Collide
Author: Shannon
Pairing: M/K
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: The Red and the Black
Disclaimer: I didn't invent them, I don't own them, I have nothing in which Chris Carter would find any value were he to sue me.
Summary: Rewrite of 'The Scene' in RatB (and then some extra that goes a bit AU.)
Thanks: To Logan for the incredibly beautiful lyrics! (This story was written for the 'Partners' Mulder/Krycek Lryic Wheel!)
Archive: Yes, to any list it's posted on. Others just ask.
Even the best fall down sometimes, he thought the second before his body hit the floor. Which was approximately right about when his forehead found the back of his desk chair with enough impact to startle sparrows to fly in circles around him before blasting into yellow stars of pain.
Even the best get their own guns drawn on them. He'd been distracted, much as a toddler might be by a shiny object or their favorite episode of Sesame Street. Then again, he'd had a long day of being kicked in the teeth. It hadn't been that long since his belief had been raped and left for dead. He was as new into this theorum of pure human conspiracy as a calf still shaking off the caul of its mother's placenta.
And he was cranky. Very cranky. He'd been booed off the stage at that simpering simposium, dusted off and put back on a towering pedestal by the queen of crazies, Casandra (Patient X) Spender, accosted by her skinny, self-righteous, deeply-shamed son, and told by his partner that he looked constipated.
And still no one believes me, he thought as his eyes refocused and the face over the gun became painfully clear.
"You must be losing it, Mulder, I can beat you with one hand."
*Breathy, hard, dark, close...*
Great, Mulder thought. Just what I fucking need.
But he said, "Isn't that how you like to beat yourself?"
Perfectly shaped eyebrows, entirely too feminine, entirely too expressive, dipped down, unamused, over the tiny nose, and then a thick, decisive thumb cocked the gun, and Mulder felt compelled to go on.
"If those are my last words, I can do better."
In truth, he wasn't quite sure what had provoked those words in the first place. It was adolescent, and Mulder, especially, would be the one smarting if his comment really was any kind of actual insult. As though *real* men always beat it with two. And sometimes he did. But that was hardly important at the moment. His imminent demise, however, was.
"I'm not here to kill you, Mulder. I'm here to help you."
*Clammy, eyes red-rimmed, intense...close...*
Mulder let his lips smile, though his own breath was now short. "Hey, thanks," he said and knew it was a mistake, and possibly a deadly one, the moment it escaped his mouth.
He couldn't explain his bravado. He was lying on his side, head a thick ache, pride throbbing like a wound, in a state he'd never been in in Krycek's presence, and the unfamiliarity, the sheer horror of finding himself so powerless, his own gun trained on his face in the most personal of insults, was enough to push him past the point of intelligence, of grasping survival with the sweatiest of fingers, and into this realm of not giving a shit. And being a complete dick in the process.
And now Krycek seemed angry. "You know, if it wasn't in my best interests, I'd just as soon squeeze this trigger."
And even still, Mulder heard himself ask, "What's stopping you?"
Krycek's answer was swift, unerring, "Hear this, Agent Mulder... Listen very carefully, because what I'm about to tell you is deadly serious." It was an arrow darting through time and space and spearing Mulder's lungs to the back of his ribs, holding him in place, breath held for fear of ripping through the hush of Krycek's words and bleeding out his own raspy fear and...excitement.
And that's when Mulder's being split in two. Not just his brain, because that would just be his thoughts, his mental processes, and in this moment his reality supported a full separation; his every aspect -- mental, emotional, and even physical -- splintered into two distinct experiences of existence. It was rather disquieting...to be having this odd, almost hallucinogenic episode while in the midst of such a serious discussion with his archenemy, while staring at said enemy over the well-oiled shaft of his own gun, steady and dark and menacing in Krycek's equally steady hand. But he couldn't seem to help it. He just fractured. Broke in two. And there was nothing to be done but go with it.
The one half was still on the floor. Still stubbornly pouting, pride still burning brightly. This Mulder was skeptical, not even really listening to what Krycek was saying, deeming the act of listening too submissive when taking into account their history and previous dynamic. Mulder did not *listen* to Krycek. Krycek had revoked that priveldge when he'd *squeezed* the trigger on his father. This Mulder was pissed. This Mulder's head hurt. This Mulder looked constipated. This Mulder no longer believed.
The other half...
"There is a war raging. And unless you pull your head out of the sand, you and I and about five billion other people are going to go the way of the dinosaur." All of this a passionate whisper. All of it a desperate plea into the night, something alive and breathing all its own, independent of Krycek's own rapid breaths. Something beating in front of Mulder's face like a heart. Something growing stronger.
You and I. Them. Coupled. Joined with Krycek's breath into the intimacy of unity right between their bodies.
Mulder caught a whiff of his second half... Listening. Rapt. The inside of him coiling taut around the words, holding them close, letting their rhythm beat out against his own tired heart until its beat began to match.
"I'm talking planned invasion." That voice of sinister quiet. Powerful. His eyes lit phosphorous in the darkness. They seemed to beckon Mulder, the second one, the half that felt the first stirrings of fiery excitement he'd felt in weeks. Krycek went on, "The colonization of this planet by an extraterrestrial race."
His words were dark, frightening, huge and wrong. But even the wrong words seem to rhyme, Mulder-Two thought, even as Mulder-One continued to lie unmoved except for the lingering pain in his head and his ego.
This self-same Mulder laughed, "I thought you were serious." The second self felt a deep hurt in every weak bone.
The gun aimed at his face slipped confidently to his chest, pressing against the breastbone. Mulder inhaled sharply, chastised.
Krycek continued, a good little soldier, ignoring Mulder's childish retorts. "Kazakhstan, Skyland Mountain, the site in Pennsylvania... They're all alien lighthouses where the colonization will begin but where now a battle is being waged. A struggle for heaven and earth. Where there is only one law: fight or die. And one rule: resist or serve."
Mulder-Two fought the bonds of Mulder-One. Every second Krycek loomed over him, Mulder wanted to punch him, to lay him out. But also to surrender. To allow the raging in his blood to capsize whatever hold he still had on fighting this message. Fighting the hope. And that made the first half of him, the stronger him, the disenchanted man, want to strike out, maybe to kill. Because there was a crystal clarity to this moment. A searchlight breaking through the fog. Every moment brought with it pain. Because he wanted it to be true.
"Serve who?" he asked, wanting. He kept his voice so cold, so bored. He injected all the sterile lifelessness his lack of belief had made him feel. He knew what he wanted Krycek to say. He even willed him to say it. It came from deep down in a place that still wasn't afraid to get hurt. A strange hopeful child. A child who had been two moves away from his third straight Stratego win. Someone so beaten that he'd finally stepped down, turned his back and revealed his shining, armored skin...his dead eyes and cold words meant to harm -- "Where they no doubt removed her brain." How the child hurt then. And how he *wanted* now.
Say it, Krycek. Release me. Out of the doubt that fills my mind, heal me.
And then he said it, fulfilling some heretofore only wish-ached prophecy. "No, not who. What."
Krycek bared his teeth like an animal when he said it. A Siberian tiger, used to the cold Mulder was so stringently showering him with, like blades of ice. It hurt. Like Mulder knew it would. He turned his face away. His ego strained under Krycek's hard gaze, his defiant challenge. But that wasn't the real reason he could no longer sustain contact with those stony bright eyes. He couldn't look because of the pain it caused.
The child hurt. So the man took over.
"Krycek, you're a murderer, a liar, and a coward." In the course of his accusations, he'd found the strength to look back up at that cherubic face. "Just because you stick a gun in my chest, I'm supposed to believe you're my *friend*?"
Mulder's lips were wet. His voice was drenched with the blood he'd let loose from lancing his own heart with that word. He'd sworn he'd never say it, never use it, because it could only make him vulnerable, his saying it only demonstrate his own pathetic desire to have it.
Krycek blinked madly. There were inexplicable tears in his eyes, a sheen of pain borne only of the intensity he maintained in Mulder's presence. It could be nothing else. That word couldn't hurt him, too. But he smiled a sad, slow smile, and husked, "Get up." The phrase, so capable of monosyllabic harshness, sharp stabs of breath, was surprisingly gentle.
He backed off some, and Mulder struggled to sit. His movements were staccato...stunted by Krycek's nearness, how he wouldn't give Mulder but a few inches to work with, the gun an ever-present third party bridging the distance between their heaving chests.
Krycek frowned at him, and for the first time Mulder noticed the ubiquitous dark clothes. The rugged jacket, collar lifted against an absent wind, jugular shielded from the unseen attack. Dark shirt underneath. Mulder's eyes danced over the V of skin, exposed in the open neck. Pale, smooth...naked...vulnerable.
"I was sent by a man," Krycek began. "A man who knows, as I do, that resistance is in our grasp. And in yours. The mass incinerations were strikes by an alien rebellion...to upset plans for occupation."
Mulder couldn't help but notice the shadows his lashes made across his cheeks. It embarrassed him to notice such a thing. To have to listen to this man, to look *up* at him like a kid being told a scary story. He blinked his gaze away, stubborn and resistant. But something in him revolted against even this small disconnection from what might be the truth. Something in him needed to see to believe.
Slowly, dignity dashed at Krycek's feet, he blinked his gaze back up to the other man, lips pursed with anger held in check. Anger and hope, hand in hand waiting for Krycek to unleash them.
Krycek blinked and continued, "Now one of these rebels is being held captive. And if he dies...so does the resistance."
Mulder's pulse was a little throbbing place at the base of his throat. A thousand desires coursed through him, unfiltered. Desire for it to be true, for his faith to be vidicated, for something to live for once more. Fear of all of it being bullshit. Inability to entertain that thought. His lips parted. He needed more air. He flushed with excitement and purpose.
He saw something change in Krycek's face as well. A tightening of the eyes, an assessment. Then his lips pursed just the slightest bit, and before Mulder could react, he stole in and pressed damp, warm lips hard to Mulder's cheek.
It was a forceful kiss. An authoritative kiss. It moved Mulder. Literally pushed him back. He would have turned his head away, but there just wasn't time. He felt his own lips curl in reciprocation before Krycek pushed away, leaving a lip print, already cooling, and the faintest scent of butterscotch. Mulder felt his mole directly in the center of the print, tingling. His eyes dropped demurely and heat rose throughout his whole body. He forced himself to look up again. He bit the inside of his cheek, watching for Krycek's next move.
Mulder-One was furious, shocked, outraged, self-righteous.
Mulder-Two was waiting for those lips to descend again.
Both watched as Krycek uncocked the gun, then let it fall into gravity's seduction, swinging from his index finger like a taunt. Then he tossed it into Mulder's lap and stood, backing away a step, frown creasing over his nose.
Mulder slipped the gun more firmly into his own hand, the feel of his finger caressing the trigger a mere formality, a hollow comfort in the chaos, and an empty threat of something he knew he could never do.
"Udachi tebya, tovarish," Krycek husked. He started to back away once more. And when he turned finally to walk out the door, Mulder realized Krycek's eyes had never once dropped to the gun. He was either fearless or strong in the face of his fear. And Mulder had called him a coward.
The door slammed. Mulder let the gun drop, his wrist resting on his drawn-up knee. He couldn't move for a long time. And when he did, he left Mulder-One there, huddled on the floor, his purpose served, his time up.
Mulder-Two stood, holding the warm gun in his hand, feeling the wet kiss stain his cheek, seeing the square note lying on the floor where all this started. Where Krycek first started to give him his soul back. He blinked.
.........
It was late when Scully dropped him off.
"Are you sure you don't need me to stay?" she asked, hand on his arm.
"Yeah. I'm fine," he answered, recycling her pat response back to her.
She left and he stretched out on the couch, groaning. He kicked off his shoes, untucking his shirt. The tie was already long gone. He'd worn a necktie to rescue an alien off a military truck. He had the tie in his coat pocket. He had no idea where the alien was.
He picked up the remote and flipped the TV on, finding the Weather Channel and turning the volume down until the happy anchors were mumbling around their smiles. He closed his eyes. The Advil was not yet kicking in. This was worse than a vodka hangover. Worse than rum. Worse than post-exam night at Oxford, waking up with his face mashed into unfamiliar bathroom tile. He hadn't vomited yet, but he was reasonably sure his head was soon to explode.
He didn't care, though. He was mildly disappointed that he'd been robbed of some of his memories. But he felt he had all the important ones still. He remembered seeing the rebel in the box. Remembered a flash of light, the feeling of urgency and danger. He wasn't lacking proof for himself, just the kind of proof anyone else would need to believe. And, frankly, he was used to that. In many ways he was back where he started before Kritshgau exposed his belief to be lie. Back in his own skin.
He was bruised and sore. He was dirty and tired. But there was one place on his body that demanded his attention beyond the pain. His hand went to his face, gentle fingers tracing the exact location, the stinging mark. The curve ball.
He sighed, feeling the stubble now rasping over his fingertips. He dropped his hand to his stomach, lifting his hips, settling further into the leather. His head was starting not to hurt. His bruises were already fading. He was sinking into a darkness so warm and complete, even the stars refused to shine there. Dreams swam up and brought him under a black wave and into a place where he was visited by an alien that looked like Krycek. Into a place that felt so real, so utterly palpable, he could reach up and touch that face so close to his own. Into a place where he could let himself breathe again. Where Krycek's lips had better aim. Where they could collide without the pain, make bruises warm and sweet like cidar, and where Mulder's lips had begun to tingle, hot and soft like sunlight.
.........
He woke to the light, eyes unwilling to open past sticky slits. The pain kept his head down when he tried to lift it. He grimaced. A breeze tickled his toes where his socks had worn thin. He frowned. One eye opened. He watched a paper catch in the wind and blow off his coffee table. The window was open.
He tried to sit up again. But now there was another weight on him. An anchor, draped heavy and black over his body. Wrinkled, black leather. He was folded up in it, the arms wrapped around his ribs, collar warm on his throat. It smelled vaguely of heaven.
Mulder sat, slowly, as to not dislodge the jacket. He peered around the room, blinking sleep from the corners of his eyes. Nothing stirred but the wind. He turned and looked to the window. No shadow to darken it. No one waiting to take the jacket off his chest. It was so warm inside. Almost hot. He breathed and felt the leather move with him.
He'd been there.
"Krycek..." he tried whispering. Silence met him.
He'd been here. He left his jacket.
You were here, Mulder thought in wonder. Here and gone. I missed it. And now... He smelled the jacket again, breathing in so deep he got dizzy. Now... I'm tangled up in you.
Without letting it slip too far down his body, keeping the arms tucked around his middle, Mulder went through the pockets. Not like an FBI agent, but like a child up too early on Christmas. His fingers blindly sought keys to locks he never thought would open...keepsakes only he could find some twisted way to cherish: a pen with 'Holiday Inn' written down the side in green, a dime and three pennies, lint, a butterscotch wrapper, empty, and one unopened, waiting...
Mulder spent an hour taking them all out, staring at them, turning them over, setting them out like archeological finds in a precise row on his table. Mulder couldn't remember ever being this precise before. He went through every pocket, fingered every tear, smelled it often. He thought he'd wrung it of every treasure when his thumb found the tab if a zipper. Deep inside the folds of the lining was a hidden pocket. He opened it eagerly, holding his breath. He reached inside...felt the paper folded there...brought it into the light of day and unfolded it.
Same block writing. But it took Mulder a moment to realize the words were meant for him...that the ink was new.
'Don't stop here.'
He turned it over. Blank. Turned it back.
Don't stop here.
Mulder smiled and, feeling rebelliously childish, slipped his arms into the sleeves.
END
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Collide by Howie Day
The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you
Yeah
I'm open, you're closed
Where I follow, you'll go
I worry I won't see your face light up again
Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find, you and I collide
I'm quiet, you know
You make a first impression
I've found I'm scared to know I'm always on your mind
Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the stars refuse to shine
Out of the back you fall in time
I somehow find, you and I collide
Don't stop here
I've lost my place
I'm close behind
Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
You finally find, you and I collide
You finally find
You and I collide
You finally find
You and I collide