Title: Break Me Author: RosesDecay E-Mail address: RosesDecay@aol.com Rating: PG Category: VA Spoilers: It helps if you've seen Apocrypha Keywords: Pendrell/Krycek Summary: Breakdowns and the slow journey back up. Author's Note: This story is set in the same universe as my previous story, "The Care And Feeding Of Young Dragons." Takes place after Krycek's rescue from the silo in 'Apocrypha.' Also, I'm not ashamed to say this piece has more sap in it than a pine tree (but it's angstified!). Proceed At Your Own Risk. Previous stories at: http://members.xoom.com/rosesdecay/ Distribution: Anywhere, as long as my name and e-mail address remain attatched. Disclaimer: The X-Files and all characters related to the show do not belong to me. I don't claim any right to them. No infringement intended. ~ Break Me ~ All I have is need, dark and heavy, and I don't think I can stand under its weight much longer. It's hard. It's hard to take each step out of bed in the morning and not trip. It's hard to open the refrigerator, looking for something to ingest. My taste buds are gone, my sense of smell departed for the Elysian Fields. All it is now is ingestion, a careful precise calorie count that keeps the meat on my bones, or tries to scrape up a few strings of it and paste it on. That's all I have now - scentless air and tasteless food, pliable lumps to swallow and cool, crisp air that tastes like the sweet bitter cream of nothing. It's hard not to cling. I eat mechanically, like a robot, grinding and slicing my way through the minutes, hating it. Nothing to savor, just the bland ordinary task of survival. There's nothing more depressing than survival, except perhaps for death. I don't know. I won't know, until I die. He sits in the other room, pretending to still be asleep. It's a little game we have, a game of Chicken. He hears the thud of remorseful steps, the creak of the fridge, the clinks of glass and plates and forks and he opens his eyes, staring at the ceiling. He'll listen to me gag on chewy substances and listen to the listless crunch of toast between my teeth and he'll sit up, waiting. When it's gone I'll run the dishes under the sink and shove them into the dishwasher, carelessly. I'll sit at the table and fold my hands, staring at the relentlessly scrubbed-pink skin with morbid fascination. They've spent so many hours under the scalding tap that they're permanently flushed, rubbed raw. I can stare at them for upwards of fifteen minutes if I really put my mind to it. He's never broken before me. Inevitably, it's always me. I'll sit in the cold chair and he'll sit straight as a board in the suffocating confines of his bed and we'll listen to the tick of the clock, the chirp of birds outside. We'll listen to the creaks of the springs as he shifts, the scrape of the chair as I change positions. We'll focus steadfastly on the little things - the unhealthy pink of my skin, the awkward weave of his sheets. Staring and staring and waiting and waiting, for the fear. The panic. It's always me. Worse than a child. It'll creep up on me slowly, much more slowly than it did in the past. The kiss of panic and pain, the faint, far-off smell of burning oil, the borders of my eyesight that waver under the far-reaching darkness. It passes over me and like a child I run, straight to him for safety. The squeal of the chair and the flood of my footsteps, and he's always waiting for me, arms open, face solemn. Not saying a word, just waiting. Sometimes it's different - sometimes I can stop myself in the doorframe, just allowing myself to look at him. Sometimes I stop myself at the bed, sitting down gingerly and refusing to touch him. Sometimes I don't stop, barrelling into those open arms and flinging myself at them until I can hear his voice, the soft soothe of wool and warmth. He knows how to calm me down, and some days it's the only thing that pulls me back from the brink of insanity. Always me. Always me who breaks. He whispers to me at night, the only time we've allowed ourselves to talk about it. He says I've gotten better - that I've improved. I'm normal, again, or as normal as I can get in my line of work. No more days and nights with my bony knees stabbing me through the chest, refusing to move or speak or eat or breathe. I can get through the days with little difficulty, dragging myself out of bed to eat, to survive. I can shoot as well as I ever could, my arm as steady as a rock. I can drive, I can run, and I remember everything I should. I'm okay, he whispers into my ear, a thin arm curled around my chest, pressing himself into me tightly. I'm okay. Almost. Some days are better than others. Those are the days where I can get control by the doorway, where I can look into his eyes and nod, walk away. The days when just the sight of him can banish the fear, when the tantalizing whisper floats through my mind of the day when I won't even need that. And some days are worse, the days where I look at him and I can smell the hot oil in my veins and see the darkness eating away at the borders of my eyesight. The days where I throw myself at him and dare him to catch me, dare him to fight away the demons. He always does, with words and the gentlest of kisses. He understands. Toast. Dry like sand between my teeth. I swallow it, chasing it down with milk, heavy and white and dead. My chair scrapes and I stand, juggling plates and glasses and silverware, turning on the water and dousing them in hot, soapy bubbles. I shove them into the dishwasher and turn off the tap, the silence sloshing around the room like a viscous liquid. I sit back down in the creaky chair, listening to the melody of wood on tile. I stare at my fingers for a moment and look away in disgust. Pink and raw, so completely raw. The clock ticks. It's not irritating, per se, but rather a muted companion - a distraction, a small thing to grip on to when the seconds start picking up. I let myself relax, falling into the gentle rhythmic click of each second. I close my eyes and see him, sitting up, his hair a choppy copper mess in the dusty beams of sunlight. Waiting. For the inevitable. For me. I love him. I tell myself it's ridiculous and I tell myself it's stupid and I tell myself it's simply something I'm not capable of, and yet it still remains true. I love every inch of him and several of the inches surrounding him, in the air. I love his soft, tasteless lips and the rough scrape of his cheek, the thick cotton murmur of his voice and his arms, slim and warm, drawing me closer. Keeping me safe. But I need him, and it makes loving him all but impossible. The clicks beginning to blend and blur and I take my focus off them, letting it settle on the raspy hum of the refrigerator. I would not survive without him, would not go on. I would sit at this table and refuse to eat the lumplike food. I would stand and pace the rooms, trying to escape the wavy blur of darkness that dances on the edge of everything I see. But by him and the grace of whatever higher power I hadn't ticked off yet, I can still live. I don't know what keeps him going. It's rising to my lips again, the acrid taste of flame and oil, sizzling over my taste buds and going directly into my brain. I grip the sides of the chair harshly, letting the shock of tension build in my knuckles. I need him so much, but I don't want to. I want to love him, to live knowing I don't stay because I can't live without him, but because I wouldn't want to live without him. It's a fire, a flame building in my veins. My white knuckles throb with it, the purple-blue spiderwebs igniting with hot orange intensity. I let go of the refrigerator and switch to the birds, the heady song and crisp electric chirps of their speech. I can't lose again; I can't go on like this. I have to survive, and survive on my own. I have to move on. I have to live. The darkness wanders casually in, an old friend sauntering into familiar territory. The edges of the kitchen dissolve into flowing near-black, hot and terrible and devastating. Panic is a cold set of talons on my shoulder and I tremble, needing him, needing something, anything. The springs of his bed creak, and I freeze. I hear the gentle click of his door and for a moment I'm sure I've made it up, imagined it. But in an instant his breath is on my neck and his arms are around my chest, thin and warm. A stubbled cheek brushes against mine and the darkness screams, slipping back into the walls as he curls into me, scraping a dry kiss lightly over my lips. "It's okay," he murmurs, and I don't know whether to believe him or not. "You're okay." And he's right. I am. Cool and tasteless and scentless, alive and safe. My arms wrap around his and I swivel my head, seeking out those lips, those eyes. He looks at me placidly, the solemnity broken only by the slightest hint of a smile. "It's better," he whispers, and kisses me again, letting me feel the raised tips of his smile. "Not perfect, but much better." Better. Warm and safe and enclosed, and I earned it. Didn't break. Almost, but not quite. "I can live with better," I whisper into his mouth, and it's true. I can survive. Better yet. I can live. ~ Bend me, break me Anyway you need me All I want is you Bend me, break me Breaking down is easy All I want is you "I Think I'm Paranoid," Garbage ~