Title: The Care And Feeding Of Young Dragons
Author: RosesDecay
E-Mail address: RosesDecay@aol.com
Rating: R for language and sexual references
Category: VA
Spoilers: None
Keywords: Pendrell/Krycek
Summary: Never underestimate the importance of proper maintenance.
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.

~
The Care And Feeding Of Young Dragons
~

It's probably a good thing that I don't have a day planner, because
if someone were to unwittingly stumble upon it, I'd be both arrested
and committed. Probably within half a minute of each other.

I don't have an address book, or a day planner, or one of those tiny
electronic devices that stores all your vital information using cheap
watch batteries. I do have a Palm Pilot, yes, but my uses for it are
different than that of your average Joe. Much different.

It's for the best. The people I know have no real addresses, and the
cycle of my days and weeks are becoming increasingly monotonous. An
endless loop of smoky clubs, muffled gunshots, scrubbing up blood and
driving large foreign cars. One-handed. I'm not that bad a driver,
really. Haven't hit a pedestrian yet, although I've ground a few rabbits
into the pavement these past few nights. I always give a little wince
when I hear the bump and squish, which is pretty fucked up considering
it usually happens when I'm on my way home from killing somebody. My
priorities are screwed, I know.

And then I can't forget the other large half of my imaginary schedule.
The regular intervals I set aside for Danny-maintenance, quick fixes
and recouping losses from any major blowups. As if putting up with
crap from the Gang Upstairs wasn't enough.

Ah, but Danny. I saw 'When Harry Met Sally', once. It had been during
my rebellious phase, when I told my father and my employers and
generally the whole world that they could stick their mysterious
projects and plans up their asses for all I cared. I had gotten an
ordinary job, rented an ordinary apartment, and hooked on to an
ordinary girlfriend who, consequently, got me watching ordinary
movies.

Naturally, things didn't work out. I sold computers. I told that to
Danny once and he had stared at me for a full thirty seconds before
collapsing on the bed in hysterical laughter. I hadn't been amused,
but the homicidal gleam in my eyes just made him giggle harder. "I
can just see you doing it," he had sputtered as I tried to get him
to shut up, nibbling on the skin around his lips. "All respectable
and well-dressed and talking bullshit about RAM and megabytes to
those poor innocent customers."

He was right. I wore a nice suit and bluffed my way through quite a
few sales, my skill at blatantly lying getting sharper every day.
But it got old real fast, as had the scummy little apartment with
no water pressure and the shrill blonde who reminded me why I had
decided to stick with both redheads and guys. But before we had gone
our separate ways she had dragged me to see 'When Harry Met Sally',
an ordinary movie that had so much Danny in it it was scary.

Danny is high-maintenance. To put it lightly. If I had a day planner
I'd pencil in little fifteen-minute incrimiants of Danny-time, between
meetings with the Gang Upstairs and jaunts around town in their elderly
tanks that used to pass for cars. I clock in about three full hours'
worth of accumulated Danny-time a day, and sometimes it's still not
enough. Some days I don't know whether to scream in frustration or
laugh with helplessness. There's isn't enough time in the day to keep
him happy, but I try. I really do.

Danny-time is usually spent on the phone, mindlessly babbling about
our day. When I first met him I hadn't pegged him to be an endless
talker, but he is. He quizzes me mercilessly about my day and I
keep feeding him the same line - on a cell phone, conversation could
be recorded, maybe I'd better not say. He snickers and asks me how
many people I've destroyed that day and whatever number I mumble gets a
different reaction. "Just one" usually gets me a kind of stupefied retort,
"two" gets me an uneasy laugh and a change of subject, and anything
"three" and over gets me a guilt trip like you wouldn't believe. Danny
is a master at guilt, and I'm a sucker for it.

Sometimes I tell him about the rabbits, but he never seems as broken
up about them as I do.

Danny-maintenance is a complicated process, really. Between the little
talks we have during the day and the time we have together in the
evenings and nights, I can usually keep things under control. But if
I leave him alone for too long he starts thinking, reflecting on the
past, and then it's too late. Cataclysmic events build until he erupts
in a nuclear holocaust. It's happened before, plenty a time.

I met him at Quantico, all those years ago. He was the bright shining
prodigy and I was the dark loner, trying to get through the whole ordeal
without drawing too much attention to myself. When I became a Field
Agent I would be of real use to them, the Gang Upstairs and all their
plans. I hadn't wanted any complications to mess things up.

Right. I had run into the Sunshine Child in the elevator, and he had
casually struck up a conversation. He had seen me around, noticed I
kept to myself. Was I okay? Did I need help or anything? Was there
anything the young guardian of the light could do?

I had looked into his sweetly smiling face and almost told him that *I*
could do plenty for *him* and would, if asked. But I told myself to take
things methodically, one step at a time. So I put on my best cooperative
face and agreed he could help me with something, a trifle I can't even
remember.

It had only taken about a month and a half before I had him sprawled
half-nude in my bed, kissing me fiercely and admitting that there was
plenty I could do for him. And he sure as hell was asking.

It hadn't been hard. Maintenance, that was all it took. Knowing which
buttons to push and which to stay far, far away from. I had burrowed
ever so casually under his skin and learned his fears, and burrowed
even deeper to find out how to keep them away. I quickly learned that
even the Sunshine Child had a dark side, and I tried as hard as I could
to soothe it. He gloried in safety and security and I gave it to him,
holding on to him with intoxicating warmth. He thrived on touches and
I gave them, freely, brushes of fingers, clasps of hands. And when push
came to shove I had to admit I thrived on him too, his boundless
optimism and shy smile.

Oh, but the dark side.

He had died for me. It sounds like a joke, but it's true. Years passed,
trembling with change and danger, and I was sucked deeper into it all.
Lost my reason. Lost my sanity.

Lost an arm in the process.

But I never lost him. He had taken care of me during those dark months,
dark years. When I escaped from the silo he had been there, forcing
me to eat and drink and stay alive. When I came back from Tunguska,
hollow and maimed and ready to die, he had made it better, helped
me re-learn how to function, to survive.

Died. A perfectly staged operation, plenty of witnesses. The acting
gig of a lifetime. Got himself drunk and shot at, got bundled into
an ambulance and pronounced dead with no problems. *Stay with me,*
I had pleaded with him so many nights. *I don't care how you do it.
Stay with me.*

They buried a coffin full of sandbags and he watched impassively
from a distance, left arm around me tight enough to break my ribs.
He watched his small group of friends gather around his coffin, watched
the humbled colleagues who kept a respectful distance. He had started
to shake and I had pulled him away, letting him cling to me. Thrive.

We both thrive on each other.

Died, and he became mine. Whenever I wanted him he was mine for the
taking, never a complaint. Any night I wanted I could slide inside
him, hot and slick, and it never was a question of yes or no, but
of harder or faster or deeper. And he used me back, never having
to do more than ask.

Maintenance. Months with nothing but me and the shadows of hiding
slowly exposed his dark side, the tedium of never being seen eating
away at his smile. And before long I was beginning to neglect him,
to let my work consume me. World War III was in the making. I
should've seen, but I didn't until it exploded right in front of my
eyes.

He was depressed. Depressed and lonely and scared of the shadows,
the darkened apartment and the constant fear of being discovered.
He had screamed at me, flailed and screamed and pummeled at me with
a violence I had never seen before. *I have to get out!* he had
wailed finally, and hot iron fists slammed into my shoulders. *I
have to find a way out...*

I had made a mistake. Maintenance. It's really all that mattered. I spent
the next three days in our apartment, holding on to him whether he liked
it or not, letting myself feed off his darkness, letting him thrive on
all I had to give. After three days I had sent him out into the world,
told him to get a tan and to come back when he was disgusted with the
human race in general. He had come back that night, slightly sunburnt
and grinning. Told me that he still liked the human race, but he was
craving something for which he liked me best of all.

I was content to leave it that way.

Things are getting steadily worse, these days, and I don't need a day
planner to tell me. Colonization - the dirty catchword that seems to
be all the rage now - is on its way. Technologies beyond imagination
are undergoing widespread testing. The shocks are dying on the elderly
boats they make me drive, and my Danny boy's getting those hollow eyes
again, devoid of light and love.

There's just not enough time in the day to get things done.

I don't own a day planner. So in my mind I conjure one up, hauling out a
pen and scrawling through the next three days. It's time to get outside
some more, take a drive, let him walk through the parks at noontime to
smile at the happily shrieking children. Time to grab hold of each other
and rebuild, fortify ourselves before something truly deadly happens.

Maintenance. So much of it, and so little time.

But in this case, I think I finally have my priorities straight.

~