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.

~

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

~

Title: The End Of The Beginning
Author: RosesDecay
E-Mail address: RosesDecay@aol.com
Rating: NC-17
Category: SA
Spoilers: Nothing remotely recognizable
Keywords: Pendrell/Krycek, slash, pretty much PWP
Summary: The end of innocence and the beginning of eternity.

Author's Note: This story is set in the same universe as "The Care
And Feeding Of Young Dragons." However, this is from Pendrell's POV.
Takes place sometime in the years between Sleepless and Tunguska.

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.

Many thanks to CiCi for the beta and encouragment.
For Abby, Paige, and Iceey. 50 it is, and 50 it shall be. Rock on. ;)


~
The End Of The Beginning
~

I want to re-live him all over again.

Those nights. I want to be back at my cheap apartment, the pillbox rooms
with the dim halogen lights. I want to be back on that twin bed, pressed
against the wall, falling to pieces with each toss and turn. Back.

Sometimes these days, all I want is to go back.

The night he looked me in the eye and told me he was going to hurt me.
The night he pressed himself against the door, saying he had to go, had
to run, before he destroyed me and my life and every chance I'd ever
have. The night he admitted to things I had suspected for months.

The night everything began.

He was shaking. We were younger then, not hardened enough to have learned
control over the teeth-clattering viciousness of nerves. Trembling with
some foaming concoction of lust and guilt and love and fuming, tired
hatred.  Hands fumbling for the door knob but never finding it. Dry
lips a dull, bloody red.

I want to go back to that first kiss.

Dry lips, unforgivingly dry. He closed his eyes and refused to move, to
give in. I licked my lips and his, gently sliding my tongue between
them. He warmed underneath me, shaking his head side to side, silent
frantic whispers puffing into my mouth. *I don't want to hurt you. I
don't I can't I won't*

I tasted guilt on every tooth, every slippery nerve of his inner cheek.
His tongue jabbed at mine helplessly, harsh and defiant and shamefully,
shamefully insistent. *I don't care,* I had told him, stilling his hand
as it touched the cold brass of the doorknob. *Don't care. Don't care.
Don't.*

The salt-tang of his neck against my mouth, a fierce, ravaging kiss that
tried to suck the very essence out of his skin. His head rolled slowly
to the side, giving me my way, giving me the full vast territory of his
throat to devour. Something hissed from between gently closed lips, a
sound that ran gentle fingers down my spine. So scared and so good.

That night. It was the beginning of the end.

He had the power. Hell, he's always had the power. The strength and the
force of will to get himself through anything, any time, anywhere.

His force of will had little effect on me that night, as he pulled away
from the cool unyielding door and began pushing me through the hallway.

Because I was already walking.

The bed. A twin bed with a thin fitted sheet, pushed against a wall going
off-white from so many nights with a body pressed against it. Thin fingers
going down the front of my jeans, hot and curved and shining like ivory
under the dim halogens. A teasing stroke that sent a rush of heat
bubbling through my stomach. And it was my turn to murmur, to send silent
benedictions to nameless gods and devils. Heat. Hot and dangerous and
beautiful, beautiful.

A fingertip traced out the curve of my cock, a whisper of something not
quite pain. And I sank into it, my hands on the back of his neck,
stretching the smooth unmarred tautness of his throat. It was salt and
the faint suggestion of blood, powerful and screaming through thread-thin
veins. Doom. The taste of danger and ash and ozone.

Then the bed was against the backs of my knees and I was falling, being
pushed over an edge that should have never been approached. His hands
leapt up and caught my head before it cracked against the wall, his lips
crushing into mine, slick and tearing. He caught my breath and tried to
pump it out of me, each tug and slide of his tongue dragging me deeper.
It was beyond the safety of our ordinary kisses, light and superficial,
a precursor to better things. *Danger, Will Robinson,* my mind croaked
uselessly as his body slammed down next to mine, narrowly missing the
floor.

My back was pressed against the wall, uncomfortably cold against the
thick heat in front of me. He was millimeters away from being pressed
up against me, maintaining delicate balance on his side. His lips tore
from mine as his hands tore forward, not worrying about balance or
steadiness or care, sliding under my shirt and wrenching it off with
two hooked thumbs.

"Alex." It's a whisper of a scream, borne of his tongue, his damnable
detestable tongue brushing lightly over my left nipple. He drew his
mouth down and sucked on it briefly, his dark hair grazing my chin. After
a moment he switched to the other, pushing against me, into me, steadying
himself on my trembling body.

Tremble. What I wouldn't give to go back to the days when we could still
tremble.

I let my hands drop to his back, clutching at his shirt and tugging as
insistently as his lips. The cloth bunched in my hands and I gave up,
giving them free roam over the pale warmth of his back. It amazed
me that he could be so smooth, so unmarred, every inch of him a slope
or curve, from the soft triangular tongue that traced every microscopic
ridge and wrinkle of my nipple to the crescent hands on my hips, pushing
me into the wall, pushing and pushing and pushing -

He let go and I nearly wailed like a baby, the cold air playing havoc on
my raw nipples. His mouth covered mine, hot whispers pouring into my
mouth. *Damn you damn you damn it all to hell Brian damn you...*

His hands were on my jeans and he was tugging, yanking like the world was
about to end. The denim got somewhere around my knees before vanishing
into the abyss at the foot of the bed, forever lost. I was hard, hot and
hard and whining as his hand slipped underneath my boxers, hovering just
above my cock. And I was damning him back, stealing his air and damning
him to the farthest reaches of hell, pushing against him until he relented,
his fingers wrapping around my length and squeezing, enough to make it
hurt, enough to make me moan.

"God, Alex," I whispered into his mouth, and it was the end of life as
I'd known it. "Good..."

My hands went back to his shirt and yanked. He spluttered as the cloth
encountered our lips and cheerfully tore right through us. He shook his
head out of its grip and attacked my shoulder, his mouth clamping down
with a bit of a growl. I hissed in pleasure, letting my eyes shut,
letting myself swim in it.

His other hand slid between us and worked the waist of my boxers down. I
lifted my hips, pushing into the grip of his fingers, and cool air rushed
to encase my cock. The boxers joined the darkness and his other hand
grasped me, the tight warmth and the sprawl of his fingers beginning to
stroke upward.

His lips tore from my shoulder, leaving only screaming maltreated nerves
in its place and went to my chin, the ridge of my jaw. His hands started
to pump me, steadily, lightly calloused fingertips brushing over the head
of my cock. My hands scrambled for his pants, trying to push his away.
"Slow down," I complained after a moment and several abortive attempts.

"No." Matter-of-fact and to the point. He licked along my jaw and I
shivered, my hips bucking into his hands. The air tasted slightly sweeter,
an indescribable taste of mocha darkness that signaled the end was near. And
he was holding onto me, terribly, lips moving along my collarbone, my
cock becoming slicker with each thrust. His tongue was making for my
navel and I knew what he was planning, but one tentative reach for his
pants only got my hands slapped away.

Wet. I thanked both Jesus Christ and Ra, the sun god as he took me in his
mouth. His fist still pumped at the base of my cock, bumping every so
often into the lips that curved up and down over the sensitive head.
The pace was increasing and I sunk into it shamelessly, digging my fingers
into the warmth of his shoulders. Faster and faster and I was whispering
it into him, thrusting it into him, *damn you damn you Alex please please*

His hand released and I almost screamed, my back ricochetting violently
off the wall. He cupped my ass with his hands and pulled me into his
mouth completely, tight and warm, sucking ferociously. And I pushed into
him, pleading, the coldness behind me so vivid against his consuming
warmth.

Faster and faster and faster and I was dying, screaming, falling all at
the same time. My orgasm rocked through his throat, his mouth tugging
determinedly at the base of my cock. I opened my eyes long enough to glance
at him and groaned, his wet lips taut and dark around me.

The ozone cleared and I was back on Earth, crushed against the wall and
panting. He released me and kissed his way back up to my jaw, where he
resumed his previous adorations. "Not fair," I murmured, reaching down
to his pants. His own solid length bucked into my hand insistently, and
I enjoyed the look of agony in his eyes when I curled my fingers around
it through the cloth.

"I can make it fair," he said, his voice rough and jumbled. A hot finger
stroked gently against my asshole and I blinked at him, resisting the
impulse to smack him one for impudence.

"You coulda just asked."

And he left - spirited into the darkness to retrieve all the cumbersome
necessities. I rolled over and faced the wall, the creamy not-white cool
against my forehead. Those few cold seconds were agony, but one of the
more pleasant types of agony.

That night, God. I want to go back.

When he returned he had finally gotten rid of the damn pants, balancing
on the bed with the same careless precision as before. His cock was
harder than steel, rubbing against my ass as he threaded his arms around
me, harassing my overworked nipples with deft fingers. "No, no," I moaned
softly and he laughed into my shoulder, bringing his hands back.

A moment, and then a warm, slick finger prodded at me gently before
slipping inside, pushing and probing all around. A groan ripped from my
lips and my cock twitched, threatening to start the whole ordeal over
again. He added another finger, stretching and stroking, his lips
murmuring wordless nothings into my neck. I rocked against him, working
him deeper, letting the waves of pleasure lap at me again.

His fingers stroked quickly into me one last time before pulling out,
and after an agonizing pause his cockhead pushed against me. Slowly,
slowly, he and I pushed, his ivory body warm against my back. The head
slipped inside and I exhaled, a tiny shiver of pain working itself
through me. His hand reached over and took my cock, stroking it gently,
encouraging it to rise. He began to push again, slowly, slickened with
lubricant and his own wetness. The slowness was hell, every nerve within
me screaming. His lips moved again, barely making sound. "Bri, Bri, God."

"Good?" My voice was strained, breathless. Each inch that filled me was
a taste of heaven, a glimpse of hell, my cock beginning to rise in the
sheer pseudo-pagan glory of it. His hand gripped me, hard, as he filled
me completely, the weight of his balls resting against my ass. He paused,
sucking the skin of my shoulder between his lips for the harshest of
kisses.

"Perfect."

It was far too late for him to start off slow, so I followed him right
into the fray. He thrust into me, sharp, angled strokes that burned
straight through into my cock. Agony. The unwilling pull of his cock,
the fierce thrust back in. His hand a fist around my painful erection,
daring me to come again. His other arm went around my chest and pulled
me in, closer, his lips reaching up for my ear. "Bri, c'mon." His pace
was getting faster, feverish. His cock slid in and out of me easily now,
and the blackness behind my eyes was a swimming dark chocolate sea. Again,
it pleaded. Again.

"C'mon. C'mon, Brian. Please. Please - "

He threw himself against me, nearly slamming us both into the wall as he
came, filling me with the heat of his orgasm. His hand kept pumping and
I relaxed into it, the combination of the jetting heat within me and the
harsh strokes on my cock sending me over again. He slowed as I came, each
stroke more gentle than the last. His cock was softening inside me, warm.
He was so beautifully warm.

"Damn you, Brian." It's only a faint whisper, his tongue flicking gently
at my earlobe. "We shouldn't have - I - "

"I don't care." He slid out of me slowly, his other arm making its way
around my waist. "I don't care what you have to do. You can't leave me."

He raised himself on one elbow and leaned over, taking my lips in a
troubled kiss. Mocha-deep and foreboding, dangerous. "I'm sorry," he
whispered helplessly.

I tasted his lips, silken and dark. "I'm not."

That night. When everything was on the brink of change, when everything
was a sugared promise of something new. Before the madness. Before the
long nights alone. Before the darkened isolation, the insanity, the loss.

What I wouldn't give to re-live that night.

It really wasn't a new beginning, that night. Not really. The beginning
was the day after, the dawn, when he first went to work. A job that would
make him kill his own, destroy the truth, force him to lose everything.

A job that would one day let us stare death in the face and wish for the
days when we'd tremble in its wake.

So perhaps that night was the end. The end of innocence, the last chance
to change our minds and, consequently, the course of our lives.

The end of the beginning.

So badly. I want it back.

I want him back.

~

"Oh, and in the calm before the storm
 The sun is shining, dark and warm
 Behind your eyes my world is spinning...
 Every kiss melts into one
 Once frozen love becomes a pool
 How sweet the water runs."

- "The End Of The Beginning," the Rembrandts

~

Title: Propulsion
Author: RosesDecay
E-Mail address: RosesDecay@aol.com
Rating: PG
Category: SA
Spoilers: Terma
Keywords: Pendrell/Krycek
Summary: The world blurs when fear propels.

Author's Note: This story is set in the same universe as "The Care
And Feeding Of Young Dragons." It's not really necessary to read
the other three stories, but hey, it helps. Post Terma, from
Krycek's POV.

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.

~
Propulsion
~

I'm nothing more than a smear of gray, I'm moving so fast.

//Fast, faster, faster!// It's my voice, childish and small. Strange
how different my voice sounded as a child - so light and high and -

Well, better not to think about it.

Because it's not easy to think and run. //Fast, faster, faster!// is
hard, hard to maintain with any degree of certainty. I'm just a speck
in the air, an ant in a crowd, a single flickering light running up
and down the jagged peaks of the skyline.

Going in lopsided circles, like a fool.

I'm nothing more than a smear of gray and the world is nothing more
than a darkened, hazy rainbow. Grays and blues and blacks streak
by and by, never solidifying, never retreating to the humid brown
warmth of that one building, that one door.

//Circles, circles, lopsided circles.//

Sooner or later I'm going to fall, and the child with the sing-song
voice knows it. I know it. //Fast, faster, faster!// and lopsided
circles don't mix either. Each progressive circle only gets smaller,
until I'm running, running and running and I find myself still in the
same place.

//Faster - //

One place. I need to be in one place, just one, before I can stop
running. Grays and blues and blacks, but never that doorway with the
solid brown door, the dented mailbox to one side. Never that cold
black square that appears when it opens, never the red and cream blur
that would emerge from the darkness and catch me, catch me - 

//Faster, faster, *faster*!//

The cement is cracked here. I can feel each crevice by instinct alone,
feel each ever-widening crack that threatens to catch me instead. And
I feel myself turning, hideously, without thinking. //Circles, circles,
lopsided *circles*!///

//Weighted.//

I feel it, too late. The crack in the ground, the lip of grainy concrete
that refuses to move in my wake. //Weighted//, and the world is tumbling
over itself in a tangle of lights and blacks and blues and grays -

//Weighted//, and there is no pain. My head throbs and my knees wail,
the skin scraped and tattered. The sidewalk is cold against my back. It
is not pain, these empty, hollow sensations. It is nothing.

Never again can there really be true pain.

The sky isn't clear. The child-voice is silent in my mind, stunned.
The sky is filled with the haze of pollution-soaked clouds, the stars
shining waspishly through. Blurs.

An involuntary moan weaves through my lips, and I stand up.

//Weighted.//

I'm close. I stand, and everything refocuses itself back into place.
My head clears, the nerves in my knees subside. There are buildings here,
ones I recognize. Close. Close to heaven, to brown and red and cream
and safety.

//Circles.//

And it hits, really hits. *Pain,* the gasping wrenching tear of pain.
The hazy sky, blurry stars. *Pain.*

//Circles.// The fat white moon, a round, gray-flecked plate in the sky.
Stars that glistened in the far off regions of space. The black-blue of
a sky that never knew the corruptions of gasoline and oil. Tree tops
of dirty green, and the copper-tongued flicker of the fire.

*Pain,* with each agonizing, raspy pull of the knife.

//Faster!// And the child-voice is awake and screaming, screaming so loud
that the pain is gone and it's nothing but a blur. Grays and blacks
and blues and lights in one smooth unmarred rainbow. //Faster!//, and
damn everything back into the past, back, where it belongs.

And the hollow not-pain is rushing through me, through my sprinting
legs, through my abused chest. And I feel myself slowing, ignoring the
howls of the child-voice, ignoring the gleam of that implausibly
bright moon lurking in the corners of my memory.

Brown.

It is as I remember it, this building. Old and sagging at the seams,
cracked at the joints. The faded, weather-worn door that barely stands
on its hinges, and the promise lurking in its dim and distant hallways.
Somewhere within it, the door. Brown and black and red and cream -

Somewhere in the recesses of my memory flesh begins to melt away on
the hot steel blade of a knife, and the scream that rips itself out
of my mouth is more terrifying than anything I've ever heard in my
life.

And there's no time for thought, no time to heed the sobbing child in
my head whispering his desperate words. The door dissolves under my
fingertips and slams against the wall. And my footsteps on the wooden
stairs, insanely loud with each step, //faster and faster and
*faster*!!//

There it is.

The silence seems unreal. Brown, as wood usually is. The door, its
modern silver numbers gleaming dully under the glow of lamps along
the hall. Him. Him, God.

//Faster//, the child-voice whispers, and begins to weep with such
hollow bitterness that I can barely keep standing.

I knock on the door, and the feel of my knuckles on wood is pain, the
dullest squeak of steel through unyielding bone.

Silence. And my knees, still smarting with that peculiar not-pain,
collapse underneath me. The door smashes against me, brown and warm.
Darkness is chewing away at my line of sight, the darkness of panic
and terror and everything inbetween. It is *his* darkness, my own
specially made phobia that only he can trigger. Panic and terror and
silence, crushing and soft - 

The door dissolves under my fingertips. I'm falling. And he catches
me, as I knew he would. I open my eyes and it's everything I ever
wanted, red and cream and darkest black.

//Weighted.//

Something rasps in his throat, and it's horrible, deadly with fear and
panic and rage. And his eyes are blue, more blue than I've ever seen
them, and the word echoes in them with frightening intensity.

//Weighted.//

//Faster//, weeps the child-voice, but all I can manage is some useless
sound between a whisper and a moan.

His arms are around my waist and he's tugging me inside, kicking the
door shut. The light dissolves and the darkness engulfs us both, safe
and hazy and warm. And he's being so careful, moving me up against him
inch by inch, his back against the wall. And soon enough I'm sitting up
again, shaky, his chilled arms tight around my stomach, his head curled
tightly into my shoulder. Whispers float soundlessly past my ears and
I reach for them, blindly. "You're okay," he seems to say, and his arms
clutch tighter and tighter as though I would pop. "Alex, you're okay.
God, Alex, Alex - " and his lips pressing against my skin, all around
my ear, as though through sheer force of will he would make the words
come true.

//Weighted//, ringing through those fearful, crystalline eyes -

"Brian." And I can feel the scream rising in my throat again, the
horrible blood-rich scream that had escaped from me outside. My voice
is so small, so high and childish and small.

His lips press against my cheek, and I can feel the realization
shuddering through him. He *knows,* and he's scared, more scared than
I had ever known he could be. "Alex," he whispers back, and it pours
into my skin as though it were a sieve. Fear, unparalled fear. Helpless
rage. And far, far into the depths, a child-voice of his own, one that
knows the laws of the world and screamed as yet another was ripped
shrieking out of the stone.

//Circles, lopsided *circles*!//

The pale moon, the golden red flicker of fire. And the shear of knife
through skin, through bone, and the agonizing white-hot realization that
it wasn't ending, wasn't ending and it *never would.*

The pale moon, staring so placidly back at me, when I sat up into the
cold stillness of the night and realized that the pain, the horrible
pain that threaded its way through a million intricate pathways of
blood vessels and veins, wasn't there. That my arm, with its frantically
groping fingers *wasn't there.*

//*Faster*!// screams the child-voice, and I can feel myself tensing,
as if ready to run.

But I can't run any longer.

The darkness hasn't cleared. His arms are warm against me, thin fingers
tracing soothing pathways from my collarbone to my shoulder. I can
feel his lips around my eyes, the slippery trails of tears down his
cheeks. Every pulsing breath in his chest slams against me in an
arch, every silent, indignant wail soaks into me like water. This. I
was running for this, for every shuddering tear in him.

"Alex," he whispers, and it's too much, all too much. I'm spinning,
madly, insanely, searching for the faintest sight of him in the non-
existent light. And he's there, the dull red-brown of his hair and the
tear-stained cream of his skin, and it takes everything in me not to
kill him completely as I shove forward, crushing into him, trying to
hold on somehow when I'm so off-balance, //weighted// - 

He enfolds me like the darkness, perfect and warm. Arms so careful,
so cautious. I can feel the tears on his face with my own eyes,
balancing on the fringe of his eyelashes. I can feel his lips with
mine, dropping trembling kisses like raindrops. And words form,
desperate and small, so childishly small.

"It'll be okay, Alex. It will."

A lie. A lie of love, of fear, of rage, of need. It will never be
okay, now that the stakes have been planted so high. It will never
be okay, never again.

"Yes," I agree in a whisper, and he tightens against me, safe and
warm and secure. It will never be okay, but I need this. I need this
and him more than anything in the world.

The moon dips outside his window and for a moment I can see his eyes.
Moonlit blue, crystalline blue, and so scared. The child-voice moans,
curling into a ball, pale and abandoned. His lips shudder and I say
it for him, the word that rips into me deeper than any knife or blade.

"Circles," I whisper, and I think Brian understands when I begin to
cry as bitterly as any child.

~

"And there's so much at stake
 I can't afford to wait
 I've never needed anybody like this before."

- "Temptation Waits," Garbage

~

Title: The Rest Will Take Care Of Itself
Author: RosesDecay
E-Mail address: RosesDecay@aol.com
Rating: R
Category: SA
Spoilers: None
Keywords: Pendrell/Krycek
Summary: Silence and its consequences

Note: This story is set in the same universe as "The Care And Feeding Of
Young Dragons." Pendrell's POV, takes place sometime before the major
plot fiascoes in Tunguska/Terma and Tempus Fugit/Max.

Previous stories at: http://members.xoom.com/rosesdecay/
Distribution: Anywhere, as long as my name and e-mail address
remain attached.
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.

Author's note at the end.

~

The Rest Will Take Care Of Itself

~

I keep my mouth shut these days.

It's become more and more common. My mind can be a frantic whirlwind -
and hell, it's hard to think of a day it hasn't been - and I'll just sit.
Silent.

It's easier, in a way.

It's like a science experiment. I am a goddamn scientist, or at least I
used to be. And it wasn't just crunching numbers and running computer
checks - it was the experimentation, the fiddling, the discovery that
made it worthwhile. Hypothesizing and reaching a conclusion. The
satisfaction of hauling out my notebook and writing out the results, the
answers, answers that minutes ago had been mysterious and elusive. And
those words, written with the painstaking care of a child; those words
explained everything, strove to make the casual observer understand. It
was a rush, a heady buoyancy that turned my careful paragraphs into
warped italics. *I have made a discovery,* I was saying. *I have stepped
where no one else has dared, another answer closer to solving the
complexities of the Universe.*

I don't get much of that anymore, you know.

So just this once, it had been fun to try out a hypothesis in my
everyday life. Stop talking. Not completely, not enough to make Alex
start the Helen Keller jabs, but just in general. No more of the
constant prattling, the small-talk, the stream-of-consciousness that
pervaded our waking hours. Just the basics, speaking when spoken to.
Pass the salt. I love you too. Good night. Yes, yes, fucking GOD, yes -
sometimes I can't help but be wordy.

And what did I expect would be the result? More talking, of course.
Silence isn't golden, no matter what our kindergarten teachers told us.
Silence is leechlike, deadly - it clings to the walls, settles over your
skin like wet sand. It eats at your mind until it drives you insane,
wondering and worrying and waiting, waiting. It is the container that
must be perpetually filled - and stop filling it? It's the most evocative
flirt with death you could ever attempt.

I think it scares him more than me.

Of course, it doesn't scare me much at all. Sure. I'll slap on my most
delectable smile and coyly flirt with Death, because I am in control.
It's one of the perks of scientific experiment, especially with something
as simple as this. I control the silence. I can start talking again,
whenever I want, or I could just stop all together. It's my game, and he
doesn't even realize it. I control the papery-dampness of his skin, the
stumbling avalanche of words over the dinner table, the desperate
fierceness of his kisses. Because my hypothesis was correct, naturally.

He has more talking in him than I ever imagined.

Words pour from him like a fountain. He tells me things, things I'm sure
he's never told anyone else. The memories and stories that have been
sealed behind his lips since I met him are whispered violently into the
curve of my neck during those late, sleepless nights. The kitchen table
holds silent testament to a million tales of childhood and the wreckage
beyond. Horrifying tales, of death and destruction and the plots and plans
of twisted men. Stories glimmering with ill-disguised frustration, at
times even lust. It sends my mind reeling to hear it, raw in his voice,
heated, desperate and needy. And they were answers, those stories. They
were paragraphs to fill in some ancient lost notebook, explaining away
those nights where he walked in the door and threw himself at me,
thrusting every helpless frustration into me at the speed of light.
Paragraphs that explained those nights where he wouldn't let me touch
him, walking fully clothed into the shower and standing there for hours.
Paragraphs that catalogued and exposed those faint traces of ammonia in
the air, the dark red smudges on his jeans that could only be blood.

There are a million things I have to say about these stories. The cold
night when the heater broke and the air was just icy enough to keep us
awake. Huddled under a pile of blankets, sheets, and comforters, his arms
loose around my waist, his lips and nose lightly warm against my cheek.
Stories from his childhood, his words painting bright Crayola pictures in
my mind. The thin, grey father with the hollow eyes, his outstretched
hands like damp clay. The pleasingly rounded mother with the rosy smile,
who enjoyed butchering chickens like others enjoy stamp collecting.
Everything that night had been so unrealistically vivid - the warm exhale
of his breath over my face, the raw marble coldness of his arms. And
pretty pretty pictures saturating in my mind, of ragged layers of flesh
and the moist swell of blood, and the rough scratch of chicken toes as it
tried to comprehend what the hell had *just happened.*

I could say so much. I really could.

But -

I can't.

I don't.

I know my experiment is drawing to a close - he comes home and looks at
me with horrible, darkly illuminated eyes. He can feel the damp sand
crawling hungrily over his skin as he walks through the door, silence
and all its terrible torments. He looks more deeply into my eyes these
days, as if he's searching. He knows something is wrong, vaguely, but
he hasn't gotten it yet. Not quite.

It's up to me, and it's a power I relish. It's up to me to make things
normal again.

And I will, soon enough.

Soon.

~

"Though we may find
 We'll not come back the same
 That happens sometimes when we play...
 ...The Game..."

- "The Game," The 7th Guest

~

"Don't make me come over there."

For a moment I wish I had something light and pliable to hurl at his head.
The stapler is to my left and I slip my fingers under it, testing it for
weight. Plastic. Empty of staples. More a toy than a useable piece of
office equipment. Why not indeed?

"Jesus!" Out of the luminescent black glow of the computer monitor I can
see him catch the thing two inches from his nose. He hurls it back and it
thuds against my shoulders harmlessly.

"I'm working." I keep my tone light so he won't strangle me.

"On what?" His voice tiptoes closer and I stare at his dark image,
creeping forward like some deranged tiger.

"Things."

He inches forward and I save and close the file I'm working on. Hands
creep menacingly out of the darkness to circle my neck and I grab at
them.

"Dammit." He notices his reflection in the monitor and sighs, allowing
me to pull his arms in a criss-cross around my shoulders. I tilt my head
slightly and he rests his head against the line of my neck, making moody
faces at himself. I stare at his reflection, our reflection, and for a
moment I wish I could freeze time in its tracks. Despite life and tragedy,
despite everything, there were always these moments to keep going for.
Warm buttered contentment, isolation banished to distant cold memory.

"What things?" he asks.

Part of me wants to say "none of your business" but I know that's just
asking for trouble. I opt for silence instead, and he sighs, a tremor of
impatience flickering through his eyes.

"Bri - " he whispers, and his hands knead at my arms. "No secrets. Please,
no secrets..."

I stare at his eyes in the monitor, full of deadly sparkle. "I'm trying
to take over the world," I admit finally.

He lets his head drop, burying his face in my shoulder. "Thank God it's
nothing serious," he mumbles, his tongue slashing at my skin.

Dark mirrors. Our muted image in glowing black, softened, made
mysterious. My eyes are full of light and his head is nothing but a
dark feathered mass, and I watch us move with guilty fascination. The
tiny tremors of his neck, the dull fluttering of my eyelids. *We're
okay,* I think to myself, quietly, and for a moment I can really believe
it.

"How are you going to take over the world?" He says it right into my
shoulder, his arms tightening around me. There's no malice in his voice,
no cynicism - it's a childlike question, asking for an honest answer.

I curl my arm at the elbow and he shifts, letting me stroke his hair.
Gray fingers in the glow of the screen, crystalline and perfect in that
dark imaginary world.

"One step at a time," I say after a moment.

His breathing is growing deeper, more relaxed. "What's the first step?"

I stare into my own eyes, dazzling and bright. My breathing is ragged.

"I'm not sure."

I can feel his body subtly shift, drawing closer. "I'd help if I could,"
he whispers, and his breath shivers down my spine. "I would."

Black mirror, my fingers pacing through his hair, and I can feel his
words trickle through my mind, wary.

"I know you would," I whisper back, and another fleeting trail of ice
tiptoes down my spine.

I've never believed a lie quite so much before.

He presses closer again. The silence is not exactly comfortable - it hangs
in the air, dredged down by unwilling disbelief. Usually I'm the one to
break the silences, because I never could bear them for long, but this
time I keep quiet. Seeing how long it can last - seeing how long he can
stand it.

Closer, closer, as if he wanted our skin to melt and fuse. "Say
something," he murmurs.

I stare at him in the monitor, his eyes hidden by his lowered head.
Masked. My lips move as if to speak, but nothing comes out.

His head lifts, suddenly. Starry black-lit eyes stare back at me,
troubled and confused.

And I realize that, crazily, I just don't know what to say.

~

"I'm not ready for this
 Though I thought I would be.
 I can't see the future
 I thought I could see."

"I Still Do," The Cranberries

~

Glass is breaking. Not the guilty shatter of gravity playing a dirty
trick, but a deliberate sound - harsh and fast and devastating. Words
stream after them, incomprehensible to my ear. Russian.

I can't breathe. I know I should be panicking at the thought but I
don't. My nose is wedged safely into the belly of a pillow, inhaling
the crisp scent of fabric softener. Take your cuddly sunshine bear and
shove it, the gesture says to the world.

Shatter. Not glass, this is inherently more ceramic-sounding. I close
my eyes and search through my oxygen-deprived brain, but I can't think
of anything ceramic in the living room. That means he's started on the
dishes. I lift my head for a moment and let the sweet cool air kiss my
nose, tantalizing. It smells of the murky cold wind brushing through
the open window, of sunshine Downey freshness and the black scent of
death. A general bouquet of loveliness. I shove my head back down and
will myself to die.

Not surprisingly, I'm still alive when I next go up for air.

Metal clangs and glass shatters simultaneously. I try to imagine the
damage he's done and find my mind is refusing to even consider it. At
this point, it doesn't matter. Down in the dredges of this barrel, the
future is the last thing you want to be thinking of. Just plain
ordinary now is hard enough.

For a few moments I wonder if I should go and intervene, but another
plate or bowl hitting the wall nixes that idea quick enough. He wouldn't
hurt me intentionally - I think - but the way he's going I'd end up on
the floor with skull injuries before he even realized I was there.

The room is dark. It's only early evening and the lamp is only a few
steps away, but I'm too deeply entrenched in my pillow to even think
about standing up to turn it on. The bed is tight and clinical
underneath me, the sheets tucked and folded and tightened in an almost
obsessive manner. I've always been obsessive about a neatly made bed,
but it's never seemed quite this bad. Tight and sharp and strangely
foreign.

I yank the covers out of their folds and crawl underneath, bracing
myself against the gust of wind that licks through the room. Another
ceramic crash, and silence.

"God." It's a murmured prayer between me, Him, and the Downey bear,
because I can feel the sand of silence puddling wetly over my skin.
I distrust this silence more than I do the sound of shattering glass,
more than the incomprehensible Russian snarls. Silence tends to mean
a complete loss of control, a total failure in reason, an entire
system shutdown and a leak in the nuclear reactor core. Silence from
me is normal.

Silence from him is just deadly.

The floorboards whisper gently, his feather-light footsteps creeping
closer and closer. The door creaks on its hinges and the wall across
from me bursts into light. I'm facing away from him but I can hear
his breathing, heavy and rough but falling into a pattern. Maybe
that's good. Maybe that's good.

Maybe it's not.

The wall slips back into subdued dimness and he crawls under the covers,
keeping away from me. I can feel him from three feet away, burning hotly
and furiously under the sheets. 

"I'm sorry." The words are bitter and tinged with something sharp and
defiant. Part of me crumples internally at the words - a good sign.

But then, maybe it's not.

I can't breathe, so I lift my head in a half-nod. I feel the bed shift
and he moves closer, an inch. "Say something."

"Fuck you." It wasn't what he was expecting to hear and I can feel his
confusion, palpable in the air. It gnaws at his anger, putting him on
the defense.

"Say something else." Another inch closer, another shift of the darkness
and heat.

I shove my head back down into the pillow, into that simple world of
stifling thickness. "Fuck you to hell."

Another inch, and another, and his hands creep outward. Tugging at my
shoulders, tugging at me to turn around. "C'mon, Bri," he whispers,
and I can feel the anger defusing, feel the cold balm of sanity rushing
back in.

I roll with it, twisting out of the suffocating grasp of the pillow and
onto my side. His eyes are nearly black in the darkness but I can see
the clarity in them, the understanding. And it's all I need to see before
I curl against him, into him, heedless of anything else. "C'mon, Alex,"
I whisper, half-mockingly.

He wraps his arms around me and I feel his breath skate through my hair,
short and violent. "The world's going to hell, Brian." He kisses the top
of my head, the pad of his nose pressing against my scalp. "All of it.
All of us."

"Fuck us." I work an arm underneath him, pulling him tighter.

"Is that your answer to everything now?" His voice is gentle, amused.
"Just fuck it all?"

"Why not?" My other arm snakes under his and settles into position,
perfectly cradled, perfectly secure.

He doesn't answer and I don't press the subject. Warm arms and the
slowing of his breath, and the cold, wet creep of silence and sand.

"Why not," he whispers meditatively.

His skin is smoldering against mine, hot like melting candle-wax, and
I know I should probably say something. Ask something. Dig deep into
that troubled psyche and figure out what was happening, and why.

But I don't.

His arms tighten, and again I can feel it flaring within him, raging
and out of control. Panic. Panic and pain and something utterly foreign -

- fear -

- and I don't say anything.

Of course.

I wouldn't say anything.

~

"Searing words, the pen of flame
 Torch the truth, torch the shame.
 Who's to help or who's to blame?
 Turn it on, burn the pain..."

"Ianyi," Trip Cyclone

~

*you're in over your head*

He lies next to me with smooth eyelids, lost in the deepest stages of
sleep, and his voice is whispering in my ear. Taunting, shrieking,
mournful.

*Brian, you're in over your head*

I can stare at him to my heart's content, at the thin closed lips and
lowered eyelids, and yet I still can't be sure that he's not speaking.
Because the voice in my ear is his, without a doubt -

*over your head*

And if he's not actually speaking, it means I've gone crazy.

*Brian - *

Today was a beautifully brilliant day, the sky a humid blue, cloudless.
Everything outside was stark, flourishing in waxen primary colors. The
sun crisped the leaves on the trees, baked the grasses, toasted the sticky
skin of the neighborhood kids. It brought up the absurd old line, *poetry
in motion,* watching life flickering in its full radiance through the
wooden windowframe.

His lips against my skin as he walked through the door, cold and windswept.
"What did you do today?"

His lips against my skin, the wet taste of grainy mud. "Not much."

I watched life in all of its supreme glory. Not too much at all.

I waited after he went into the bedroom to change, keeping an analytical
silence. And on cue, his voice came through the walls, busy and
meaningless. Good day today, colder than hell, wasn't it? Crazy rich
bastards are planning something big, the world's going to hell, same
old, same old. The sky is falling, Bri, but hell, what can you do?

An analytical silence, and he proved me right, hallelujah. Silence begets
noise, endless noise.

*you're really in over your head*

Dinner was in the kitchen, spaghetti languishing in the strainer, sauce
bubbling on the stove. I dished it up, quickly and quietly, and words
pounded on my skull, on my cheeks, shoving forcefully. *So much to say*
my mind pleaded, and my lips tightened in response.

He took his bowl with a hesitant look, juggled it briefly between two
hands, and dropped it with a thud on the counter. A ferociously muted
sound of pain made its way up his throat and his hands scrambled for
the cloth of his shirt.

"Hot," he growled finally, flinging his hands out to stir up some cool
air. And for one brief moment I panicked, whether because of the violent
rush of his hands or the deadly tone of his voice, I don't know.

"Are you okay?" I asked, and my voice sounded louder than thunder in my
ears. He froze, staring at me, stilling his hands and catching his breath.

"Yes," he said after a moment, and the look of infinite reassurance in
his eyes almost killed me. He leaned forward and gave me the gentlest
of kisses, dusty-soft and cool. "And thank you for asking."

*you're drowning, Bri, you know it*

He lies next to me, pale in the moonlight, and the world is still blazing
and perfect. Everything vibrant has turned to a frosted pastel, subdued
but glowing. My mind is spinning, full of its insanity. He whispers at
me through closed lips and all I can think of are his stories made of
slashing brushstrokes, vividly painted, and mute.

I could say so much. I could say so much. I could try -

Silence clenches around my throat like a vise, and I move my lips, slowly,
with agonizing care. I'm in control of this silence, this grand experiment,
and it's up to me to end it. To end it here and now, before it destroys us.

And my dry lips drag along the air, soundless.

Panic smacks me like a palm of water, sudden and unexpected. Cool,
clinical detachment had sustained me through this experiment, and it had
been fine, just fine.

*no, no way in hell, not fine - *

A barrier has broken, and it's time to panic. No words, not even sounds
can break through the screaming whirlwind my mind has formed - fearful
and dark, a cacophony of howls and grimaces and reassurances never said
aloud. He has told me a lifetime's worth of information and I have so
much to refute, to examine, to say -

And it won't - it won't come out.

He sleeps, silently, and powder-slush rails against my skin like a
sandstorm. My mouth is open, shut, open, shut, and finally something
breaks through as my jaw slams closed, an inner howl turned into
something horrible at the base of my throat. The sound builds and dies,
a choppy groan, and for a moment I'm sure it won't be enough. I'm
choking, choking on my own fear, and I won't survive unless he *wakes
up - *

His eyelids lift, slightly, sleepily, and in an instant I realize how
frightening I must look: my eyes huge, my mouth shut, sound reverberating
from God knows where. He rolls on his side, confused and solidly worried.
"What?" he says aloud, and I gape at him, the sound dying in my throat.

"Brian?" I'm working my jaw furiously, and every violent clashing thought
in my head begins to leak from my eyes. I've never been so scared, so
scared and silent, strangely silent -

"Goddammit, Brian - " and his arms clamp down on mine, his hands on my
shoulders, pulling me closer, tearing at me. "What?" His eyes on mine,
so green and bright they outshine the summer sky. "Tell me! TELL me!" He's
shaking with an intensity I've never witnessed, and I can see the fear and
hesitant knowledge that something is *wrong* bubbling up through the
cracks in tightly sealed walls.

"I - " I stutter, and it gets lost in my throat. His face twists, contorts,
and his lips flay at my skin, trying to eat me alive.

"Talk to me," he hisses into my collarbone, and I try, I try. "Why?
Goddammit, please, talk to me - say something, say something - " and
he's screaming, screaming " - something, ANYTHING!"

"I can't." The words are so plain against my lips that I can't believe
I've said them. His mouth leaps up to cover mine and I shut my eyes,
fearful, fearful.

"You just did," he whispers against me, and his tone is soft, cajoling.

"I can't." They're easy words, easy, short, and sweet. His tongue pulls
gently across my lips, and my mind is shattering. "I can't, Alex, I
can't, Alex - "

His arms circle around me, gently, and my head dips to rest against the
warmth of his chest. "Tell me," he whispers, and my lips move, ceaseless
and desperate to speak.

And I do.

*specters in the dark with solid hands, soft and smooth and clammy, the
squeak and rush of the shower and the smooth expressionless pain on his
face, the saw of the knife and gush of the blood, and it's fluorescent
paint with an extra-large brush, the kiss of the sea on sand and his
voice floating in the darkness and fear, total and paralyzing, fear,
and here I thought it was just a harmless game*

"Why?" he whispers against the top of my head, and barely audible
excuses flood from my mouth. "Why did this happen, Brian?"

I stop my mouth, still the flood, and for a moment I feel a surge of
control again. "It doesn't matter."

His arms around me tighten, and a flush of heat licks through him like
a flame. "No," he whispers into me, and he's pulling me tighter,
growling against me. "It does - don't, don't, Brian," he says, and
the words muffled in my hair are childish and frightened. "Not ever
not ever not ever again - "

"No," I agree, and his lips pour onto my mine with liquid hot
intensity. "Never. Never - "

The sky falls, crashes into a million pieces. The moon crests and
retreats, and the dawn creeps up with its Crayola markers. The humid
blue returns, the trees and grass brown under the sun. The leaves
sway in the wind, and it's beautiful, beautiful. Poetry in motion
and sound and everything, everything, as the little shrieking giggles
float up from the streets below, happy and healthy and deliciously
alive. Whispers, murmurs, sighs, screams.

And words.

All the words I could ever ask for.

~

"And in thick of night
 It'll hold up in the light
 But love above everything else -
 And the rest...will take care of itself."

- "The Rest (Will Take Care Of Itself)," Webb Wilder

~

Author's Note

This story has been simmering in my mind since the beginning of summer,
and the fact that I'm finally sending it isn't so much of a triumph as it is
a final dying breath. For awhile I was certain that this story just couldn't be
completed satisfactorily, and even now I'm not sure I like the end result, but
I needed to get this out. For closure, in a way.

This is no longer an X-Files story. Granted, it probably never was in the
first place, but it's gotten to the point where the X-Files universe, canon, etc,
is less a guideline and inspiration and more a nuisance. And while I'm not quite
through with Brian and Alex at this point, when it comes to the X-Files, it's
time to say goodbye.

Huge thank you's to everyone who's encouraged me and helped me, through
feedback and just general kindness. And extra-special thanks to the
Magnificent CiCi, for getting me into all this in the first place and
profoundly  affecting my life because of it. In a good way. ;)

Adieu,

Rose