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