Title:       Sinner Sinuous (1/1)
Author:      Meri Lomelindi
Date:        April 16, 2000
Fandom:      The X-Files
Contact:     li@lisitsa.net; any and all feedback 
             adored.  Flames welcomed for my own amusement.
Distribute:  M/K Fight Club.  anywhere else, please 
             e-mail me first.  (RatB okay.)
Spoilers:    "Sleepless," vague conspiracy references, and
             a *teensy* mention of events in "Terma"
Rating:      NC-17 for language and sex stuff.
Pairing:     Mulder/Krycek
Summary:     Krycek has a conscience, but it's just as dark
             and convoluted as the rest of him.  How far
             will he go to satisfy it?
Warnings:    Blood, angst, m/m interaction.
Disclaimer:  These characters are owned and also cruelly 
             mistreated by surfer dude CC and the evil FOX,
             not to be mistaken for Alex's darling Lisitsa.
Notes:       Set at the end of Sleepless.
Beta:        By the wonderful Dr. Ruthless and the lovely
             Niffusa.  Any remaining mistakes are all mine.


  Sinner Sinuous

  * * * * *

  Alex Krycek was a very meticulous man.

  Contrary to popular belief among his comrades, Alex Krycek 
was no psychopath.  While it was true that they proliferated 
among the ranks of men like Krycek -- as assassins -- they 
were regarded as an unknown quantity.  A psychopath teetered 
a hairsbreadth away from losing control with each bullet he 
propelled into another's brain; with every thrust of his 
knife, the nimble, furtive fingers of madness crept up his 
spine and threatened to overwhelm him.

  It was not so with Alex Krycek.  Where a psychopath would
be abandoned and disposed of to prevent his employers from
getting their asses hauled off to prison, men like Krycek
were sought after.  You could *trust* Alex Krycek.  He'd
do his job like clockwork, prompt and efficient, without so
much as a droplet of blood left at the scene.  Even with
every aspect of an execution planned out, he was still able
to adapt in case of a complication; that, too, was included
in his plans.  Never would a man like Krycek break down, nor
would he reveal his secrets to anyone who didn't need to
know them.  It wasn't in his nature.

  The smoking man had hired Alex Krycek knowing this, but
not knowing precisely how he'd figured it out.  Even the 
psychologist that the cancerstick had initially sent to spy 
on him hadn't been able to unravel the tangles of the 
Krycekian psyche.  Not that the smoker had cared after that; 
sure, they had their little tiffs, and the occasional power 
struggle, but he was content as long as Krycek pulled his 
job off without a hitch.  Nothing else really mattered.

  But it did matter to Alex Krycek, because he was a
meticulous man.  He paid for his sins.  One by one, with 
the same economy of motion and deed that he employed when
killing, he atoned for the deaths he caused.

  Now, the man who was not really Alex Krycek was sprawled 
on the bathroom floor of his Alexandria apartment.  It was
his home for a few months; a year, perhaps.  Alex Krycek was
his identity here, slipped on like a second skin, barely
masking what lay beneath the oil-slick hair and the cheap,
crisp-collared suit.  It didn't bother him at all, other 
than a bit of itching where coarse polyester met flesh.  If 
he needed to, he could shed the worn cloak that was Krycek 
without a second thought -- the core would remain intact.

  That core -- Alexei, it liked to call itself in the
fragments of time between farces -- gathered up wiry lengths 
of leg and hauled its weary body into a standing position.  
From outside the locked door, there came a drawl in awkward, 
hoarse monotones, sandpaper on his ears.

  "Krycek?  Are you okay in there?"

  He twisted the little knob and the faucet spewed water,
liquid gushing against layered marble.  The sound was as
soothing as his partner's voice in its utter, droning
monotony, and over it he called, "I'm fine, Mulder.  Be out
in a few minutes."

  When there was no reply, he was momentarily startled.  He
had expected a generic response along the lines of, 'Hey,
you take as long as a chick in there,' or maybe a concerned
'You're not puking, are you?'  But the silence wasn't all 
that surprising, having known that Mulder was *different* 
since his first briefing on the intrepid X-Files agent, and 
soon Krycek was proceeding with his task.

  Behind the mirror was a tiny compartment, and from it he
plucked a knife.  It was plain; long and slim, razor-edged,
gleaming the silver of moonshine in the dim glow of the
bathroom lamp (he'd have to replace that bulb later).  He
stared at it for a moment in unfeigned awe, running the tip 
along the fleshy ends of his fingers with the air of someone 
who'd been repeating this ritual one too many times.

  Then he glanced up at the mirror -- caught the brief, 
telltale shimmer of anticipation that hung in the upturned 
corners of his lips -- and set the knife on the counter in 
order to scrutinize his now foreign reflection.

  Handsome, eager, smooth and tanned; others saw this in
him.  Krycek zeroed in on the violet rings around the eyes,
the stale flecks of jade that blinked back at him; the
curtain of dark lashes that hid his languor.  Sometimes he
wondered if anyone else could see what glared at him from
the depths of fake green.

  These were the eyes of a killer.

  The drowsy pupils shone bright in the pale room; in fact, 
his entire face had a golden, fuzzy cast to it.  It looked 
as though he was staring at his reflection in a pool of 
rippling water, distorted by the sun.  There was no love 
lost between Krycek and the sun.  He'd always basked in the 
cover of darkness, reveling in the anonymity that night 
afforded him.

  Daylight on his features, even manufactured, was too much 
to bear, so he swiveled to face the ebony veil of the shower 
curtain.  Casually he undid the clasp of his belt, tugged 
the blood-tinged pants off, and folded them by the door in 
a neat square.  

  Back against the counter, knife clutched tightly in one 
hand, Krycek propped his foot up on the strategically placed 
stool.  Focused his attention on the coruscating metal like 
it was one of his targets.  Brought it up to the skin of his 
outer thigh, brushing, testing the waters, and the methodic
whirl of his mind selected a number.

  Two.

  One: Alex Krycek had killed a man.  Two: Alex Krycek had
killed unnecessarily.  Whether or not he'd known it at the 
time was irrelevant.

  One; the knife lay flush against the skin, pressed deep,
and tore through the unresisting skin like cold fire.  A
faint, nearly inaudible swishing was the only sound that
followed; a flick of friction.  But he could sense that it
wasn't quite deep enough, and the shallowness of it was acid 
eating at him -- so there went the knife again, to delve 
into the thin crevice; to absolve him.

  It stung -- stung a lot, in fact, but he could ignore it,
and if the pain was too much he could always bite his lip.
There was a host of easy excuses for that.  His eyes were 
fixed on the narrow sliver, on the scarlet that welled up
inside and trickled out to stain the paleness of his skin.
When he slid the knife away, it was iced with red.

  Bits of skin clung to the blade along with the blood, thin
and transparent, like ribbons of gossamer.  Twisting his
shoulders back to reach the sink, where the water was still
running to accommodate Mulder's ears, he dipped the knife
under the steady flow until it gleamed.  Then he shifted
back, quicksilver, the knife flitting over to the mess that 
was his leg and gutting it just below the first cut.

  Two; this time he slashed an X, glancing and delicate --
it was almost an art form.  But it grew exponentially as the
seconds passed, blade twitching back and forth in crazed 
arcs, teeth grinding into his bottom lip as he carved like a 
madman.  He did not think; couldn't feel except for the
vacant rush of agony that coursed through his leg.  His mind 
was a steel trap, clenched onto a single rat of a phrase 
that was his mantra.  A broken record, it repeated over and 
over and over and over -- in between darts of the knife, he 
allowed it to slither through his parted lips into the cool 
swath of air that encircled him: spasi menya.

  After the X had been distorted, unrecognizable, by rivers
of crimson that spurted from it and then oozed down in 
tantalizingly slow dribbles, he jerked the knife out.  With 
a perverse sense of fascination he surveyed his handiwork: 
was the blood bright enough?  The cuts.. were they deep 
enough to crack the surface of his guilt?  Once the blood 
was gone, would he still be able to discern the shape of his 
atonement?  He watched, frozen, as the dribbles grew thick 
and plump, flowed over his thigh, spilled onto the plastic 
tiling -- plop, plop.  A lopsided puddle formed, liquid 
darkening into the rich crimson bloom of a flower as it 
mingled with oxygen.

  Once, Krycek had read that blood tasted salty.  This was
a common fallacy.  He tested it each time he sinned; now he
tentatively skimmed bloodied skin with one finger, gathered
a wet trickle.  And he brought it to his mouth, slipping it
in, lapping the redness up with his tongue.  As usual, it
had little in the way of taste -- blood was like water.  If
it was tainted, like Krycek's had been ever since his 
bastard birth, there was a metallic tang.  Never had it been 
salty, but he'd yet to drink anyone else's blood, so who 
knew?  He might be some kind of freak.

  He half fancied that Mulder's blood would taste of sugar.  
Or perhaps, more realistically, of vinegar.

  Just as Mulder's image ran through his head, all burning
eyes and pouty, succulent frowns, the man himself spoke.
"Are you taking a shower or something?"

  "No," Krycek shouted through the door, relieved when his
voice failed to crack in mid-sentence, "I'll be out in a
minute.  Relax.  There's beer in the fridge."

  Spurred into action, he snapped the nearby drawer open to
retrieve a tiny square of gauze.  Though it barely fit over
the slashes, it managed to staunch the flow of blood, and in
the meantime he cleansed the knife.  Razors were better for
this kind of thing -- cleaner, quicker, more painful, and
even explainable -- but damn if they didn't bleed for twenty
minutes afterwards, and Alex Krycek was a man who seldom
had time to spare.

  In the midst of tucking the knife into its spot behind the
mirror, he also snatched a torn scrap of paper from the same
compartment.  A pencil rested on the ridge of the counter.
This he used to scrawl a tally on one side and then a slash
over the four tallies on the other; this made five.  The
next time they gave him a job in New York he'd add them to 
his burgeoning wall of sin.

  He rinsed his leg off in the sink, awkwardly, dangling it
over the spray of the faucet with his knee poking the
counter until it was clean.  It was stinging again, and he
relished the sharp pinpricks of pain like raw diamonds as 
he doused the blood-encrusted skin in alcohol.  

  Cold as snow, clear as day, and then he was pure and 
dripping and achy, though in need of a dressing for his 
wounds.  Bandaids were always too small; he'd strip several 
on the gashes, overlapping, and then it was fucking hell to 
peel them off days later -- but that, too, was part of the 
process.  Guilt was not a thing you could toss away in a
moment of torture; it had to be dragged on.  In the old
days, they'd chain you to a wagon and run you through the
mud for miles.  In modern times, you'd give yourself a nice 
puckered scar and hope no one ever saw it.

  There were clean clothes on the far end of the bathroom
counter, and he was about to shrug them on when he noticed
the wrinkled pants.  Still folded, stained rusty in the
middle where he'd knelt in Augustus Cole's life force as it
seeped onto the dull concrete.  Pulling them up over the 
bandages with a flash of a wince, he wondered idly if he'd 
be able to sleep tonight.  Insomnia would be a fitting
punishment -- he'd wear the pants, then, to remind him.

  Some more cleaning, careful and thorough, with wadded up
toilet paper.  He flushed them when he'd finished -- only a
punk-ass novice idiot left evidence of spilled blood, legal 
or not.  Then he splashed water over his face, across the 
tiny wrinkles that appeared on his forehead when he frowned, 
and caught another glimpse of himself in the mirror.  Those 
eyes were still bloodshot beneath the special-order emerald 
contacts, and now his lips were bruised violet; mottled 
purple, like thunderclouds.  Well, fuck that.  Mulder could 
imagine him sucking face with an invisible chick in the 
shower, for all he cared.

  The door swung open with an irascible creak to reveal the
solemn, sour-appled countenance of Mulder.  True to form, he
hadn't raided the fridge.

  "What the fuck were you doing in there, Krycek?"

  He offered a flat, none-of-your-business stare.  Best to
meet it head on.  "Nothing you'd care about.  Why'd you
come here, anyway?"

  Ire melted into something softer, cloying, and Krycek felt 
compelled to look away before bees started to extract honey 
from Mulder's eyes.  "Look, it's the first time you've ever 
killed someone.  It can be hard."

  "Shit happens," he said, voice grating roughly.  Never 
mind that the count was up to 397 -- his wall of tallies was
getting crowded.  What Mulder didn't know wouldn't hurt him, 
as the Consortium liked to say.  

  Tossing his head, oddly appreciative of a persona that 
allowed him more than the usual buzz cut, he stalked into 
the living room.  Being the ever persistent bastard that he 
was, Mulder followed suit.  It was too bright in there as
well.  There was a sunbeam following him around, flaming
into his eyes.  He turned off all of the lamps until only
a faint glow from the kitchen crept into the room, just
enough so that he could see clearly.

  "I merely thought that it might help to discuss it.  You
seemed upset at the time, and you know there's going to be
an official inquiry."

  Plush.  The couch was plush, soft, and he sank into it.
Hopefully Mulder had ignored the catch in his breath when
the pants rode up against his freshly bandaged thigh.  He
rolled his eyes up at the ceiling -- it was still easier
than meeting Mulder's petulant gaze -- and shot his voice
out with the flatness of stale wine.  "What are you going
to tell them?"

  "You know what I'm going to tell them.  I'm going to tell 
them that you did the right thing."  And he felt eyes on 
him, boring into his neck, challenging him to look down and 
meet them.  If he was bold enough, they seemed to say.  But 
he wasn't, so he just stared up at the fleeting play of
shadows across crumbling plaster.

  "Yeah."

  An uncomfortable, dragging pause, and then, "Krycek, you
can talk about it.  Academy training doesn't prepare you
for the real thing."

  His short bark of laughter rang, echoed shrilly in the
stifling air.  Funny, it had been frosty just a few moments 
ago.  "You tried to ditch me at the beginning of this case 
and after it's over you show up at my door and act like 
you're my best friend?  If I want to talk about it, I'm sure 
I'll have plenty of opportunities with the Bureau 
psychologist that they assign me."

  "I'm a psychologist."  Sounding affronted, Mulder twisted
on the couch; there was a faint, jarring creak of bones.  If 
Krycek had glanced down he'd have seen Mulder sidle in,
closer to him, but there was no need.  He could almost feel 
the fervent heat that the man generated in his passion for 
the truth.  Aside from that, the pitter-patter of breath on
his cheek was tickling him.

  Manufacturing tears was one of the more demanding aspects
of his profession; there wasn't anything, really, that could
call them up.  Nothing that he was willing to remember, at
any rate.  To death he was indifferent, by necessity.  When
people fucked him over he got pissed off, and that was about
it.  In his effort to avoid tear ducts like they were a
strain of the black cancer, he'd concocted just the right
blend of suffering and masculinity to appease even the most
critical judges of character.  

  Mulder, he'd noticed, wasn't a very critical judge of 
character.  The gullible little fucker hadn't even suspected 
his new partner when those 'secret' government files were 
pilfered right from under his feet.

  Aloud he said, "I'm fine, Mulder.  We'll go through the
inquiry and I'll attend some mandatory counseling session
and that will be that."

  "Do you have anyone?  Family, a girlfriend?  The Bureau
psychologists don't know shit, Alex."

  Shocked, his head tilted down automatically to study the
other's smoothly composed features.  Yet there was something
raw in them, something unfinished and open -- and the words.
If he hadn't known better, he'd have thought Mulder was --
no.  The files had been specific about Mulder's sexuality;
he'd never *come on* to Alex Krycek.  Alex Krycek was
supposed to become a friend, a confidante; not a fuckbuddy.
Especially not when Krycek, the idealistic young agent, was 
supposed to be in a distraught and vulnerable state.

  "No," he said, and sought an elusive twist of truth in the 
other man's hooded gaze.

  It was a long while before he found it; or, at least, a
convoluted thread of it that he unraveled until he arrived 
at its origin.  Then Mulder twitched, eyes wide and 
agitated, sliding away from him like a skittish deer.  By 
the time it had registered in Krycek's mind, the other man 
was up and backing into the door.

  "If I can't help you, I'll just -- go -- and see you
tomorrow, at the inquisition," Mulder murmured, a far cry 
from the self-assured, arrogant bastard who had refused to 
so much as shake Alex Krycek's hand.

  This was definitely not part of Krycek's master plan, nor
had it figured into the Consortium's grand agenda.  But he
was used to split second changes of pace, and cancerstick's
instructions *had* been vague.  'Get into Mulder's good
graces.  Make him trust you.'  Perhaps it could -- yes, it
would figure in, if done properly.  If he was good enough, 
he might even be able to forge a bond with his fellow agent
without having to reveal anything of himself.

  He sprang up, tugging Mulder's hand into his own before
the other man could jerk it away, and dragged them both into
the gaping maw of the couch.  "You *can* help me, Mulder."

  Eyebrows arched skyward, but then the eyes beneath them
narrowed apprehensively.  "What do you mean?"

  "We can help each other."  It came out as a hiss, laced
thick with need, and he slid his free hand up to rest at
Mulder's collarbone.  And rest it did, still against the
hollow of neck with a brush of baby's breath on the smooth
skin, hinting at what could happen.

  Confusion furrowed the other's brow even more, permitting
his lapse into familiarity.  "Alex, what are you - "  The
fingers slid into motion, trailed down the dark shirt to
press just where a nipple would be.  A low gasp escaped from 
Mulder's lips before he pulled away.  "Krycek, what are you
doing -- I don't -- "

  Krycek injected a poorly masked note of anguish into his
voice, an etching of pain onto his features to match the
open longing.  His eyes fell, and the hand dropped down to
his side with one last, feathery brush against Mulder's
clothed shoulder.  "Sorry.  You're probably tired."

  A shift back into the upholstery.  "Not really.  I don't
sleep much."  When Krycek glanced up, he was pinned to the
wall by a very speculative gaze.  "I had no idea.."

  "Well, I had no idea, either."  Tentatively, his fingers
snaked over to brush a jean-clad thigh.  

  It was still a mystery to him, though.  If you found out 
that someone was lying to you or purposely concealing 
something, wasn't it then logical to suspect them of fibbing 
when it came to other things?  He'd always followed the 
Santa Claus philosophy; if Santa Claus isn't real, then what 
about the tooth fairy?  Oh, yeah?  Then what's up with the 
Easter bunny?  So he's a fake too -- well, then, there's no 
way in hell that God is out there..

  Just as a guileless Mulder leaned in to plant his lips on
a certain ratlike mouth, Krycek remembered that he hadn't
brushed his teeth since the atonement.  Hadn't gotten rid
of the blood that surely lingered there, still, in tiny
molecules.  Not that he was able to taste it now, but he
couldn't allow it to sully Mulder's clean tongue.

  "Just a sec," he murmured, climbing to his feet and deftly
concealing the wince that followed as the gashes stretched
and tore.  In less than a minute he'd gulped down the
required mouthful of spring water and was yanking a
bewildered Mulder up with him.

  "Alex - ?"

  "Just stay."  Eyes running over the firm runner's physique 
as if judging a painting, Krycek reached for the belt -- 
tugged it off, quickly, before Mulder was able to voice his 
protests.  He sifted through the silky shock of brown hair 
with one hand, gentle as a lamb, drawing Mulder's eyes in 
with his own solemn, heavy-lidded gaze.  And he knelt.  This 
time his expression remained blank, carefully white-washed, 
as the bandages were pulled taut.

  "We shouldn't do this.  You just - "  Oddly shrill, the
voice rose -- then fell sharply, like a rock, at the sweep 
of a hand against a similarly rocklike area.

  It occurred to Krycek, as he tugged on Mulder's jeans
until they were puddled at his ankles, that men were all
mindless pigs.  All you had to do was *hint* at fucking
them and they were putty in your hands, literally.  All
doubts quelled.  Even the cancerstick would capitulate if
you put his flaccid little cock in your mouth.  Krycek
himself was guilty of doing this, several times, before the
smoker had learned his lesson.  The lesson: If you fuck, be 
prepared to get fucked over in turn.  Yet knowing this
seemed not to matter to a typical man.

  Krycek was grateful for this flaw, for he was not your
typical man -- no one ever got to the stage where they
could fuck him.

  So Mulder was a boxers man -- and he was uttering a low,
throaty little moan as his erection was finally released
from its confines.  Of *course* a man like Mulder would be
well hung, enough to make even Krycek's inner slut twitch
at the thought of latching onto it.  But just as he was 
about to do so, Curious George interrupted.

  "Are you sure you really - "

  "Shhh."  Shifting, he caught the length of it in his hand
and then ran his fingers along the head, lightly tracing the
dew-glistening wetness.  A faint stroke here, a tight but 
ginger clasp of fingers there -- the way you'd hold a gun -- 
and Mulder's guttural sigh was coasting into the air as his 
hips arched forward.  That was where Krycek focused, on a 
point just above the pale outline of hipbone that jutted out 
like a ghost skeleton.  Looking further down gave him a jolt 
of pleasure that clashed with his agenda.

  "Do you have any - " Mulder began in a breathless pant at
the sight of Krycek's head moving insistently toward his
groin.  "I mean, this isn't safe - "

  Krycek paused, tilting his head up with a deliberate jerk 
while his hand splayed lazily along Mulder's inner thigh.
Eyebrows curled, he spoke with a wispy gust of breath on the 
other's exposed abdomen, inciting a sharp tremble.  "So
you've been sleeping around?"

  A telltale flush around the cheekbones, little more than a 
shadowed gleam of rose in the darkness.  He hadn't thought 
Mulder could blush.  "No -- I have the X-Files, and I'm not 
really - "

  "And we're all tested regularly," said Krycek, who had
perused Mulder's surveillance records with a discerning eye.
He knew for a fact that the man hadn't been laid since his 
days at Oxford with that manipulative Phoebe bitch.  "Just
let me, please."  With just the right inflection, mingled
need and lust and the guilt of ages, Mulder might shut the
hell up.  He lived in hope.

  "Okay, but I - "  Finally, the apprehensive drone was
drowned out by a husky, moaning chorus.

  And maybe you didn't have to say anything at all to shut
Mulder up, just take him into your mouth, drown the salty
weep of his tears with a zigzag of tongue like lightning on
water.  He sat as an innocent bystander, still as a statue
but for the rhythmic lapping, the damp musk of Mulder on his
crushed lips.  It was Alex Krycek who gave those heavenly
blow jobs of legend, not *him*.  He just watched from 
above, directing the play -- visible only for the curtain
call.

  Watch he did, glazed eyes flowing over the rise and fall
and wanton thrust of Mulder's hips.  And when he came it
was strangely without movement, still as glass.  No way to 
even tell unless you were Krycek, with the warmth and steam 
of summer rain splashing into your mouth.  

  And if you were Krycek you were too busy swallowing, 
licking the gold-dust trickle from your lips like it was 
cyanide, to notice.  And you sure as hell didn't think about 
the aftertaste -- which didn't have quite the bitter tang
you'd imagined -- that lingered in the back of your throat.

  By the time an ominously silent Mulder had buttoned his
jeans, fingers fumbling uselessly at the denim, Krycek was
lounging on the couch.  His lips worked every once in a
while, keeping the sheen of saliva fresh, but no sound
came out until Mulder had collapsed beside him in a pose of 
boneless lethargy.  
  
  "Good?"  Tired inquiry, automatic as breathing.  He'd lost
count of how many times he'd asked it.

  "Fuck," Mulder said, and without warning slipped his arm 
around Krycek's shoulders.  "What do you want me to do."  
Not really a question; more a statement of intent, and a
hand had suddenly slipped in between his legs, elbow
settling against his bruised thigh.

  He tensed up, coiled like a spring, ready to unwind and
flee at any moment.  It was only with a conscious effort
that he relaxed his muscles into loose amiability, letting
the barbed flash of his eyes fall slack and vacant.  It
wasn't supposed to go like this, damn it.  Mulder was 
supposed to lie there, sated, and fall asleep, or allow 
Krycek to usher him out the door and mumble a drowsy thanks.  
This wasn't a part of his plan.

  Of course, Mulder had noticed the grimace, here and then
gone in a firefly flicker.  The arm retreated.  "You got
hurt today?"

  And he adapted; he always did.  Necessity was the mother
of invention.  Krycek was an invention.  "Actually, no.
The neighbor has a cat.  I tried to pet it and.."

  Faint, half-hearted chuckle, laziness spreading thick
like honey on the other's tongue.  "S'why I have fish."

  "Listen -- Mulder, I'm really tired."

  The man beside him shot up into wakefulness.  "Don't you
want - "

  Standing, he snapped his legs straight with a burst of
glee as pain lanced through them.  But it withered into ash
at the sight of Mulder's stricken face; at the unbidden
thought of that lush, eager mouth on his cock.  His voice
billowed out into the air, listless, betraying nothing.

  "Tomorrow, please.. I just -- want to sleep.  It's been
a long day."

  Mulder was next to him now, shoulders even, brushing and
then jerking away.  Even with the upscale New York sweater
on his arm, cell phone attached and hair slightly mussed,
his mournful expression made him look like a Holocaust
victim.  "If you're sure?"

  "Yeah."  Never mind that he wasn't.  Never mind that he
mouthed "spasi menya" to the other's retreating back.  It
was just wistful sentiment.

  "I'll see you in the morning, then.  We'll have to talk
about this.  You won't mention it to anyone, right?"  He
should have known that Mulder would remain coherent in
spite of it all.  Damned eidetic memory, singular focus.

  "I'm not that green," he snapped, but there wasn't any
real bite to it.  Sometimes, after a rat had finished
trolling the garbage, it was as harmless as a mouse.

  A few moments later Mulder had faded through the door in
a dandelion rush, the spice of him steadily drifting away 
into the air.  Maybe he was flourishing somewhere else; 
maybe he'd never really been there at all.  It was all the 
same to Krycek once he'd locked the door and set up his 
monitoring equipment to study Mulder's apartment.

  Then Alex Krycek tiptoed into his bathroom in silent,
spidery steps, even though there was no one to hear him, and 
vomited the contents of his stomach into the toilet.  It was
very methodical, the spacing of his gags, the dry, wracked
heaving of his body.  Nor was he remiss in cleaning up; when
he was done, there wasn't a trace of anything -- anywhere.
Even his teeth gleamed at him, the pearly white of angel's
wings, from the too-bright mirror.

  Not too long after that he was perched on the counter
again with the soothing, icy chill of a blade in his hands,
slashing in cryptic arcs along the inside of his other 
thigh.  This time, the tip trailed much higher than before.  
And this time, when he was done, the butterflies in his
stomach refused to let him tally the sin on his sheet.

  Instead he drew up another chart, an atonement list for 
the grievous wrong of *wanting* a man whom he had betrayed 
long before he'd even known Fox Mulder existed.  In time, 
the list would grow long, the paper worn and battered.  But 
he carried it with him like a child would cling to a teddy
bear, scrawling dutifully.  Even after the subject of the
list had rendered him a cripple, the tallies shot up with
the speed of sunflowers.  Moonflowers, in his case.

  You see, Alex Krycek was a very meticulous man.

  * * * * *

  Bleed in your own light 
  Dream of your own life 
  I miss me 
  I miss everything I'll never be 
  And on, and on 

  I torch my soul to show 
  The world that I am pure 
  Deep inside my heart 
  No more lies 

  So soon I'll find myself alone 
  To relax and fade away 
  Do you know what's coming down 
  Do you know I couldn't stay free? 
  
  "Rocket" (The Smashing Pumpkins)

  * * * * *

  Note: "spasi menya" means "save me" in Russian, according
to a dictionary and a couple of random, Russian-speaking
people.  If I'm wrong, please tell me so that I can put in
the right translation.

  * * * * *