Disclaimer: Of Fox and Chris Carter. Not of me. Dig?

Sex disclaimer: Never ever have I ever done it in the department mail room after hours, while the photocopier sang its small, radioactive song and memos caught below our tangled bodies were swept onto the floor.

Notes:
For Nonie, who made the suggestion.

The "faxable" thing comes from Jakita Wagner in the "Planetary" comics. Just one more ass-kicking chick in leather to love.

This came about largely because Nonie Rider demanded to know whether there existed one-sided Mulder stories - ie, stories where Mulder wants Krycek and Krycek just hates him.  And then I started contemplating the Kevin Spacey/Chris Cooper kiss at the end of American Beauty and aftermath of same. And then started writing instead of doing the class reading I've been putting off all weekend.
 
 

He's never had a lot of respect from government cars. They run to dark-coloured mid-size sedans, and as a rule they steer like cows. Good for surveillance, middling for tails, pathetic for undercover at street level, and utterly the second-least sexy things on earth. The least being the smoker of a dark, rainy morning. That's one to make your balls crawl right back up inside your body and stay there cowering forever.

At the moment, he'll settle for the cancerman's absence, but he'd like it if, just as a bonus, Mulder's G-car weren't mashed against his face either. Nor Mulder's whole weight on top of him, pinning the severed shoulder down so he can't even struggle without making pain-spots shimmer in front of his eyes. Mulder's stilted New England accent grates on his ears from a distance of six inches, and Krycek's still trying to figure out how he lost control of this situation. And why he has to get bent over the car's hood at quite this angle.

And why it has to be happening on the shoulder of a major highway at two a.m. with at least half a dozen semis sweeping by them every five minutes. Even given that they're on the ditch-ward side of the car, Mulder has to know what this looks like, and you'd think his usual bashfulness would kick in or something.

"What would you think if I told you I was going to handcuff you to the door and let you run beside all the way back to D.C.?" Warm, wet breath in his ear. Mulder's going to squish him flat in a minute. Faxable thug. There'll be a copy of him on Scully's desk come morning, freshly printed and still a little curly from the paper roll.

"I'd say I'll get loose, unless you make me run backwards." Jerks his head as much as he can to indicate the missing left arm and the passenger's door both.

"I was thinking of hooking you to my door." So hot for a second that he imagines Mulder must have licked his ear, which is disturbing on any number of levels that ought not be contemplated.

The next semi comes up so fast he isn't expecting it, and for a second he's blinded by the wave of light hitting his face. Gasps as Mulder shifts, deliberately grinding the remains of Krycek's left arm into the over-waxed navy paint job. Bostonian laughter while he retches. And a particularly fucked-up grind of Mulder's crotch against his ass before the bastard finally slides off and lets Krycek slide to his knees. Body-warm metal against his cheek while he rests his head against the car and waits for his arm to stop hurting.

Click.

Gun barrel just behind his ear. He's wondering at the moment which one of them is supposed to be the terrorist, exactly.

Mulder's other hand settles on Krycek's neck, the side opposite the gun, and holds him there. Against the gun, he supposes. He refuses to react to the fingers that keep crawling up into his hair. There are things that've made his skin crawl worse, and he didn't curl up and whimper for those either. His eyes are still closed and the nausea is almost gone, and if he just keeps breathing from the base of his stomach, he'll be --

-- well, something. Probably not OK, but not pissing himself or crying like a baby girl either.

"What were you doing at the Johanssens' house, Krycek?" Just a whisper in his ear. He doesn't think this is about whatever Mulder's currently investigating, not really. The man just likes making him bleed on random occasions.

"I don't suppose you'd believe taking a shortcut home?"

. . .

That hurt. Not the barrel of the gun, but definitely the butt of it, and he's not entirely sure that Mulder thumbed the safety back on first. But maybe Mulder'll be satisfied with that much damage, and a laid-open cheek isn't the worst damage he's ever come out of one of these discussions with. He's more worried at the moment that he's lying on the ground at Mulder's feet, staring up at him and wearing what's got to be the most pathetic *I-can't-believe-you-hit-me* look in existence.

"Want to try that again?" Mulder asks.

"Shoot me if you're going to."

. . .

"What?"

"Shoot me if you're going to. You didn't grab me in Baltimore and drag me out to the middle of nowhere to arrest me. You can't even take me in as long as I'm bleeding, if only because Scully'll take your hide off. So shoot me if you're going to. Otherwise ask the question you really want answered or let me go."

And fuck. But he's dizzy and still sick to his stomach. His stump hurts and he's cold. And he was close enough to the house Mulder's investigating to raise the man's suspicions, but he really was only watching, and he's not in any condition to generate a lie interesting enough to satisfy Mulder's imagination.

Mulder reaches down a big hand, and for a second Krycek actually manages to believe the man's going to help him up. Right until the fingers close on the front of his shirt and just haul him staggering to upright, and push him back so he's leaning over the car again. Still staring up at Mulder.

"What did they send you to stop me from finding?"

"Nothing."

"Why did you kill my father?"

"I didn't."

Mulder steps in against him, and suddenly there's a thigh pressed up between his legs, threatening his balls with a more-than-slight pressure.

"Why did you let them take Scully?"

"Long story."

"What was it like fucking Marita Covarrubias?"

"Vaguely slimy."

The pressure against his crotch increases. He keeps breathing as deeply as he can to swallow the sick feeling crawling up towards his throat.

Mulder bends over him, puts a hand on either side of his head. "What were you doing there tonight?"

"Watching." He's going to be really sick in a second. Mulder's so close to him that his face is starting to blur and double, and Krycek can't decide whether it's just hard to focus this close up or whether he's well and truly concussed from that last smack upside the head.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Thought so."

He has a second to go truly cross-eyed before Mulder's mouth closes on his. Cold skin, which isn't surprising considering that he's going to freeze to death himself in a second, warm wet mouth that's open on him and pushing his own lips open. Tongue in his mouth.

Somewhere close to his head, there's still that gun to worry about; if he twists, he's got a better-than-even chance of taking a blow, or a shot, in the head. Besides, there's nothing Mulder would like better than to have him freak. And this isn't so really awful, not even painful, and all he has to do is keep breathing until Mulder gives up on the thing (kiss kiss kiss kisskisskisskisskiss) and switches to the next tactic.

Except that it doesn't break off as sharply as he would have expected. Just eases and ends with the other man's lips resting against his. Too close and too dark to tell whether Mulder's eyes are closed, but he'd give money that they are. Heavy on him. And hard.

Fuck.

Another long moment while Mulder pulls back just far enough for both of their eyes to focus and stares down at him. Shifts a little against Krycek's hip and presses that threatening leg closer in. Stops.

The hand that replaces the leg is almost brisk, like a frisking movement. Just cups him for a second and lets go. And pushes off the hood, lifting Mulder away, finally, to stand on the lip of the ditch with his gun dangling loose from one hand.

"What do you want Krycek?"

"I don't know. Shoot me or rape me or let me go or tell me what you want, but get it over with." Before I puke on your shoes. He's bleeding now, really bleeding, down the side of his face, and the world's gone disturbingly blurry.

There's a long breath while he gets to contemplate life with his brains splattered across the car and pavement. Thinking that next time maybe he will give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing him freak. Or whatever. If that's even what Mulder wants, because he's frankly not so sure anymore.

Then once more into the breach with a hand on his collar and a gun at the back of his skull. Away from the highway and down into the long, dead grass of the ditch. Mulder forces him to his knees in front of a traffic sign and the next semi's lights wash over them both. Some trucker's going to have the rest of the night to contemplate this particular vision of Krycek on his knees like some teenaged rentboy, and said trucker's still going to be having the less bizarre evening.

The gun stays at the back of his skull, which is more than enough to keep him still while Mulder closes one cuff on Krycek's wrist, passes the chain around the sign's post, and closes the other cuff on the same wrist, thereby answering the question of how, exactly, you chain up a one-armed man.

With his head down while Mulder decides what to do with him. The next semi driver's going to have a perfect execution-style silhouette instead of some kind of queer fantasy haunting him. If he even sees. Krycek drove across the country in thirty-eight hours, once, and by the time he hit the east coast you could have sacrificed livestock in the passenger's seat and he wouldn't have cared.

And in fact no one does stop, even though they get drowned in halogen six more times. Insignificant in the dark. Or else it looks official enough that no one's worrying. G-man with G-car takes care of G-murder at two-thirty in the morning, will bury the body properly when the time comes.

When Mulder decides to pull that goddamned trigger. When.
 

 
 
 
 

jane
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