Degrees
Website: http://themkshrine.angelfire.com
Pairing: M/K
Rating: PG-13
Keywords: Christmas, Series (1 of 3), hurt/comfort, UST
Spoilers: Krycek has one arm and he kissed Mulder on the cheek once. And Mulder has the waterbed.
Summary: An unexpected meeting in a liquor store on Christmas Eve.
Archive: Yes, to any lists it's posted to. Everyone else just ask.
Date of First Posting: 12/20/03
Francis the Talking Mule.
Dog show.
CNN.
Charlie Brown.
Commercial for a violent video game.
Commercial for dish soap.
It’s a Wonderful Life.
Commercial for Radio Shack featuring stereos wrapped in giant red bows.
The Weather Channel.
Creepshow…
His hand rested on the couch, finger stilling. He blinked once. Then he shifted his ass lower on the leather, brought the bottle to his lips and watched.
Creepshow on Christmas Eve. It was that or a cold front coming into Michigan. Or Francis the Talking Mule.
His phone rang. His cell phone. Mulder took a breath, then he reached down and picked it up off the floor, his fingers also briefly encountering a sticky spoon handle resting in a nearly empty jar of marshmallow fluff that he’d eaten all of the fluff out of earlier. Much earlier.
He brought the phone to his ear and turned down the volume on the TV.
“Mulder.”
He knew, of course, who it was, and his stomach turned.
“Hey,” she said with a soft sigh, the one she reserved for people who’d been through trauma, illness, or holes being drilled in their heads. “I just wanted to check in with you and…”
God, she wasn’t even trying this year. Usually she at least acted like he might be something other than a morose, smelly lump on his couch. She at least acted like she gave him the benefit of the doubt. No more. Apparently he’d crossed a line.
“I’m fine, Scully,” he told her without enthusiasm. He didn’t know if he’d actually have to try to sound convincing to get her off the phone. He didn’t think so. He could hear her mother’s laughter, a small child singing Frosty the Snowman with a lisp, and all the other sounds of Scully’s happy San Diego Christmas in the background.
“Mulder, are you sure? You could still get a flight out…”
She was lying. And not only was it not true, she didn’t even really want him there. Among a thousand other things, once upon a time he used to be Jewish.
“Nah,” he declined. “I don’t wanna ruin Bill’s Christmas with my presence.”
Scully sighed. This was going to be easier than he thought.
“Okay, Mulder. If you’re sure you’re okay.”
Mulder swallowed and looked down at his bottle of gin. “Yeah. I’m okay, Scully. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Mulder,” she replied with a grateful smile in her voice.
“Dana!” a small voice called from the other room as if she’d paid the kid off before hand.
“You better go,” Mulder told her.
He heard her nod.
They hung up.
Mulder picked up his gin and drank. He drank until it was gone. He set it down too heavily on his floor next to the discarded fluff. He leaned his head against the armrest and watched Creepshow sideways. He muttered to himself, “Shit.”
***
He paid the cabbie at the curb and dragged himself across the parking lot to the last liquor store, perhaps the only place in town besides Jack in the Box, that was open this late on Christmas Eve. He pulled the collar up on his trench coat and felt it scratch against his stubbly pseudo-beard.
The place was lit up like a circus, advertising Beefeaters 15 fluid ounces for $11.99, two dollars off a gigantic bottle of peppermint schnapps, Skyy vodka on sale…
Mulder walked inside and shook the wet snow off his coat.
He went to the Scotch aisle out of habit and scanned the murky brown bottles. He remembered the double-decker store his dad would drive to right off the Vineyard. Fox would wait in the car, buckled in, for what seemed like hours before his father would come out with a large, brown bag.
Mulder gave the whiskey a withering look and rounded the corner into gin and vodka.
He stopped short.
There, at the end… It couldn’t be. Mulder was just drunker than he’d thought. He squinted down the row of shiny, sparkling bottles. There at the end…was Krycek -- or someone who looked incredibly like him -- holding a big, blue bottle of Skyy by the neck and frowning at the display.
Krycek.
Mulder’s whole body breathed.
He found himself walking forward. There were no thoughts in his head. Just the familiarity of propulsion, muscle memory that instructed him to move toward, not away. His legs moved under him, his eyes blinked as if to clear the vision, and he walked over to where Krycek stood.
“What are you doing here?” he heard himself ask accusatorily.
Krycek’s head turned and Mulder was fixed with glowing, suspicious eyes. “Mulder?” The rough voice was incredulous. Then Krycek took a step back. Mulder heard the other man’s breath catch in his throat, then saw Krycek swallow it down.
“Little slow on the uptake tonight, Krycek,” Mulder blurted.
Krycek squinted at him. He was in faded blue jeans, leather bomber jacket, and a cap like the one he had on during their lovely trip to Tunguska. Mulder flashed on the man swathed in shadowy black in his apartment…the one with the information and the soft, insulting lips on his cheek. The one who had looked ten years older. This one seemed like a blend. Like a kid playing at being bad. A kid who still had no left arm.
Mulder realized he was staring and brought his eyes back up to Krycek’s face.
“You look like hell,” Mulder said. It was only partly true. Krycek looked…tired. But, ‘You look tired,’ was lame and would have sounded too much like concern. He could make excuses to stand here talking to him if he was still insulting him.
Krycek laughed shortly, but the wariness never left his eyes. When the snag of a laugh died, Krycek looked him up and down, then said soberly, “You look tired.”
Mulder caught himself right before he gasped. He looked at Krycek’s face, the hint of five o’clock shadow, the set of his jaw, eyes glinting with alcohol already consumed. He opened his mouth to say something, unsure of what that was exactly, when a man at the counter turned, pulled a .38 from his coat, and started yelling.
“This is a hold up! Everybody down on the floor!”
They’d both turned in the aisle, both tensed at the same time. Mulder glanced at Krycek out of the corner of his eye. He saw Krycek glance at him. Mulder sensed Krycek’s hand slowly sliding down his own hip…inside his jacket. Mulder nodded almost imperceptibly, keeping his eyes trained on the wild-eyed assailant.
“Down! On the ground now!”
The three or so other flustered customers were already laying themselves flat on the snow-slicked linoleum. Mulder started to ease himself to one knee beside Krycek who was doing the same. He could feel the waves of concentration and intent coming off the man next to him and his own adrenaline spiked under his skin. He cut his gaze to the side once more.
“I said DOWN!” screamed the man suddenly, and he raised his gun arm higher, taking aim at Mulder’s head.
Before Mulder could move, Krycek was in front of him and the gun was going off. Krycek collided with Mulder’s body, his cap flying off, and Mulder didn’t even see him pull his own gun, but he was firing.
The man dropped his gun with a howl and clutched his wrist, rolling on the ground.
Krycek fell away from him, and Mulder ripped the gun from his fingers, holding it on the writhing assailant who was now trying to crawl away without letting go of his now profusely bleeding hand.
“Don’t move,” Mulder instructed, then he shot his eyes to the clerk behind the counter. “Call for the police and an ambulance.”
Krycek moaned below him. Mulder kept his eyes on the robber, who’d rolled over onto his back and was looking at Mulder fearfully, rocking slightly in his pain.
Krycek had shot him in the gun hand. Not a kill shot.
And Krycek had taken a bullet.
For Mulder.
Mulder swallowed, his throat dry from his breathing.
“Where are you hit?” he asked Krycek, still holding the squirrelly gunman in his sights.
Krycek’s breath was labored. “Sh-Shoulder,” he got out.
Mulder spared him a glance but kept his attention on the perp as he reached down and placed his hand over Krycek’s wound, putting the necessary pressure on it. Krycek sucked in his breath and tensed but showed no other signs of discomfort.
It was his left shoulder. Mulder felt the straps of his prosthetic under his thumb.
They could hear the distraught clerk calling for help underneath the gunman’s whimpers.
“Mulder, I can’t…” Krycek gasped quietly.
“I know.”
“The police…”
“I know.”
Mulder did know. Krycek was fucked. Or not. It was all in Mulder’s hands.
Krycek had saved his life.
Even as he thought it, again, unbelieving, he heard the distant call of sirens. They were closing in. Mulder felt the body under his hand tighten like a coil.
“It’s okay,” he found himself saying. “It’s okay.”
Soon, the lights were flashing right outside and there were four cops in blue uniforms in the store. The assailant was swept away. Paramedics were brought in. There were two men kneeling next to Krycek, asking him things. Things to which he remained stoically and fearfully silent for the most part.
They tried to take Krycek’s gun from Mulder, but he flashed his badge and pocketed it without further question.
Mulder heard the clerk say loudly to a cop, pointing, “Him! He shot him! He saved us!”
The look on the cop’s face was priceless. It screamed, “This guy?! This bleeding bystander?!”
Mulder didn’t have to think before he spoke. “He’s my partner.”
He didn’t look down at Krycek.
“They’re FBI,” one cop said to another in explanation. Mulder accepted the relieved looks on the cops’ faces, their understanding nods.
“You need to get to the hospital,” the paramedic told Krycek.
“No ambulance,” Krycek said emphatically. “I’m good.” He began to sit up.
“I wouldn’t advise that,” the paramedic said, frowning. “I think you should…”
“It’s okay,” Mulder interjected. “I’ll take him. He really has a thing against ambulances. You’re such a wuss, Alex,” he finished, looking down at the other man.
Mulder swallowed and watched Krycek stand up and then look up at him from beneath his lashes once quickly. The look held more fear than anything, unease widening his eyes and the blood loss making the skin of his cheeks go pale.
“We need a statement,” one cop insisted.
Mulder pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it over. “Here’s my work number and my cell. Will tomorrow be soon enough? I need to take care of my partner.” He wasn’t sure why he said it again.
The cop nodded, cowed by the big, bad FBI, and Mulder turned to Krycek.
“Let’s go,” he said, putting his hand on Krycek’s elbow and beginning to gently guide him out.
He stopped abruptly, though, and bent to retrieve Krycek’s cap. Without a look to the other man, he took his elbow again and headed toward the door.
Once they were outside and out of earshot, Mulder told him, “I don’t have a car. I took a cab.”
Krycek nodded. “Over here.”
It felt like a dream, walking to Krycek’s car in the Christmas Eve snow, his blood dripping down Mulder’s fingers, drying red and vibrant.
“Where are the keys?” he asked.
Krycek nodded down to his right jacket pocket, his right hand still holding his injury tightly, trying to stave off the loss of blood.
Mulder looked at the hand, blood running between his fingers, and nodded in return. He reached into the pocket carefully, avoiding contact with the solid reality of Krycek’s body, and extracted the keys.
They got into the cold grey Honda. It seemed very un-Krycek. Krycek was deadly and alive and all things black and red and sweaty and in people’s faces, behind their doors. He was a force. He wasn’t a ’93 Accord. He didn’t fit in. He wasn’t forgettable. And where he was cool, he was anything but cold, always warm and damp and frantic and pumping with fear and purpose…driven.
Mulder started the car and pulled away.
“Mulder…” Krycek began again.
“Shut up,” Mulder said mildly. “I’m not taking you to the hospital.”
Krycek sighed quietly.
Mulder glanced over at him, too aware of his hands on the wheel of Krycek’s car. It seemed very intimate and strange.
“How bad?” he asked now.
Krycek looked down at the bullet wound. “I think it’s just a lot of blood,” he explained. “Where are we going?” he pressed.
“Macy’s. I have some last minute gift buying to do,” Mulder answered blithely. At Krycek’s paranoid squint he sighed and answered again. “To my place.” Then he waited before asking, “That acceptable to you?”
He got a hesitant nod and things were quiet the rest of the way.
They pulled up in front of the building and Mulder saw Krycek dart his eyes down the street in both directions worriedly.
“C’mon,” he said, getting out. Krycek was already out of the car, and he followed Mulder up the steps and into the building.
Mulder let Krycek inside the apartment and watched the other man stop in the foyer, still holding his shoulder.
Mulder’s heart pounded with excitement. He closed the door behind him and walked past Krycek.
“Take your jacket and your shirt off,” he said, not looking at Krycek as he went into the bathroom and turned on the light. He felt like he could barely breathe. He busied himself finding ointment and bandaging, but he heard the rustle of clothing…a hiss…then heavy leather dropping to the floor.
He turned to see Krycek standing in the bathroom doorway like a vampire who hasn’t been invited in. His eyes were cast down.
Mulder realized that he was in a t-shirt. And it was light blue. Like the sky in summer. He had a shirt that color. Mulder wondered why Krycek was wearing it…if he’d bought it in a packet of three at Wal-Mart or off a hanger at The Gap.
He watched Krycek pull on the hem with his right hand…pull it over his head, carefully pull it over the injury, down the prosthetic and off.
But still he just stood there, pale and bleeding.
“C’mere,” Mulder said, wishing he didn’t have to fucking tell him. He didn’t want to hear his own voice…the caution in it…the roughness.
Krycek approached like a slow shadow. Mulder didn’t meet his eyes. Krycek didn’t meet his.
Mulder looked away and wet a washcloth as he felt Krycek near. Then he turned back with a small frown and reached out to clean the area.
The prosthesis. Still on. In the way. Hard and alien.
“Can you take it off?” Mulder asked.
Krycek stared at him, a look that made Mulder want to bite his lip. He didn’t. And silently, Krycek reached up and unbuckled the fake arm, lowering it to the floor and standing back up in front of Mulder, unbalanced and twice marred.
Mulder let his eyes drop to the wound, also surreptitiously taking in the stump of his arm. It was odd, definitely, the glaring absence of flesh and bone, and the scars were vivid and horrible, but…the shoulder was intact except for this most recent wound. It looked strong, corded with thick muscle as if to make up for the missing limb.
Mulder breathed and reached out with the washcloth.
Krycek turned his face away. It made the tendon in the side of his neck stand out. Mulder’s hand stilled on the stained flesh What had he heard Scully call that tendon? The sterno-cleido-mastoid? Such a horrible name for such an…elegant thing. Mulder saw Krycek’s pulse beat near it.
He cleaned the wound, dabbing at the blood and watching the area slowly become more defined.
“Looks like the bullet grazed you…made a gouge in the flesh here.” His fingers rested just below the injury, just above the place where Krycek’s arm ended.
“I can do the rest myself,” Krycek nearly whispered.
“No, you can’t,” Mulder replied, reaching for the ointment.
“Yes. I can,” Krycek stated dangerously.
“Is this because I called you a wuss?”
Krycek took a deep breath, looking away.
“Look,” Mulder remarked. “It’ll go faster if I do it.”
Krycek looked at him again, and Mulder saw the naked exhaustion in his eyes.
“Why are you helping me?” Krycek asked softly but with the scared edge of anger in his voice.
Mulder thought about it for a moment and then answered even softer, “Why did you jump in front of me?”
They were quiet together, nobody wanting to answer, it seemed. Krycek looked away, and Mulder stifled a sigh. Then he applied the ointment and taped on the square of gauze, considering both topics officially dropped.
As he worked, he glanced up a couple of times and caught Krycek’s eyelids drooping over his eyes.
“When was the last time you slept?” Mulder asked, pressing lightly on the last piece of tape.
Krycek shrugged his right shoulder.
Mulder thought about it, then nodded. He washed his hands and then instructed Krycek to do the same. He watched as the man rolled the small bar of soap in his hand, then dropped it, cleaning between his fingers with a dexterous, soapy thumb. He rinsed his hand off under the hot water. Mulder waited, fascinated, until he was finished.
He said nothing as he turned and walked out of the room. Said nothing as he got a blanket and a pillow and came out to find Krycek in his living room looking uncertain and ready to bolt.
“Sit down,” he instructed calmly. He put the linens on the couch and waited for Krycek to obey. He just got a chin lowering and narrowed eyes.
“You’re gonna fall asleep standing up, Krycek, now sit down.” Why did it feel wrong to call him that now? Why did he feel guilty about it?
He watched the battle trudge across Krycek’s features, watched the fear lose. Krycek walked past Mulder and sat on the couch.
“Are you hungry?” Mulder asked.
Krycek looked at the floor, saw the empty jar of fluff and equally empty bottle of gin. He smirked and shook his head no.
Mulder nodded somewhat sheepishly and went to get him a glass of water and three Advil which he set on the coffee table.
Then, almost as an afterthought, he reached into the coat he still wore and pulled out Krycek’s gun. And he laid that on the table, too, next to the glass of water. He looked into the other man’s eyes, daring a comment.
“I’ll be in there if you need anything,” he said nodding toward the bedroom.
Krycek looked up at him, a question in his eyes. Mulder ignored it.
“Good night…Alex.”
Krycek blinked. He swallowed.
“Th-Thank you…Mulder,” he said lowly.
Mulder nodded again and went into his bedroom, not quite closing the door all the way.
He let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for an hour, quietly blowing it out his pursed lips.
He peeled off his coat and let it drop. He stripped off his sweatshirt, t- shirt, sat on the edge of the bed to take off his tennis shoes and socks. He stood up and rested his fingers at the top button of his jeans, hesitating. Then he unbuttoned, unzipped, and pulled them down.
He got into bed in the darkness, in the quiet, and he lay still. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at his reflection. But then he just saw other things. He saw his arch nemesis out there asleep on his couch.
Mulder turned on his side and looked at the clock. The late hour and the remaining alcohol in his system had him tired and fading, even with…Alex…on his couch. What would it be like to wake up in the morning, to go out to take a piss, and see him there? Was he an early riser? Would he be waiting when Mulder woke? Or would he sleep late because of his exhaustion and his injury?
And then Mulder realized something. There would be no Alex Krycek in his living room in the morning. He knew as much as he knew anything that Alex was going to leave in the middle of the night.
Mulder sighed. Not sure if he was relieved or…sad. He made himself close his eyes. He remembered doing that on Christmas Eve when he was a child. His mother’s family was Christian and he always got a couple small gifts on Christmas day. Enough to get him excited about it. And he’d have trouble sleeping. He’d force himself to close his eyes, unwilling to open them again until morning.
He kept them closed now and waited for sleep. He tried not to think about the disappointment he would feel when he woke up…and there were no presents.
When morning came, it woke him with a start, the sun shining delicately through the dissipating clouds and falling across his eyes. He sat up. He stretched. And then he remembered.
Alex.
He got out of bed and went straight to the living room, uncaring that he was nearly naked. He burst into the room to find it empty. He’d known he would. But his heart had been racing anyway.
Now he stood in the middle of the living room looking down at the couch…the rumpled blanket. He’d been here. Right here. Mulder sighed.
He was about to turn away and start coffee when something caught his eye. A bit of white peeking out from the beneath the yellow pillowcase…gleaming in the sun.
He reached out and touched it. Paper. He pulled it out. It was folded with his name written across it. A note.
He opened it with suddenly sweaty fingers and his eyes drank in the words:
Got any plans for New Year’s?
A.
Mulder stared. And then stared some more. He didn’t realize until it was too late that he was smiling. He rubbed the paper between his fingers once. He lowered his arm…looked around the room, half expecting to see a decorated tree with glitteringly wrapped boxes beneath.
He looked back down at the note, then carried it into the kitchen with him to make coffee.
End
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