but felt like he owed Krycek that much...his open eyes.

Krycek went on.  "Twice I was sent out.  The first...wasn't so bad."  He suddenly looked up at Mulder with widened eyes, looking like maybe he thought he'd over-stepped the bounds and was telling Mulder more than he wanted to know and in too casual a tone for a boy.

Mulder winced slightly.  "Go on, Alex."

"Well,"  he spoke again. "They were more into...watching me.  It was kind of easy really, I just thought of..."  He broke off once again, eyes darting to Mulder's, full of worry that he was saying too much. Mulder could have kicked him for not finishing, but then chided himself for being overly curious about something so disturbing that had happened to his once worst enemy.

"And the second?"  Mulder asked, already knowing he didn't really want to know.

"The second..."  Krycek started, face and body relaxing a little once again.  He peeked up at Mulder underneath long, thick lashes once and then continued talking to the middle of the living room floor.  "They hurt me," he stated simply, and Mulder looked away, nodding once, wanting at once for Krycek to spill all the details just so the random, horrible images *he* was thinking of would cease, but also dreading the continuation of his story in case what had actually happened was...Jesus, *worse*.  And God, Mulder had fucked his ass like he was doing him a *favor*.  He felt sick.

"I should have known...guessed," he said to Krycek, not looking at him.  "I shouldn't have...  I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"  Krycek whispered.

Mulder suddenly hated that he'd started this.  He didn't want to talk anymore.  Didn't want to know what he'd done.  Didn't want to feel bad.

"Mulder..."  Krycek began and stopped, probably at the crest-fallen look Mulder was now wearing.  "May I...?"

Mulder nodded slowly.  Why not let Krycek talk for a bit.  He certainly deserved some time to vent whatever he'd been dutifully holding in all these many days. What had he been?...kicked, punched, slapped, humiliated, accused, chained up, abused in multiple ways.  Oh and raped.

Krycek took a breath and Mulder waited for the inevitable.

"You're not like any Master I've ever had," he said cautiously.

Master.  Holy...  Krycek had called him...thought of him as...  Mulder felt the shock of intense desire stir up his insides.  Jesus.  He'd called him *Master*. Mulder's head reeled and his body pulsed with the power of it.  Had he felt this way all along?  Had he never been rebellious, even silently?  Had he always been ready to drop to his knees for Mulder?  When they were partners...?

"Mulder?" Krycek asked tentatively and Mulder shook himself out of the aroused stupor he'd been in, blushing slightly and hoping Krycek couldn't read minds.  He mulled over the actual statement.  Not like any other Master.  Essentially, it told him nothing, other than that he was different.  But better or worse he did not know.  Krycek went on.

"You're...not what I expected."

Well, that was certainly better, Mulder thought sourly. "What.  Did you expect," he intoned, suddenly almost too worn out to talk.

Krycek chuffed an amazed and bemused laugh, nothing like last night, and it made Mulder look up.  "Mulder," Krycek said in a halting whisper.  "I expected you to kill me."

Mulder kept his face mostly impassive, trying to stop his careening brain first before reacting to that revelation.  He couldn't begin to comprehend all the misassumptions he'd probably made about this man and what had really been between them since the Brit had made him his boy.  He had gotten so far as to wish he had a beer in front of him.  Or two or six.  When Krycek spoke once more and his next words floored Mulder even more.

"But instead you were kind."

Mulder's eyes widened and the word was out of its own accord.  "Kind?!"

Krycek's pretty perfect lips were graced with a small, impish smile and he answered, "Well, first you hit me some."

It was Mulder's turn to laugh humorlessly.  He could *joke* about that?  Who the hell was he anyway, Mulder found himself thinking, mouth now hanging open rather mindlessly.  He closed it and swallowed.

"When you think you're gonna die," Krycek elaborated, looking down at his hands now.  "A few punches and being chained to a radiator aren't so bad."

Mulder stared at him.  "What did they *do* to you, Krycek?" he asked in a strange, rather awed whisper before he even knew what he was going to say.

Krycek looked back up at him again.  "They didn't bandage my cuts."  Mulder dropped his eyes, unable to look at the man across from him for some reason now. "They didn't feed me scrambled eggs and coffee, or give me the dignity of showering or taking a piss by myself."

He paused and Mulder shook his head in disbelief.  He couldn't reconcile what he was hearing.  Was he actually saying he was grateful??

"They didn't go out late at night, out of their way, to a pricey sex shop halfway across town to buy me a beautiful steel collar so that my wrists wouldn't chafe anymore," he finished, weighting the words with emotion and meaning.  Mulder raised his eyes to Krycek's then. The words echoed through his blood, filling his body, and the guilt and feeling of excitement bubbling up inside him warred within his tightening chest.  And he wanted to do something in that moment that he hadn't even considered doing up to that point.  He wanted to kiss Krycek.

He actually felt his lips parting and his breath trembling out of him in agonizing readiness for it when the now loquacious Alex Krycek decided to keep talking.

"Shit, may I call you Mulder?" he asked suddenly, and Mulder had to shake himself out of a fantasy where he was taking Krycek into his arms and kissing him blind for half an hour.

"Yes," he said shortly, flashing on the sex they'd just had and how many times and how loudly he'd said, whined, moaned, and shouted his name.  His cock responded quite well to the memory and he swallowed, looking down.  He realized that for this Krycek to call him that anytime felt...beautiful.  He wanted to hear his name in that voice all the damned time.  "Yeah," he corrected, attempting a more casual, less I-was-about- to-dramatically-kiss-you-in-the-heat-of-the-moment- before-you-interrupted-me tone.  In his now more clear- headed state, Mulder realized that in Krycek's list of kindnesses and his other shorter list of cruelties, he still had not mentioned the sex.  Mulder needed to know in what category that fell.  It meant everything suddenly.

"Kruh," he started and stopped himself.  How much easier it was to know him as that.  To make him be that just by naming him so.  "Alex," he corrected and watched the other man swallow thickly.  "You said I didn't hurt you."

Alex nodded, looking too deeply into Mulder's eyes for it to be anything remotely comfortable.  Mulder opened his mouth to say something but didn't know how to make it sound like he wasn't either fishing for sexual compliments or asking his boy's permission to fuck his brains out again.

"The hard part has not been what you think, Mulder," Krycek said, saving him, and Mulder practically held his breath.  "It wasn't pain or your rage at me...  It was...not knowing if you were ever going to want...to do that to me," he finished, suddenly sounding out of breath and nervous.

Mulder's breath caught in his throat.  There was a long, heavy silence when they seemed to not be able to do anything but stare at one another.  Then Mulder moved in and went to place his hand on Krycek's thigh. There was a knock at the door and before Mulder could do or say anything, Alex had jumped up off the couch and was facing the door, his hand making a grab for the invisible gun at his side.

"I ordered pizza,"  Mulder said quickly and urgently, trying to calm the suddenly tightly strung man, the hand that had been reaching for him now held out as if to stop him if he decided to take the pizza boy out. "Alex, it's okay," he added when the other man didn't change his charged stance or relax in the slightest.

"What are you gonna do, take off your sweatpants and strangle him?" Mulder asked sardonically, but with a soft smile on his face to let Alex know the tease was just that.

Alex looked at him, and for a long moment it wasn't Alex.  It was Krycek, and he looked like he just *might* do that.

Mulder reached out and touched the elbow of the arm that was still frozen mid-reach for his gun.  "Alex. It's okay."

Alex blinked and then relaxed with a sigh.  "Sorry," he rasped and Mulder smiled.

"It's all right," he said.  And to make him feel better, he answered the door with his Sig tucked securely at his back.

.............

It was dark.  Both pizzas were gone.  All light had faded from the room except for the flash of the television.  Mulder and Alex sat on the couch as Mulder flipped stations.  He'd recently showered and was feeling and looking much cleaner, his hair still slightly damp from the incredibly brief towel dry he'd given it.

He was slightly ashamed now, but he'd been in a hurry to come out and see if Alex was still there or if he'd be gone.  With his hand on the doorknob he'd felt the black tendrils of panic that had paralyzed him just twenty-four hours before.

And then he'd made himself open it.  And he'd seen Alex, almost exactly as he had left him, perched lithely on the left side of the couch, finishing up the last of the pepperoni/pineapple.  Mulder had sighed and rejoined him, the awkward tension between them lingering after their aborted conversation before the pizza had arrived.

Mulder had not brought it up again.  Nor anything else really.  They'd just been watching TV like they had nothing better to do.

In a way it was nice.   To have Alex next to him, eating, drinking, asking to be excused to use the bathroom....  Someone to share his space with him, his warmth and salty-sweet smell there to be enjoyed silently, the spatters of meaningless conversation that Mulder would initiate.  It felt good enough to outweigh the unease hanging between them, a mute guest.

It felt good enough that Mulder didn't want to interrupt it with questions about where they went from here.  About the Brit and his proposal and the visit they would receive in a couple weeks' time.  He wanted to ignore it all.  Just for a few more hours at least. He almost didn't want to interrupt the fragile calm between them even by announcing that it was bedtime. As good as it felt to have it confirmed from Alex's own mouth that he wanted Mulder, Mulder still wasn't sure how he was going to handle this next.  He didn't *want* to order Alex into his bed.  He wanted something more. Something they hadn't had yet.

He was about to just turn off the TV and go into the bedroom and see if Alex happened to follow and leave it at that when a sound startled him out of his worry.

It was a stifled giggle.  And it made Mulder forget anything else.  He set the remote to the side and half- watched the Southpark children doing something appropriately inappropriate on the screen.  He didn't have to wait long to hear it again.  This time a little louder and a little harder to get under control.

Mulder turned slightly on the couch to look at Alex. He was smiling behind his hand and his eyes flickered with the images off the TV.  They flickered with genuine amusement.  When had Mulder ever thought he'd see anything genuine in this man?  He leaned his head on his hand, unabashedly watching now, waiting for the soft giggles to become the full throttled laugh he'd experienced before.

And then there it was.  Filling the room, as Alex tossed his head back and howled.  Mulder's eyes filled inexplicably with tears and his too-fat bottom lip trembled.  He got it under control just before a still- laughing Alex turned to see him staring.

His laughter died down on one last chuckle as he took in Mulder's appearance.  Mulder didn't speak.  As he stared into Alex's eyes and the smile slowly faded from his soft pink lips, Mulder scooted slowly in closer. He reached out a hand and laid it against Alex's jaw. Alex's eyes fluttered closed and when they opened, they were hooded and his breathing was erratic.  Mulder brushed his thumb over Alex's cheek, watching his lips part before looking back up into his eyes...and moving in closer.

Then he tilted his head...dropped his gaze once more...and gently touched his lips to Alex's.  He held the tender, chaste kiss for long moments, his heart ready to explode from the excitement, his mind hardly able to comprehend what his body was experiencing.  And then the arousal mounted and he couldn't not moan and part the lips under his, stroking his tongue into Alex's mouth smoothly and tasting and taking and groaning into his mouth and feeling Alex's tongue touch tentatively to his.

Mulder wrapped his hand around the back of Alex's head and tilted his own, kissing him more deeply, grunting and devouring him.  It was beyond good.  Beyond anything he could have hoped for if he'd allowed himself to hope.

He broke the kiss, pulling away and licking his lips, but he kept his lips close as he spoke the words that now seemed so easy and right.

"Come to bed, boy."

He smiled against Alex's lips and the other man nodded slightly, whimpering.  Mulder stood and pulled Alex up, too.  He held his hand as he walked around the couch and toward the doorway.  The TV flashed against their skin as Mulder paused and looked back at Alex.  Then he smiled, turned once more, and pulled him into the bedroom behind him.

End

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