FIC: X-Files - Dark Night Shineth

[fajrdrako_fic]

Title: Dark Night Shineth
Author: fajrdrako
Fandom: X-Files
Characters: Mulder/Krycek
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims.
Notes: With thanks to my beta-readers, Vicky and Gail.


Dark Night Shineth

Fox Mulder never celebrated Christmas. Nor had his family, whose nominal Jewish faith had eroded and disappeared long before he was born. Samantha's disappearance had destroyed whatever remained of a desire to spend time together in celebration, and Mulder had been left with grief and defiance, and bitter memories of the lively girl who was no longer with them.

For reasons he couldn't explain, Christmas Eve was always the hardest, longest, darkest, loneliest, coldest night of the year.

Mulder had lain awake on Christmas Eve, year after year, wondering where Samantha was and what had happened to her. Dead? Suffering? There was no knowing. That was worst of all.

Adulthood hadn't dulled the pain. There was no more necessity, and no more reason, to pretend and that freedom was precious to him. He did get time off -- not a pleasure, just another burden to be carried until he was back at work.

Mulder left his office as late as possible on Christmas Eve, and went to see his mother, lying in her coma. They talked. Or, rather, he talked and she lay motionless in her bed. It was, he supposed, as effective a mutual communication as they had shared over many years. Did she know how much he loved her? That he knew, however little they had spoken of, that she loved him? Had he felt her pride in him: her son the Oxford scholar. Her son the expert in criminal deviance.

He arrived back home very late, to a dark apartment.

He had two Christmas presents: one from Scully, one from Skinner. Scully was spending Christmas with her mother; they would celebrate the season in true Christian fashion, and find happiness in it and each other. Perhaps her brothers would fly up and join them, with their families. Mulder had not asked.

He didn't know how Skinner was spending the holiday.

The presents sat, unopened, on his desk next to a card from Phoebe. He supposed he should count himself lucky. It could have been from John Barnett.

Years of nightmares on Christmas Eve mad it difficult for him to sleep. As he drifted off, he could hear Samantha calling his name. That brought wakefulness, and pain.

It was worse this year. He had seen her… seen the child she had been, seen one photo of many such children, covertly handed him by the mysterious woman who was willing to risk the wrath of her superiors at the U.N. to leak such thinks, to lift the edge of the curtain just a little so he could see what lay behind. All of the girls were Samantha, all of them something other than Samantha. Voiceless aberrations who silently cried his name in the dark. Fox, they said. Fox: the name almost no one else dared use.

Fox.

He watched a video or two, turning them off unfinished. Drifting in and out of sleep, he knew when someone else had entered the room. Knew instantly it was not a nightmare. He waited, with anger, without fear, his heart beating erratically.

The housebreaker was deft and quiet. Mulder recognized him before he snapped on the light by Mulder's head. Had recognized him already by the motion, the stance, the sense of his presence, the odour of his being. Mulder lifted his hand to shade his eyes, squinting at the gun pointed close to his nose.

Krycek.

"Merry Christmas, Mulder," said Krycek, mocking him. His eyes glittered behind the steady barrel of the gun. He wore a black leather jacket, a black turtleneck, and black jeans. His hair was still short, as Mulder had last seen it in Russia.

"You brought me a present", said Mulder. "How kind."

"You want death? You could get lucky."

No, thought Mulder: death wouldn't be luck. If he died, it would mean the bastards had won, that the truth was not revealed. Death would mean an end to his quest. He didn't intend to die. Least of all did he plan to let himself be killed by Krycek.

The excitement of it pounded in his ears, compounded by the fact that it was Krycek: his disciple, his demon, his darkest unspoken desire.

The thought and the absurdity of the situation made him want to laugh. He hated Krycek.

"You should have killed me in the beginning, Krycek. Before you killed people I loved. Before you proved what treacherous scum you are. Betraying everyone and everything -- and all for greed, wasn't it?"

"How would you know? What do you know about my motives?"

"All I need to, Alexei."

Krycek looked around the room, keeping the gun casually aimed at Mulder, assured of Mulder's helplessness and enjoying his triumph. "Hot much of a place, is it?"

Mulder shrugged. "Home is where the heart is. I take the fish for a walk every morning."

Krycek looked at the table -- a monograph, "Statistics on Self-Mutilation in the United States, Vol. 1, Urban Studies, 1960 to 1970." He glanced at the video-tape on top of the television, then looked closer at its handwritten label, and whistled softly. "Mulder! I didn't know you were into anything so kinky."

You don't know anything about it, thought Mulder with satisfaction. I've dreamed of you, Krycek, despite what you've done to me and my family; or because of it. You point a gun at me and it excites me, infuriates me, stimulates me -- and I don't believe there's a chance in a billion that you'll shoot me.

He might, of course, be wrong.

Mulder yawned. "What do you want, Krycek?"

"I want you dead."

"What a coincidence."

For a moment, Mulder felt his hatred spring to the surface. Krycek was a killer and a monster who could and did manipulate Mulder's feelings without half trying. Krycek, assassin and trickster; killer and whore.

Briefly, he could not keep the hatred from his face. He buried it again under the FBI mask that was, as so often, his refuge.

Krycek glanced at the VCR, then back at Mulder. The corner of his mouth curled in a contemptuous file. "Maybe I should fuck you first."

"Why not? You've screwed me over a dozen ways already. What's on more?" He tried to make his voiced flippant or even bitter, and failed. He hated Krycek and loved the desire he felt, and could not reconcile the two. He had given up trying

"Would you like it?" asked Krycek. His face showed triumph. He was the victor, gloating over his victim. It was all right for the victor to show lust: let him think he was winning, let him think he was getting what he wanted.

Let him think this was his idea.

"I don't know. Are you man enough to make me like it?" Mulder taunted. He could tell he had Krycek's full attention now. His undiverted interest. Slowly, he sat up on the sofa which served as his bed. The blanket fell to his waist. He was wearing sweat pants, but was otherwise naked. He saw Krycek's eyes run over his chest -- yes, Krycek was interested.

A weakness in the enemy. The same weakness of the fish for the fisherman, enticed by the bait. It remained to be proven which of them was the fish.

Mulder loved the uncertainty. It made his blood run faster. Arousal was the result and the catalyst; he savoured it, for the moment. The situation was a turn-on, the danger irrelevant. As Skinner had once said to him, we're always in danger, life could end at any moment, for any of us. Danger is only a matter of degree. Danger is only a matter of perspective. Clinging to life, or not. Fearing the unknown, or not.

"You're even worse than I imagined," said Krycek. The contempt in his tone had slipped a little into something that might have been admiration. Or wistfulness, if a person were to listen closely.

"So are you," Mulder replied, thinking of a Russian labour camp where men were scarified to illusions hidden in rock. Thinking of old women in Florida, dying with black scum in their nostrils. Krycek was one of the evils behind the evils, a pawn and a rival to the puppet masters. And yet, so enticing to look at. So tempting to touch.

"Throw back the covers," said Krycek, aiming the gun again.

Mulder did so. His feet were bare. His legs seemed, to his own eyes, long and vulnerable in the worn running gear.

"Take off your pants," said Krycek.

Mulder did so. Clothes, he knew, were a flimsy psychological defence against violent attack. He liked it that he didn't need to depend on them. He didn't want to analyze, now, what it meant: the rush it gave him, their lack of fear. He lay naked and exposed, his half-erect cock revealed to Krycek's stare. Krycek stared. Mulder's cock grew harder, bigger, under the focus of those eyes, and he slipped his hand under his pillow.

For a moment the gun in Krycek's hand wavered. It aimed at Mulder's groin, then the barrel dropped to Krycek's side.

This was Mulder's chance. He was on his feet, his own gun in his hand, aiming with both hands at Krycek's head. "Drop it," said Mulder. He had kept a gun under his pillow for quite some time now. Kept it there for occasions like this.

Krycek cursed, and dropped his gun.

"Now," said Mulder. "Who will kill whom?"

"And who will fuck whom?" Krycek was amused and unafraid. "We both like to play games. The stakes get higher, and we get off on it. Shoot me now, Mulder, or face the consequences."

He was fast, faster than Mulder had expected. Perhaps the nightmares had dulled his senses, or perhaps it was the alluring stare of Krycek's dark-lashed eyes. Suddenly Mulder was on the ground, the gun falling out of his grasp. He tried to reach for it, but Krycek was bodily on top of him, pressing him against the floor, one artificial arm and one real one holding him immobile. Mulder looked into Krycek's face, and stopped fighting. Those mesmerizing eyes were inches from his, his straining cock tight against Krycek's body. He could feel Krycek's breath on his face. "Too slow," whispered Krycek.

"Too fast," said Mulder, his breath coming harder. Winded by the blow. Made breathless by the weight of this man's body on him. Made breathless by an arousal he couldn't resist if he wanted to, and a physical urgency made increasingly worse by the touch of Krycek's hard body against him. Made worse by the dark glint in the younger man's eyes.

"You like this," said Krycek, smiling.

"Yes."

"I turn you on."

"Yes." Mulder squirmed under him, emphasizing it. He gasped. Krycek did not move away. His hand -- the real hand, not the plastic one -- reached down between their bodies, fastened on Mulder's cock in a touch neither gentle nor cruel.

"Why?"

"Because…" He wasn't sure what to say, that Krycek would believe. Did his belief matter? He decided on a part of the truth that was irrelevant. "Because…you're beautiful."

And so he was; those long lashes, that firm skin, the features so perfect they might have been designed by an artist; and the cold, thuggish mind behind the face, hiding its cleverness, hiding its malice and its ideals. Krycek, the beautiful mystery, the man without an identity or a past -- how could Mulder resist that?

Krycek put his hand on the ground again, to push himself up on his arms. He stood, fumbling with his belt and fly. The false arm made him more clumsy than he had been, like a child whose balance is uncertain.

Mulder sat, reaching up, gently touching him. Firmly touching him. Freeing his cock, pulling down his jeans and briefs, watching him step out of them, running his hands lingeringly over his chest under his shirt, over his ass and balls. He could hardly believe that Krycek had delivered himself to him like this, was taking the bait, was playing the game.

With a gun in his hand, and the taste of death in their minds. The game had a price.

"Beautiful," Mulder repeated.

Krycek said harshly, "Get on the bed."

It wasn't a bed, but Mulder didn't quibble. He sat on the sofa, and Krycek pushed him down, spreading his legs. Krycek pushed him down, spreading his legs. Krycek reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a small packet, a condom. He pulled it open.

And why do you have that, Alex, my boy? wondered Mulder. Are you just -- prepared, like the Boy Scouts? Or is it that killing turns you on, and you planned to do something about it after you'd killed me? Or did you have something like this in mind even before I led you on?

Mulder smiled.

He took the packet from Krycek's hand. Awkward with the prosthesis, Krycek didn't stop him. His breath caught audibly as Mulder held his cock, rubbing it with curious fingers. Mulder pulled the lubricated rubber over Krycek's cock, soothing it, smoothing it, gentling it. Relishing it.

He liked this: liked seeing Krycek's intense eyes devouring him, liked seeing the mixed emotions flickering across his face -- fear, hatred, lust, desire. Desire to possess. Desire to retreat. No, Krycek, he thought: you aren't getting away from this one.

And neither am I.

He could not have said which of them was in control of the scenario. Perhaps Krycek thought he was running the show. perhaps he was now drawing Krycek into his fantasies, perhaps it was the other way around, and Krycek had wanted this, Krycek had set this up, Krycek was the fisherman and he the fish. In which case, his role was to take the bait without being hooked.

Mulder leaned back and rubbed his own cock sensuously. Krycek batted his hands away from himself, so Mulder reached over and took Krycek's erection warmly in his hands, in both hands, moving his thumb and his palms against it. Krycek ground, bracing himself on his arms over Mulder.

They were now both harder than ever.

Then Mulder pushed Krycek up. "Let me suck you," he said. His voice was hoarse. Playing with fire, here -- psychological fire. This man had killed his father, this man with the angelic face and foul mouth, he had killed Melissa, he had served those who abducted Samantha, and still his cock was sweet to the touch of Mulder's tongue. The price of this sin would come, if not in death, in later regret and self-hate, but that too was part of the pleasure, embracing and seducing the evil, not letting it seduce him. A dangerous game, like jumping on the roof of a train or putting a loaded gun to Smoking Man's head, and delicious too, as temptingly savoury as the cock he was licking.

"No," said Krycek, but he didn't resist as Mulder took his cock in his mouth, playing with his tongue against the foreskin, the tip, the long soft-textured shaft in its rubber encasement.

The rubber was like an alien skin.

Krycek touched Mulder's head, entwining his fingers in his hair. He moaned.

In a lightning-fast move, Mulder twisted him round and down to the sofa, flipping him onto his back. Krycek might have resisted, but Mulder's mouth was back on his cock now. He had more urgent impulses than resistance.

Mulder lifted his head. "Such a hard man," he said, half mocking, half admiring.

"Finish me."

"Okay." Mulder moved over him, one knee on either side of Krycek's hips, where the skin felt hot and sweet against his legs, anticipation of the unknown, of having his mind blown clear of omnipresent though. "You'll fuck me now, Alex. Show me what a Russian boy can do.

The flesh was hard and hot as it entered him. He whimpered, a short sharp sound that brought a feral smile to Krycek's face as he thrust swift and hard, and Mulder loved the sensation. He groaned, tried to move, felt the depth and strength and power of the man inside him. This was pleasure and punishment coming together, the attack from within and without, his own mind a rebel against himself, his body begging for it even as Krycek began and continued to thrust and he rode on the wave of it, drowning and gasping, needing and accepting.

Was this his victory, or Krycek's?

He pressed down, deeper, harder, hotter, felt himself filled to brimming and beyond with an intensity that consumed. Felt Krycek moving inside him with increasing fury and felt it overcoming him, drowning the brain that never stopped, brining mind and body close to that precipice of self-annihilation that was -- what, death? Or simply orgasm. He held back, recovering his senses to prolong the pleasure. He had Krycek's groan in his ears and Krycek's breath against his cheek as he leaned forward to touch Krycek's face with his -- not a kiss, not even a caress, but a touch as light and ephemeral as a warm breeze.

Then he leaned back again, relishing the change in sensation, feeling his body driven onto a distant shore of consciousness, beyond words or thought, consumed, consuming, consummated. He looked down into Krycek's eyes. At that moment the barriers between love and hate were shattered. Attraction and repulsion, fear and desire, mingled and entwined and were lost together.

Mulder had lost track of what had brought him together with Krycek, or how. He had never understood the why of it, the compulsion, the attraction and the hatred he felt for this beguiling prince of lies. He could tell that Krycek was likewise left stranded and adrift. They were in a distant limbo, all the more dangerous because they had no measurement for it. This was a place of the heart and the flesh, where reason had no more meaning than hate.

Two men together, on a dark and lonely Christmas Eve, where past wrongs, politics and plotting meant nothing.

What is left, when hatred is gone? When all the old motives disappear? As he climaxed, Mulder's cum spilled onto Krycek's chest, again and again. And Krycek, looking up at him, seemed to share his helplessness.

It didn't matter. Krycek was holding himself back, his eyes bright with triumph or surrender or both. Then he came too, thrusting himself into Mulder again and again, without restraint. Krycek held his hips with fingers that bruised.

Slowly, it came to an end.

Mulder didn't want to return to sanity or to reality. He didn't want to lose the sensation of Krycek's flesh in his flesh or the illusion, so sweet and ephemeral, that they were not enemies in a life and death battle that spanned two hemispheres and disguised truths. He wanted to assuage his conscience, to believe that his lust was healthy and warm, and not an impulse to destruction. He wanted to reach for excuses for this lust -- that he did it to save himself, or to save Krycek -- rather than admit the mindlessness of it, that he got off on this dark, dangerous man who threatened him in so many ways.

Krycek was breathing heavily as the last waves of climax dissipated. His eyes were glazed, his skin damp with sweat, his mouth open and mobile. Mulder touched his arm, the artificial one, his fingers closing over a contraption of wires and plastic instead of wanton flesh. He almost shuddered at that touch, and yet was revelling in the touch of Krycek's cock, slowly slipping out of him, of the warm skin of his belly, the touch of his legs.

Krycek had not moved. His eyes war dreamy, lost in sensation. he licked his lips. Mulder saw thought return, but he could not read Krycek's feelings from his expression. Was he vulnerable, or dangerous? Fish or fisherman?

And if he knew, would it make any difference to anyone?

Mulder raised himself off Krycek's shrinking cock. He walked over to Krycek's gun, picked it up, and emptied it of bullets, spilling them across the floor. Then he handed it, butt first, to Krycek.

"Here," he said.

"Why?" Krycek sat. He was pulling himself together, still breathless, still shaken. "Just kill me and get it over with. That was worth it."

"I'm letting you go."

Scully would think he was crazy, to let Krycek go like this. She would think he was crazy if she knew...when she learned…any of this.

Krycek could still kill him with his bare hands, or try to. His own gun was still somewhere on the floor -- over there, by the corner. He ignored it.

Krycek took the gun and put it in his inner pocket. He pulled on his shorts and his jeans, zipped the fly, managed the belt with his right hand alone.

"Why? Not because I'm a good fuck."

"I thought I was the good fuck."

"Why, then?"

Mulder didn't feel like explaining, even if he could. "Because it's Christmas. Because you are…" He lost his voice, cleared his throat, recovered it. "Beautiful." More beautiful, and in more ways, than Krycek could imagine. Eyes green as emeralds, green as alien blood, green as springtime; a hand that could caress or kill; a man on the cusp of hell.

How much of this did Krycek understand? For a second, his eyes blazed with hunger. Then the expression died. He stood. "You're a madman, Mulder."

Mulder waited. Waited for Krycek to make the next move. To leave; to stay; to try again to kill him, if he felt so inclined.

Krycek walked slowly towards the door. He said, "You have not won."

"Not yet," said Mulder, letting him go.

Krycek paused in the doorway.

"Next time," he said. Mulder didn't ask what he meant. Next time, I'll kill you? Next time, we do this again? Next time, you fuck me? Next time: another rotation of the merry-go-round, another escalation of the game.

Mulder did not reply. Krycek smiled. It was the smile of an innocent boy, of a viper, of a treacherous double-agent.

"Merry Christmas," said Krycek again.

He close the door behind him.

After a pause, Mulder picked up his own loaded gun from the floor of the empty apartment. "Merry Christmas, Alex."

He lay down. He'd intended to think, but he found that he was wearily falling asleep instead. Introspection could wait, with whatever it would bring. Satisfaction? Regret?

No -- gratitude. Samantha's haunting voice was silent.

- end -