Dogs of War
by Hth

A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy.
Blood and destruction....
	-Julius Caesar, 3:1


	 Jogging had always been Mulder's preferred method of defying reality.
Ignore Scully's voice in his head saying, *Is that so?  How do you explain your career, 
then?*
	Ignore a lot of things about Scully, particularly her sense of humor, which 
just seemed to get fucking wittier every time Mulder felt good about himself.
	Bad Mulder.  He pushed himself a little faster, bones impacting a little harder 
on the pavement, pain settling pleasantly right between his chest and stomach.  Head 
directly home, say five Our Conspiracies and twenty Hail Scullys.  
	One foot, then the other, faster than Mulder felt like bothering to count, drill 
ankle through heel, break concrete, sink underground, die die die, burn in hell.  The 
purity of aching muscles, the science of shock and pain and physical fucking rational 
sensory reality.  Slam part of your body with all your weight behind it on the cement 
sidewalk and hell, yes, it's going to hurt, what, didn't you take physics in high 
school?
	And it felt so damn good.  Like flying.  Like life after death.  So fuck you, 
Freshman Physical Sciences.  It ain't heavy, it's my fucking fucking fucking *life.*
	For whatever reason, Mulder had never been suicidal.  Not yet.  Life was good, 
jogging was good, hell, he didn't even feel the pain anymore, not like he used to.  
One foot, then the other, and the light was fading; even with the gun holstered under 
his baggy windbreaker, Mulder didn't feel like being out here much after dark, and 
he took the corner hard and headed home.  One foot, then the other.  It was all good, 
and they would never hurt him worse than he could hurt himself; hell, most of the 
time he hurt worse from jogging than he did at the job they were trying to make 
difficult for him.  Put that in your Marley and smoke it.
	Above it all, sweating hard and breathing harder and, Jesus, he was inside it 
now, in his body, in the zone, the way he felt with his girl - shit, how many deaths 
would he die, what surgical tools would she use to peel the skin from his body, above 
what Washington edifice would she mount his severed head on a stake if he called her 
that out loud? - his girl's head on his shoulder.  The way he felt with Alex-
	Don't continue it.  Don't bother.  The way he felt with Alex.  Enough already.
	Too much already.
	One foot, then the other.  Let them both slough off, too slow to keep up, too 
sweet in the back of his throat to be in the crunch and grind of his bones, the stress 
and quiver of his muscles.
	Too much, too slow, too real, too
	One foot, then the other, and the evening breeze was cool enough now to lift 
the sweat off his neck and face with a pleasant chill.  He stopped under his own 
building, resting his hands on his thighs, ignoring proper cooling-down procedure.  
This was part of the fun, his ribcage barely able to contain his breathing, his 
perplexed leg muscles twinging as they prepared to stiffen up, his heart going loud 
like a chainsaw.  Next would come the shower, hot enough to make gumbo out of him, 
and then some television, which God knew was its own brand of torture.
	He was thinking about macaroni and cheese - a major cooking project, what with 
involving both milk *and* butter out of his very own refrigerator - when Mulder glanced 
up and saw Alex looking down at him from his own window.  Slowly, Mulder straightened, 
squinting back up at him.
	Alex, and the color of Mulder's kisses was still staining his lips.  Alex, and 
he laid his palm on the windowpane as if inviting Mulder to touch his own to it, nothing 
but sharp, lethal glass separating them.  Alex, and he looked like he'd missed Mulder 
badly; wishful thinking, possibly, but there he was, close to the window, waiting 
and watching for him, and the sound of his eyes carried all the way down here, saying, 
	*get up here, Mulder, what the hell are you waiting for?*
	Far from domestic, nothing like Leave It to Beaver.  No *hi, honey, I'm home,* 
just *if you'd promise to wait forever, I'd promise not to make you.* Holy Christ.  
Not healthy, not when the thoughts came attached to Alex-fucking-Krycek, and when 
did that become an endearment, when did he learn to forget the ghost-and-guns Alex 
and remember the one wrapped like a noose around him, whispering brokenly into his 
ear?
	Alex-fucking-Krycek, and Mulder took the elevator up to him, the fox to the 
coop, ready to tangle with the meanest bird in town, to tear the place apart in a 
riot of flesh and feathers and shreds of real life.  Things were going to happen that 
shouldn't, that should have no explanation at all, but that was fine, that was Mulder's 
life, and Alex's touch and Alex's kiss made perfect sense in context.
	Mulder had always liked it hard.
	Alex opened the door for him, and even though Mulder was expecting it, counting 
on it, there was a small sensation of shock when their mouths met, seared together, 
softer and warmer than they should be, gentler and needier than it was okay to be.  
Heedless of the sweat he was smearing all over Alex, Mulder pulled him in closer, 
wrapped an arm around his neck and touched his cheek with the other hand as they kissed.  
There was no reason for this, every reason to stay the hell away from the man who 
shot his father, the man who, the man who.  Yadda yadda.
	The man who had gone so far and then come back.  Mulder felt Alex's hands resting 
lightly on his waist, one light and flesh-padded, the other made of weightier, 
motionless plastic.  His own hands drove hard down Alex's back, forcing him even closer, 
until Alex pulled away with a strained little laugh.  "Take it easy, stud."
	"Please tell me you didn't come here to give me more disturbing information 
about my past."
	"Not today.  I came to get some decent fucking food, for one thing.  This city 
has more goddamn Chinese food than China."  He knocked Mulder's shoulder back as Mulder 
tried advancing on him again.  "Take a shower."
	"What's the matter?  Tough guy in the leather jacket can't take a little sweat?"
	He gave Mulder a puzzled look, as if he really wasn't sure how Mulder could 
be so oblivious.  "How long have you known me?"
	"Don't go there."
	"Have you ever known me to get off on dirt?"
	The sheer insanity of Krycek believing that Mulder knew him, knew his habits 
and his preferences - did he still expect Mulder to trust the months they'd spent 
as partners?  Until a few days ago, Krycek had been nothing more in his mind than 
a beautiful blank, something unknown and almost nonexistent, except in the form of 
a certain sensation, a certain ache lodged in Mulder that wouldn't go away.  Until 
a few days ago, he'd been a piece of Mulder, and suddenly he was a person in and of 
himself, coming here for his own reasons, and shit, but that was scary.
	So.  Shower.
	Tonight, for obvious reasons, Mulder couldn't really settle into the shower.  
Usually it was his own special brand of meditation, scalding out the filth of each 
day's lies, letting the water sluice off him, and with it the sticky film of shame 
that always seemed to cling to Mulder, the omnipresent memory of every single time 
he'd ever had to get down on his belly and crawl for the powers that be.  It made 
the smoke and dirt and the smell of disease melt right off of him, and when Mulder 
stepped out, he felt taller, lighter, practically clean and practically sane.
	Tonight, he came out of the shower feeling oddly defenseless.  What was there 
that held him back from Alex, if not the silt and scum he'd been accumulating over 
the years?  If not for all that shit, all the history that swamped him under and made 
him unclean, there would be nothing on the other side of that door except a guy named 
Alex who was crazy about him, who could kiss him down to bare bones and talk him to 
death about Radiohead and the Laws of Robotics afterward.  Mulder was ridiculously 
unprepared to open the door and cross the line back into Alex Krycek's world - which, 
not so damn long ago, was *Mulder's* apartment - and he knew it.
	Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't Krycek in his kitchen, busily cooking 
and stirring.  "What the hell is this?"
	"Tortellini.  I told you, I came here to eat."
	"You're making tortellini?"
	"Mulder, they have these things now called *supermarkets.* Might be of interest 
to you.  Somebody cooks a bunch of food, freezes it, and then you buy it and throw 
it in a pot of boiling water.  Even you can do it, tovarish."
	They were going to play it that way, then.  As though they were lovers - as 
though they were friends.  He wondered if the idea hit Krycek the same way it hit 
him, a sickly-sweet blend of nerves, guilt, grudging desire, and irresistible 
curiosity.  What would it have been like to be Alex Krycek's lover?  Before, during, 
after the betrayal - would it ever have mattered to either of them?
	Questions to keep you awake all night long.  Thoughts to occupy your mind while 
you stood against the wall in your own kitchen, waiting for a man you theoretically 
hated to be done boiling pasta.
	*If you promised to wait forever*
	Maybe it should have been a domestic scene - except that even if he could cook 
like Emeril, instead of defrosting like a bachelor, no power on earth could make Krycek 
seem like a homebody.  There was something even a little Gahan Wilson-y about Alex 
Krycek, with his hard, high cheekbones and his sharp, resentful eyes, with one 
prosthetic arm and the outline of a gun showing through the dark blue fisherman's 
sweater, doing anything with a stovetop other than shoving someone's face down on 
it.  A prejudice, maybe.  After all, for all Krycek's faults - and their name was 
Legion; Mulder wasn't too smitten yet to remember that - he'd never appeared to have 
any real cruelty to him, or any madness.
	He was much worse than that - he was a hired gun, a rat who had turned against 
everyone who'd ever been fool enough to take him into their confidences.  Mulder 
understood madmen and murderers; no urge to violence was so deeply felt or so brutally 
fulfilled that the profiler in him couldn't recognize and interpret it, discover its 
shape and pattern and predict how and where it would flare up next.  There were times, 
in the dead of night, when Mulder couldn't run from looking into his own heart any 
longer, and he knew there was a madman crouched there, and a murderer, too.  He felt 
a guilty tenderness for the psychos he pursued in the course of his work, something 
he'd never admitted to anyone, inspired by a sense of *there but for the grace of 
God....* Madness he got; hate, rage, the will to power, the need to shove someone 
down and make them suffer, all of that Mulder could understand.
	Alex Krycek he could not understand.  Try as he might, Mulder couldn't imagine 
being so divorced from the rest of humanity that even killing couldn't fill up the 
hollow of your heart with...something.  And yet, as hard as Mulder scrutinized him, 
there was very little in Krycek's manner that gave Mulder an angle to work.  He could 
be angry or tender or frightened or content, just like any other human being, but 
those were just moods; none of them seemed to run deeper than a response to some 
immediate stimulus.  Alex was what he felt, and underneath all of that he was - what?  
Nothing?  Stubborn yet adaptable, proud yet needy, deceitful yet blunt, passionate 
yet remote.  Nothing defined him, nothing enabled Mulder to fix him to any one thought 
or idea.  He was a profiling nightmare.
	As bad as Scully for secrecy and ambiguity.  Oh, a pattern was being detected, 
all right, but it had everything to do with Mulder himself and nothing to do with 
Krycek.  Either he loved a challenge, or he was setting himself up to fail.  Take 
your pick.
	But if total, crash-and-burn, black-box, identified-by-dental-casts failure 
was in Mulder's future, then he might as well go down - going down.  Yuk yuk.
	He settled his hands slowly on Krycek's hips - the last thing you wanted to 
do to a trained killer who was colluding with the federal government to bring down 
his ruthless employer was startle him.  Mulder didn't remember ever reading that 
anywhere, much less testing out the theory himself, but it seemed so reasonable that 
he thought he might just treat it as a known fact.
	Things always started that way between them - one touch, one honest word, a 
brief crossing of paths or a crossing of swords -- then somehow never ended with *one* 
of anything.  So quickly that Mulder couldn't break it down into steps, Krycek was 
in his arms, kissing him roughly with his real hand in Mulder's hair and his other 
arm hooked around Mulder's waist.
	One way or another, one of them - possibly Alex - got them over to the couch, 
and one of them - possibly Mulder - remembered to bring a plate of tortellini, and 
if the walls of Number 42 could talk, they'd be confused and frightened, because all 
at once, with Mulder on top of Alex, burrowing under his sweater and arching as Alex 
ran his hand slowly up Mulder's bare back, there was suddenly more rich, golden, erotic 
energy crammed into this room than in the whole fourteen years of Mulder's tenancy 
here.  
	Those deep green eyes stayed steady on him as Mulder settled himself and the 
plate on top of Krycek.  There was something unaccountably trusting in the way Krycek 
ate off the fork Mulder offered without looking at it, silently accepting the rhythm 
Mulder set - cut, stab, lift, pull back, cut, stab, lift, pull back.  He spilled very 
little alfredo sauce, and nipped hardly at all at Krycek's warm, stubbled chin as 
he kissed it off.
	So this is what it would have been like, being Alex Krycek's lover.  His good 
arm was flung casually up over his head, and Mulder worked his left hand slowly up 
it, feeling the lean muscle under the heavy cable-knit as he fed Alex with his other 
hand, the plate balanced precariously on Alex's slow-moving chest.  When his palm 
crossed Krycek's, Krycek pressed his eyes closed, the only notable change in 
expression Mulder had wrung from his erstwhile partner yet.
	It was impossible to blame him.  There was something, something about the way 
the thin skin of their hands brushed together, slickened by a fine sheen of sweat 
- intimate, painfully soft, scored with the rough touch of knuckles and callused 
- fingertips, shocks of hard sensation in counterpoint to the gentle way their 
- hands were tangling, seeking each other.  "Jesus...."
	"Mulder...." Alex responded, in exactly the same tone.
	This was not Krycek's usual kiss, the kind that melted them both into a dazed dreams
cape of submission and long-denied release.  This was...something else.  Something 
more deliberate, something that aimed squarely toward a goal that Mulder suspected 
he hadn't even started to understand.
	Alex was full of goals, always had been.  He 	The plate made a hell of a 
noise as Alex pitched it over the back of the sofa, and he sat up into Mulder's kiss 
like a striking snake, and - snakebit - Mulder froze.  was going somewhere, chasing 
something, asking and offering, wheeling and dealing.  Mulder didn't have a clue what 
the ultimate purpose of it all was. *Do you like a challenge, or do you just set 
yourself up to fail?*
	*Are you up to this?  Do you want to know where he's taking you this time?  Do 
you really?*
	He was still paying for losing that dare in Hong Kong. *Finish it....* Damn 
Krycek for knowing that he couldn't finish it.  Not until he knew the truth.
	*I want to know I want to know I want to know who the fuck you are I want to 
know what you want from me I want to know I want to believe I want to know what this 
is I want to know what you know why you're here who you are I want to know I want 
you*
	They hit the ground together, and before Mulder had time to feel stupid and 
clumsy he was off his back and up on his knees, and the kiss had dissolved into 
something full-bodied.  Their knees touched, their hands and wrists and forearms 
played each other in arcane patterns.  The heat of their groins and chests radiated 
doubled in the narrow breath of space between them, and Mulder could smell his mouth, 
taste it in the air, as their chins nudged against each other and their eyes bored 
into each other, making out, marveling in the way the kiss had fanned out to crackle 
up and down the surface of their skin where their skins touched, where they 
half-touched, where they ached to touch.
	It was unbearable, unsustainable, and Mulder croaked out something that should 
have been a word and grabbed Krycek's hair where it had grown long on top and pulled 
the kiss back up to their lips where it belonged, where it was - if such a thing was 
anything less than absurd under the circumstances - a little safer.  Krycek's hand 
got hold of Mulder's t-shirt at the tail and pulled it up in a careless, rough sort 
of caress that made Mulder shiver, made him not at all hate to draw away from Krycek's 
mouth long enough to let Krycek strip it off of him.  Krycek didn't make him give 
up the kiss for long; he swooped right back into it, and the shock of his mouth on 
Mulder's was every bit as cruel and wanted as the casual twist Krycek's strong fingers 
gave to Mulder's nipple.  He groaned into Alex's mouth, felt himself losing ground 
under the force of Krycek's barely leashed desire.  He was weakening, leaning back 
as Krycek came in deeper and deeper for more and more.
	And soon he was laid out like an altar waiting for the sacrifice, his body a 
clean arch from knees to thighs to ribs back down to chest and shoulders and throat. 
*Who's that trip-trapping across my bridge?* Mulder had become architecture, 
something designed and arranged by the strangely fierce and focused man whose teeth 
were worrying the skin at the side of Mulder's neck, who was straddling him and 
creeping up, crossing.  Perched like a carrion bird, and there was no mistaking the 
way his dick was trying on its own to press down through the undefended skin of Mulder's 
stomach.  If anyone could fuck him straight through....
	"Let's talk."
	Mulder played it once again through his mind.  Twice.  Three times.  Nahh.  
Couldn't....  The *hell*?  Talk?  Krycek *never* wanted to talk, let alone.... "Now?" 
he croaked in disbelief.
	His fingernails were scraping up and down Mulder's body, the strip of skin that 
wasn't quite his side and not quite his back.  Mulder's inner psychologist latched 
onto the repetitive gesture: nervous?  Maybe.  But if so, it wasn't showing at all 
in Krycek's steady, sea-dark eyes.  "Now works for me."
	"How long *do* these Mickey Finns you keep slipping your guards last, anyway?"
	"Shut up, Mulder," he said good-naturedly, and kissed him once more.  It was 
a borderland kiss, not entirely in Krycek's old, desperately tender style, but not 
quite devoid of it either.  "Now.  This is what's called negotiation."
	"That's a big word."  Mulder faked the overly serious tones of the worst 
nightmare of a kindergarten teacher he could dredge up.  "Can you say 'negotiation'?"
	"I knew you could," Alex murmured silkily, copying his inflections, brushing 
a fingertip playfully down Mulder's cheek.  "I am going to fuck you, tovarish.  I'm 
going to make you come, my cock up your ass -- so hard you change your religion. On 
one condition."
	Mulder swallowed, waiting for his voice to steady out.  "And that condition 
is?"
	"You have to ask me for it."
	"Fuck me."
	Too fast; it made Mulder flush uncomfortably, his own eagerness, even though, 
face it, nobody here was unaware that Mulder was eager for this.  Just because Mulder 
spent his entire adult life chasing down other people's secrets didn't mean he was 
much good at keeping them himself.
	But Krycek's smile wasn't triumphant; it was almost wistful, a little impatient, 
still hungry.  A complicated smile - which meant a *genuine* smile, probably.  For 
whatever that was worth.  "Not yet."
	"You gonna give me some kind of sign when you're ready, Krycek?" he asked tartly.
	"Oh.  You won't need one."
	There was something about Krycek's voice - some unsettling commonality between 
the rough, quiet sounds buzzing near Mulder's ear right now and the voice Mulder 
remembered from the days of their partnership.  Not the same voice, exactly - Krycek's 
voice now sounded like he'd been through a fire and all the scars had settled inside 
his throat, while the old Alex Krycek had possessed an entire repertoire of evasive 
noises, mutters and fake postures of formality and reluctant unease.  But with his 
eyes closed, Mulder could hear the past - *I want out.  There's so much I never told 
you. Mulder....  You.* - 
	He shook it off, tried to focus on what Krycek was saying to him.
	"-knew what to make of it when you quit Behavioral Sciences to head your 
own...unit?  Are you a *unit,* technically?  Well, to be your own alien task force 
of one.  A lot of people figured it had to do with your marriage falling apart.  Actually, 
for a long time, no one in the Bureau knew what they found sadder - your bizarre 
obsession with alien abductions, wasted potential, etcetera etcetera, or the fact 
that you clung to your marriage so desperately that your wife was nine months pregnant 
with someone else's baby before you finally agreed to the divorce."
	"Yeah, everyone was very concerned about me," he said tightly.  "What does this 
have to do with anything?"
	"Well, it has to do with everything.  It has to do with *you,* and I'm sure 
you'd be the first person to agree that everything is about *you.* I mean, come on, 
Mulder.  I've spent the last three years of my life trying to map out what makes you 
tick.  It's a bullshit job, you know that, Mulder?  I'm not a fucking profiler; I 
should never have gotten stuck with this."
	"Maybe someone thought it was a promotion from assassin."
	"Well, maybe *someone* wasn't thinking.  Christ, I'm a courier, Mulder.  I 
transport information and evidence through some of the tightest security in the world.  
I've worked for the FBI *and* the NSA, Communist *and* post-Communist Russia, the 
Syndicate *and* - forget that; we'll come back to that some other day.  The point 
is that I am a highly skilled professional, I'm very good at what I do, and being 
your partner was just one stupid assignment that was supposed to last six months, 
max, and it's been *three years,* and my head is still crammed with your fucking life 
story."  Krycek caught his breath noisily, and when Mulder opened his eyes, the look 
on Krycek's face was half frustration and half confusion, as though he wasn't sure 
why this was all bursting out of him now.  "You and your fucking father and your fucking 
sister -" Krycek's fist pounded against Mulder's chest to emphasize each curse -- 
"and your fucking ex-wife and your fucking partner and your fucking ill-conceived 
*job.* You're somehow behind every fucked-up thing that ever happened to me.  I lost 
my job because of you, I lost my *arm* because of you, Jesus, there aren't even *words* 
for some of the things I lost because of you.  And I still.  Don't.  Understand.  You."
	The momentary silence was welcome; Krycek was usually silent, watchful.  This 
had the comfort of familiarity.  Mulder's legs were beginning to ache, and he touched 
a hand gently to Krycek's hip.  "Look, Alex.  Why don't you get up for a second?"
	His eyes flashed, a sharp and dangerous look that was also - less comfortably 
- familiar.  "You backing out, Mulder?"
	"I'm just - you don't exactly seem in the mood right now.  I'm talking retreat 
and regroup."
	Slowly enough that Mulder had plenty of time to decide he should be stopping 
this, Krycek slid his hand up Mulder's chest and settled it across his throat, his 
grip heavy but without much pressure.  "I'm *completely* in the mood.  You're still 
not getting what I'm saying to you - what I came here to tell you."
	Guilt swam up so fast and so dizzying that Mulder forgot to be afraid at all.  
He knew - he *did* know.  How could he not?  He'd been studying Mulder for years, 
he must have - somehow - Sam would never have told anyone, but Phoebe, Diana....  Mulder 
shut his eyes, hard.  It could be just a threat, Krycek's usual ruthless style....  
God, he'd sunk to the *bottom,* now that he was hoping Krycek was threatening him 
with death rather than trying to arouse him.  Mulder didn't have the breath or the 
will to prompt Krycek; he could only wait.
	"I came to tell you that *you owe me my life back, you son of a bitch.* But 
since it's painfully obvious that you're not up to giving *anyone* a life, or you'd 
have one yourself, I'm going to have to take what I can get."  His hand tightened 
once, and Mulder gagged on his yell of pain, and then relaxed again.  "You really 
ought to be thanking me, you know?   I don't see anyone else banging down your door 
to get much of anything from you.  I mean, look at you.  You're a violent, 
self-punishing, neurotic, obsessive-compulsive frustrated control freak.  You 
completely distrust happiness, don't you, Mulder?  Is that why you're attracted to 
me now?  Because you know how really fucking miserable I'm going to make you?  Like 
I said, I'm not a shrink, but it seems to me that a guy whose idea of a solid career 
move is to get a *hole* drilled in his head is really cruising for some major cathartic 
pain."  His voice shifted so far and so fast that it might have been someone else 
completely; a silky, milky tone without any of Krycek's usual strain.  "You want to 
get hurt, Mulder?  I can take care of that for you."	
	"Get off me."
	"Make me."
	In his position, Mulder actually had quite a lot of leverage, and just by pushing 
himself up he could dislodge Alex.  He launched himself right back at Mulder, of course, 
and they both went down to the floor in a clumsy grapple.  He'd expected Alex to be 
strong, and he was, but he was also startlingly light, and maybe jogging had given 
Mulder a fresh surge of energy for the evening, or maybe his anger was something 
particularly berserk and dangerous tonight, because as their struggle lapsed into 
stillness, Mulder realized that he had a knee planted firmly in Alex's chest and Alex's 
good arm twisted around, his hand trapped under his slightly arched back.  The fake 
arm lay docilely out beside him on Mulder's carpet, its angle not quite natural.  
Somehow, Mulder didn't feel any triumph at all; he just stood up and backed away, 
feeling like this evening was shaking down wrong.  Like something didn't fit, even 
though he knew full well that it made a hell of a lot more rational sense than the 
last time had.
	Without looking at it, Krycek made a quick adjustment to his prosthetic as he 
got to his knees, and it started to look a little more like an arm should look.  "Come 
on, Mulder, don't tell me that's all you've got.  I had bruises that looked like 
Skinner's knuckles for three weeks after the first time I was alone with *him.*"
	"Is there any chance you're projecting when you accuse me of being 
self-punishing, Krycek?  Because that's not the first time you've implied that you 
kinda like it when I beat you up."
	"Maybe.  Maybe it just makes it that much easier for me to fuck you over.  
Tovarish."
	"I thought you'd defected."
	"Not for the first time.  Or the last, probably."
	And even though he *knew* Krycek was just taunting him, just trying to get some 
kind of reaction, the perverse rat bastard, and that the thing really to do was just 
to ignore him, which would suck the wind right out of his sails, the truth was that 
Mulder had been waiting for so long, looking for something, anything he could react 
to.  Something real and present and somehow connected to his frustration and 
hopelessness, some way to use the pain he'd been stockpiling for, oh, *ever* now, 
it felt like.  So when he brought his knee up hard to clip Krycek under the jaw, he 
knew it wasn't really because of anything Krycek had said.  Just because he was there, 
and refusing to let Mulder lie dormant under his routines and his few hard-won 
certainties.
	He made a satisfying grunt of surprise as his head snapped back - very satisfying. 
*That's for breaking into my apartment, asshole.*
	It wasn't exactly his intention to kick Krycek in the stomach, too...but that 
sound was really *great.* He didn't make it exactly the same, though, more like a 
growl, and he was looking up at Mulder with a gleam of pure pleasure in his eyes, 
even though his face was set hard against the pain. *That's for touching my throat 
without permission, you sick fucker.  And this is for making me dinner before you 
tried to screw with my mind....*
	Even before his knee connected with Krycek's nose, Mulder sort of felt bad.  
It seemed like too much.  He wasn't - he didn't really want to be the kind of person 
who would just beat the shit out of someone to feel better, regardless of how much 
that person probably deserved it.  But it was too late to pull out, and Krycek was 
perfectly silent this time, so the crunch of impact resounded like a gunshot in the 
room, making Mulder jump skittishly away.  Krycek's head was down, and there was a 
small dark blot on the knee of Mulder's jeans.
	"Alex...."  His voice died away.  Krycek wasn't much for making apologies, and 
Mulder got the distinct impression that he wouldn't be much for listening to them, 
either.
	When Krycek raised his head, the pleasure was gone; he looked a little tired, 
but mostly just steady, businesslike, the same old Alex Krycek who'd sat across the 
desk from him at the Bureau, making endless phone calls and filling out endless 
requisition forms.  "Help me up," he said simply, and for a moment there was no pretense 
and no subtext between them.  Krycek could've been down on his knees with black blood 
dripping down his lip for any one of a million reasons, and all he wanted was a hand 
getting to his feet.  Mulder reached out, and they gripped each other by the wrist 
so Krycek could pull himself up more easily.
	Standing again, face to face, Krycek gave him a brief, wry smile, something 
that it was easy to imagine could stand in for an apology.  "More like it," he said 
approvingly, wiping at the blood on his mouth with his prosthetic arm so that the 
sleeve of his sweater came away smeared with the same nondescript dark color that 
was on Mulder's jeans.  "You really shouldn't keep your feelings bottled up so much.  
You're going to give yourself an ulcer - or kill someone."
	"Keep your head tilted back.  I'll get you some paper towels."
	"Nah.  I'm just gonna let it bleed a while."  Krycek lowered his thick lashes 
and gave Mulder a razor-sharp, appraising look out from behind them.  "What do you 
think, partner?  Does it make me look more like Scully?"
	Before he had any time to think about such niceties as what kind of person he 
wanted to be, Mulder moved, backhanding Krycek across the mouth so hard that it almost 
sent him back down to the floor.  He could see Krycek stumbling, trying to regain 
his stability, but it was just visual input; it didn't work the slightest wedge of 
pity, triumph, or any other emotion into the featureless walls of anger that had 
slammed down all around him.  He threw a punch, and a second, and he was vaguely aware 
that they'd both connected with something, but for the most part Mulder was locked 
so deeply inside those horribly twinned images - Alex's blood on his clothes, Scully's 
blood smeared across the paperwork on his desk - that he might as well have been back 
out on the street, shoving his abuse randomly on his own body, the ground, science, 
and nature.
	It was blood that broke through, the red color popping unexpectedly vivid from 
its white background, making Mulder's attention lock onto it, slowly resolving itself 
into a small oval tear in the pale skin of Alex's sharp cheek.  Mulder stepped back, 
shaking his head, and when he raised his hand to keep Alex's subtle following motion 
in check, there was blood on his knuckles.
	Roughly, Alex pulled up on the collar of his sweater and hastily wiped the sticky 
mess his face was quickly becoming on its inside.  "Say something," Mulder demanded.
	"I dunno," Alex grumbled with a hint of his old prissiness.  "That was my big 
finale.  If you're not done yet, you'll have to think up your own reasons to hit me."
	"Don't make me do this."
	Alex laughed sharply, unconsciously straightening out his sweater.  "Yeah, 
Mulder, I make you do this.  I make you do everything.  I'm a mean son of a bitch.  
You're catching on.  You finished or not?"
	"Finished hitting you?"
	"Yeah."
	"*What in the fuck is wrong with you?*"
	The question actually seemed to make Krycek pause for a minute, and then he 
shrugged.  "Hell if I know, Mulder, but I promise, if I ever figure it out, you'll 
be the first to know."
	"You *promise.* Well, if you *promise*...."
	"Yeah, Mulder.  I promise."
	It sounded so serious.  From anyone else, in anyone else's life, in any other 
world, it would have been Alex Krycek making a promise to him.  For just a few seconds, 
Mulder closed his eyes and played the words over again in his head, thinking *this 
is what it would've been like, being Alex Krycek's lover.*
	Unable to see the decision being made in Krycek's eyes, Mulder had no time to 
react before Krycek's arm was resting along his chest, fingers closed lightly on his 
neck.  When he kissed Mulder, his lips were still sticky and iron-tangy with blood.  
The kiss lasted as long as it took for Mulder's hands to find Alex's waist, but when 
he carelessly nudged a cut he hadn't realized was on Alex's lower lip with his tongue, 
Krycek hissed and pulled his head away.  Mulder leaned forward for more of the gory 
kiss, but Krycek pushed him away by the shoulder.  "Why are you doing this?" Mulder 
murmured.
	"Just need to know what kind of man I'm getting mixed up with."
	"Am I failing your test?"
	"You're no coward."
	"Why do I feel like one?"
	"Don't let the liberal guilt get to you, Mulder.  If I really wanted to, I could 
kick your ass even with two fake arms."
	"I can't trust you.  I don't even know why I'd want to."
	"Because you're lonely, Mulder.  Believe me, I know how that is."  Mulder raised 
a skeptical eyebrow and Krycek shrugged.  "What? I'm *human.* You know, the kind of 
life I live...there's just not a lot of consistency, let alone people you can count 
on.  It sucks."
	Gently, Mulder dabbed blood off Krycek's cheek with his thumb, fighting back 
a lopsided grin.  "Sucks, huh, Shakespeare?"
	At first Krycek looked startled, and then the glitter in his eyes turned to 
that sly amusement that Mulder so rarely saw.  "'I am myself indifferent honest; but 
yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: 
I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have 
thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.  What 
should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth?  We are arrant knaves, 
all; believe none of us.'  Suck on *that,* Mr. Oxford."
	"Okay, I'm impressed."
	"I did go to college, you know.  I have an English degree from Columbia 
University."
	"No kidding?  Your classified file says Criminal Justice from NYU."
	"My file says a lot of things."
	"Was that Macbeth?"
	"Hamlet."
	"Right, right, right.  Get thee to a nunnery.  You know, that was Elizabethan 
slang for a whorehouse."
	"I *know,* Mulder.  Christ."  He sounded exasperated, but there was a smile 
at the corner of his lips as he leaned in and brushed them very lightly down Mulder's 
neck.  The sudden teasing contact sent a brief, violent shudder through Mulder's body.  
"You just stick to the psychology, okay?"
	Damn, it was too hard to sit stoically under the burden of all this intensity; 
the urge to shake it off with dumb humor was overwhelming.  Mulder waggled his eyebrows 
suggestively.  "I was hoping to play pre-med."
	He was getting the hang of kissing Alex without hurting his lip, and his fingers 
found a position against Krycek's face that didn't press against anything sore.  "Alex 
- hey, Alex?"
	"What?" he mumbled obediently, but he didn't seem very keen to let Mulder get 
out of kissing him.
	"Do you like Hamlet?"
	"Do I- ? *Fuck,* Mulder.  Are we going to have sex or what?"
	"Yeah, yeah, don't worry, I'm mentally rehearsing my begging and pleading for 
you to fuck me even as we speak.  I'm just - I'd like to - this is something I want 
to know about you, all right?  Do you get that?  Out of all the things I don't know, 
I would just like you to be fucking honest with me for two seconds and tell me, do 
you like Hamlet?"
	"Technically speaking, the man's finest play.  I'm a big fan.  Does that make 
you happy, sweet prince?"
	"Overjoyed.   Your favorite?"
	"Nah.  I like Julius Caesar."
	"Figures."
	Alex snorted, but he obviously wasn't feeling cynical enough to resist as Mulder 
pushed him back toward the sofa and down on his back.  Stripping off the worse-for-wear 
sweater, Mulder put his mouth against Alex's stomach, ignoring the faint yellow bruise 
there.  Alex groaned softly, but not, Mulder was pretty sure, in pain.  "God.  God, 
you're so sexy.  Whoever the fuck you are - FBI agent, courier, assassin, fucking 
Shakespeare scholar - whoever the fuck you are."
	"Yeah, Mulder.  Oh, yeah.  Let me fuck you, please.  Please."
	*You, Mulder.  Are we okay?*
	*Mulder -- please -- don't trust me.  I don't want to hurt you again.  Don't 
let me.*
	*We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us.*
	*Don't believe me.  This is all the help I can give you, Fox.*
	Mulder froze.  Like all insights, this one had come down on him like a semi, 
and now it seemed so fucking ridiculous that he'd struggled this long with it.  Jesus, 
he could be stupid sometimes.  "I'm your - I'm your goddamn Ophelia."
	"What?"
	"That speech - Hamlet is trying to convince Ophelia - fuck, I'm such an *idiot,* 
it's so obvious - trying to convince Ophelia to stay away from him, because he knows 
he's into this revenge thing over his head and he's afraid she's going to end up going 
down with him. *That's* why he tells her he's dishonest and ambitious and all the 
rest of it."  He pointed a finger between Krycek's eyes, and Krycek batted it away 
impatiently.  "That's why you came here.  You thought that after - after last time 
- I might be thinking about getting involved with your little kamikaze mission."
	"You're a piece of work, Mulder.  Does it *never* occur to you that I might 
just *be* dishonest and ambitious?" 
	"Every damn day, Krycek.  But you didn't come here to twist the knife in me, 
and you didn't come here to make it easier on yourself in case you should need to 
fuck me over again.  You love me-"
	"Fuck you!  Get off of me."
	"Yes, you do!  You're in love with me, you bastard, and it scares the hell out 
of you that the one person in your life that you give a shit about might get hurt 
because you let him care about you.  You came here to make me hate you again, knowing 
I'd let you fuck me anyway, figuring that in the harsh light of the morning after, 
I'd feel too guilty and generally nauseous about what I let you do to me that I'd 
never want to be anywhere near you again.  This is part of your half-assed making 
amends program."
	"*Half-assed*?  My *half-assed* making amends program is going to break the 
Syndicate's back for you."
	"For me?"
	Krycek's eyes widened in surprise as his own words sunk in on him, then narrowed.  
	"*Instead* of you.  Since you obviously can't or won't.  Some arch-nemesis you 
are.  And I am *not* making amends.  Does this look like Black Ops Anonymous to you?"
	"Call me Fox."
	"*What?*"
	"The other night - you kept calling me Fox.  What made you stop?"
	"You're complaining?"
	"I'm making a point!"
	"Which is...?"
	"That this -" Mulder waved his hand vaguely, indicating Krycek's body lying 
tense beneath him - "this isn't you.  This is just another performance."
	"Or the last time was."
	"No."
	Mulder was a stubborn man, and he packed all the stubbornness at his command 
into that one word, pinning Krycek down with it.  His eyes didn't flicker as they 
held Krycek's, watching him cycle through anger, frustration, fear, anger again, 
confusion, respect, another flavor of fear.  He'd never seen emotion lit up so plainly 
behind Krycek's witchy green eyes; it made him exquisitely human, brought him right 
here and right now no matter how hard he tried to be somewhere else.  Softly, Mulder 
kissed his jaw.  "I'm getting better at this game, Alex.  I'm going to get into your 
head yet."
	"Did anyone ever tell you that you have this way of making up theories that 
strike you as attractive, then interpreting all the evidence to support your theory 
without duly considering a sufficient range of alternative explanations?"
	"Yeah.  Call me crazy, but that speech turns me on every time, too."
	"You're *crazy.*"
	"You promised to fuck me if I asked.  Alex, I'm asking.  I want it."
	Krycek's jaw twitched slightly.  "A lot's changed since I promised that."
	"I won't let you hurt me."
	"You can't stop me.  You never could."
	"How long?"
	It didn't look as though he really wanted to, but Krycek smiled anyway.  "How 
soon they forget...."
	Mulder made a post-punchline rimshot noise.  "How long have you been in love 
with me?"
	"This is *your* psycho theory, Mulder.  It's not healthy for me to play into 
your delusions."
	"Don't you dare honesty-containment-conciliation me, Alex Krycek.  How long 
have you been in love with me?"
	"Ask me again."
	"How long?"
	"No.  Ask me to fuck you."
	"I want you.  Christ, Alex.  I'm begging you."  He dropped his head, resting 
his forehead lightly on Krycek's shoulder as Krycek's fingers hesitated, just 
brushing the skin of his back.  "I'm so fucking lonely."
	Between their three fully functional hands, they managed to get rid of the last 
of their clothes without letting go of each other's mouths long enough to say anything 
*else* that couldn't ever be taken back again.
	Already, the scars and marks on Krycek's body had a strangely nostalgic 
familiarity to them - the knife wound in his chest, the brace that strapped his 
silicone arm to the remains of his real one, the tattoo on his leg.  Souvenirs of 
a rough life, with few protectors and no unbreakable rules.  Mulder touched each of 
them in quick recognition - found the tattoo and the scar behind his shoulder with 
his fingers, kissed the scar that had been the proximate, if not the ultimate, cause 
of his father's death, let his chin rest briefly on Krycek's left shoulder, his 
prosthetic arm pressed between their bodies.  Alex fucking Krycek, with all his 
failures seared permanently into his body, exactly the way it sometimes seemed that 
all Mulder's failures were seared permanently into his mind.  They could both run 
forever, and the truth would never be purged out of them by pain or sweat, not by 
any amount of effort, defiance, ambition, stubbornness.  Krycek's body, Mulder's life 
- monuments and martyrs to things, truths, they never should have messed around with 
at all.
	Too soon old, too late wise, as the saying went.  Too late to back out now.
	Far from being handicapped by the massive migration of blood to his dick, 
Mulder's thoughts seemed crisper and more orderly than it had since he got home from 
his run - wait until he could tell Scully that his best thinking really *did* happen 
in his pants.  Out of them.  Whatever.  Now it seemed even more ridiculously obvious 
than ever before: somewhere on his way up the bad side of the ladder, Alex fucking 
Krycek had fallen in love with him.  Him.  Fox Mulder, the FBI's redheaded stepchild, 
inept arch-nemesis of big government gone horribly awry, America's alien task force 
of one.
	*When you fuck up, you fuck up for keeps, don't you, Alex-whoever-you-are?*
Only this time, Alex seemed determined to sear his biggest mistake into Mulder's body.  
Every time his rough-chewed fingernails dug into Mulder's back or his teeth snapped 
sharp and quick at the top of Mulder's ear, Mulder got his intent just as clearly 
as if Krycek's low growls had been words: *feel this pay attention to this how deep 
can I touch you? let me in where you're bloodiest*
	"Feel this?" Mulder murmured, half-convinced he was repeating real words that 
had escaped from Alex's lips as the heel of his hand massaged heavily down Alex's 
chest, pressing into his nipple and making his back arch suddenly.
	"Fuck," he gasped softly, and caught Mulder's mouth in a short, clumsy, perfect 
kiss.  "Fuck.  I like that.  No - no, quit it.  I can't-"
	"Sure you can."  Mulder sealed his lips around the warm, darkening nipple.  The 
agonized, erotic sound that escaped Krycek was, on reflection, much more appealing 
than his earlier stifled pain noises.  That was nice to know for sure.  Mulder fought 
to keep from breaking the suction by twisting his lips into a wide grin.
	"I can't - Mulder, for fuck's sake, *quit.* You're gonna make me-"
	"I wanna make you."
	His voice was low, and humid like the most unbearable Virginia summer nights.  
"Not like this.  In you."
	*In me.  In me.  In me.*
	As gently as he could while his body wanted to push roughly, over and over again, 
against Krycek's hard hipbone and muscled thigh, Mulder brushed two fingers over 
Krycek's face, observing the way the clean, handsome features were settling into 
bruises and scabs.  "Did you ever wonder - what it would've been-"
	"No.  And you shouldn't either."
	"Liar."
	"*Now* you don't trust me," Alex snorted.
	"I never trusted you."
	"Liar."
	"I still don't."
	"Fucking *liar.*"
	"In fact, I hate you.  I'm plotting my elaborate revenge against you, but no 
revenge will ever be sufficient, and when I die, I'm having 'I Still Hate Your Guts, 
Alex K.' carved on my tombstone.  I'm putting up with you because you're under federal 
protection, but once your sting is over, all bets are off.  I'll probably try to push 
you out of a window before you ever get out of the Hoover Building.  My final thoughts 
before I shuffle off this mortal coil will be about what a worthless, vile, morally 
bankrupt and spiritually diseased, bottom-feeding rodent you are - or were, since 
I will have killed you long since by that time - and how glad I am that I never, ever, 
*ever* fell victim to one of your insane, labyrinthine, Shakespearean schemes."
	In spite of a few snorts of unwilling laughter, by the time Mulder had run out 
of breath for his ramble, Alex was looking at him with unexpectedly grave eyes.  "Got 
it all figured out, do you?"
	"You bet."
	"No revenge will ever be sufficient, huh?"
	Unwillingly, Mulder thought of the ashes in his hand, a friend erased as though 
he'd never existed - because he hadn't.  The dark shadow of sadness that had warped 
his Scully, made her someone he didn't know, someone he was constantly losing even 
while he was constantly waiting to lose her.  He thought of the way he always had 
to obey the most frightening, least humanized chunks of himself when Krycek turned 
those eyes, eerily level and thoroughly haunted at the same time, on him.  "No.  I 
guess not."
	They would never be even.
	*In me.  In me.  In me.*
	"Well, I guess someone's going to do me sooner or later.  I'd just as soon it 
was you."
	"Alex, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
	"Probably."
	With a grace that was controlled and precise, not showy, Krycek rolled them 
both to their sides, and Mulder instinctively draped his arm over the back of the 
couch, holding himself tensely against the fabric so he couldn't see anything else.  
When Alex's fingers cupped his balls, the knuckle of his thumb stroking Mulder's 
perineum, it seemed like his whole hand was warm and slippery - obviously the dislike 
of lubricant that Alex had been so vocal about last time didn't extend to fucks where 
he was on top. *I can't believe you called *me* self-punishing.  You're a fucking 
lousy psychologist, Krycek.*
	One finger, two fingers - hell, Mulder had only done this once before, but he 
couldn't shake the feeling that this was absurdly...normal.  That this was how almost 
anyone would take it up the ass on his living room couch from a one-armed man who 
had a thing for him, whether or not they were supposed to be mortal enemies, whether 
or not the living room in question was under constant illegal surveillance, whether 
or not they'd both exceeded their life expectancies by a couple of years apiece already.  
It was just a couple of fingers, living and mobile.  The right amount of body heat 
for two naked men in fairly good shape, suffering no especially debilitating wounds 
or ailments at the moment.  The ring of muscle opening to a little gentle pressure, 
tightening down as the relevant tissues swelled and sensitized with blood.  Breathing, 
laborious and carefully controlled.  A kiss, a brush of cheek on Mulder's back, too 
artless to be anything less than desire.
	So normal.  This is how it would've felt.  Being Alex Krycek's lover.  Taking 
a shower, eating some pasta, talking, fucking on the sofa.  Sleeping deep in the center 
of Alex's scent.  Alex in him, Alex tasting him, Alex teaching him new definitions 
of the word *longing.*
	Fuck it.  Fuck it.  This is how it did feel.  Because he was sure as hell Alex 
Krycek's lover.  It couldn't have been seared deeper into either of their lives.  It 
was a goddamn *brand.* Yippie ki yi yo.
	"Mulder," he breathed, his chin resting in the hollow low between Mulder's 
shoulder blades.  "You're...I missed you.  I fucking *missed* you."
	"I know."
	Mulder hadn't known he had a streak in him, part Kama Sutra and part supermarket 
romance novel, that would allow him to feel so *different* in the split second after 
he'd had Alex Krycek's dick inside him than he had the split second before.  Even 
when Mulder had lost his virginity, he'd been vaguely surprised at how he was pretty 
much the same gangly egghead teenager he'd always been.  But with Alex lying flush 
against his back, real arm wrapped around Mulder's ribs and plastic arm resting on 
the arm of his couch, his chin tucked into the curve of Mulder's neck becoming his 
shoulder - like it or not, he was...pretty much...totally different.
	Pretty much totally Alex's.
	*In me.  In me.*
	*Jesus, Mulder.  Still a romantic, after all these years?  After all the 
fucked-up-beyond-all-repair romances?  This must be what they call *hopeless.* You're 
fucking hopeless.*
	*You're fucking doomed.*
	The way he moved when Alex rocked against him, the way he cried out when Alex's 
strong fingers found his cock and closed around it, just under the crown, the way 
each stab of pleasure came as its own little unexpected world of new sensation - it 
was all just *past* normal.  It was fucking *archetypal.* It was how every single 
person on the face of the earth probably felt, from toes to lungs to cock to eyeballs, 
with the one man who could turn him into mental origami with one accidental flutter 
of his eyelashes buried in him and fucking him like neither of them had a doubt in 
the world.  Mulder hated to be a cliche.  How bizarre to finally realize that the 
tackiest Top 40 cliche ever invented was actually about two steps to the left of - 
of those stupid auto fatality statistics Krycek used to rattle off.  Hard facts, true 
things, carved in stone, humankind's simple but amazingly accurate attempt to turn 
the complexity of real life into ten digits and sixty seconds per minute.
	And each of those seconds was beating through Mulder, time a long, slow 
vibration from each deep thrust toward the moment when statistics started to lie and 
truth became incalculable.  Alex kept time with his fingers tugging on Mulder's cock, 
fucked him to the relentless count of their harmonizing pleasure.  "I'm begging," 
Mulder informed him hoarsely, his hands curled into a claw that was probably permanent 
around the top of the sofa.  "I've got to come.  Can't you-?"
	"I've got you."  He sounded strangely calm, his breath ruffling Mulder's hair 
as he spoke.  "Go ahead - go ahead."
	Whether it was the minor shift in the angle of Krycek's thrusts, the permission, 
or the complicated twist his hand did, palm and inner fingers and round knuckles 
dancing artistically across the tender skin of Mulder's cock, Mulder came.  By the 
time his attention had returned, he could feel the final twitches of Krycek's dick 
inside him, leaking the last of his semen.  Mulder reached back and cupped the back 
of Krycek's skull, holding his hand in Krycek's thick hair through the final throes 
of his pleasure.
	"You never answered my question," Mulder finally commented, speaking to the 
back of his couch.
	"Which?" Krycek mumbled, or something like that; it wasn't entirely 
intelligible.
	"How long?"
	He didn't say anything for a moment, and when he did speak, it wasn't an answer, 
just a lazily annoyed, "This again?"
	"Hey, last time you were bitching because I didn't ask *enough* questions."
	"That's not *exactly* why I was bitching," he grumbled.  "Christ, you made up 
this whole stupid Ophelia theory.  Why don't *you* answer your question?  I mean, 
you jury-rig facts to your own liking for a living, Mulder.  You're a fucking 
*professional.* I'm not going to compete."
	"Have you always been this much of a caustic bastard, deep down underneath all 
that strong, silent crap?"
	Mulder could feel the shape of Krycek's grin along the nape of his neck.  
"Wouldn't need the strong, silent crap if I weren't."
	"Camouflage.  So the people you're infiltrating don't wring your neck before 
they even get to the part where you're a professional double agent."
	"No flies on you."
	"Your preferred method of defying reality," Mulder murmured, almost to himself.  
"Deflection.  Verbal defense.  Jesus, an *English* major."
	"What the hell are you babbling about?"
	"You."
	"Quit."
	*Too little, too late, Alex.  I'm starting to get this.  I'm starting to see.*
	"Tell me something, Krycek."
	"What?"
	"Something.  Anything.  Something I don't know."
	Krycek snorted.  "Figures.  The only two people in the world whose idea of 
afterplay is trading secrets."  Mulder chuckled, and under the influence of the laugh 
rumbling through his body, Krycek's bitter sound trailed off into amusement, too.  
"Okay, okay.  Something you don't know."
	"I know, this is a tough one."
	"Right."
	"Try, though."
	"If you shut up, I will.  You don't know...that there's a war on.  That my real 
job isn't carrying information - it's concealing it.  Where the weapons are. *What* 
the weapons are."
	He hadn't expected - business.  Real information, pieces of the puzzle.  
Mulder's heart began to bang loudly and slowly.  "You're protecting a weapon."
	"The only weapon.  The only method of meaningful resistance we have."
	"We?"
	"We."
	It was supposed to be *We?* as in *You and who else knows about this?* But Alex 
seemed to have read *We?* as *You and me?*
	*You and me.*
	*You in me.*
	*Yes.*
	"We," Mulder repeated.  "I need to-"
	"Not right now, you don't.  I'll tell you when you need to move on this.  I'll 
tell you what you need to know."
	The question hung unspoken in the air: *And will you trust me when I tell you?*
	*Yes.  No.  Maybe.  Probably.  Foolishly.  Yes.  Statistically speaking, I trust 
you 48.6% more often than I should.*  "There are three kinds of lies," Mulder heard 
himself say under his breath.  "Lies, damned lies, and statistics."
	"Believe me, Mulder, I may be a damned liar, but I'm not playing this by the 
numbers," Krycek said, and he sounded distant somehow.  "This is a war that I'm very 
likely to lose."
	"You don't seem the...losing type."
	"I didn't use to be."
	One more digit falling into place, one more piece of the puzzle.  Somehow, 
somewhere, something had changed for Alex Krycek.  Something that made him fight to 
lose; he had the ravaged life and the pretty face smeared with traces of drying blood 
to prove it.
	*I want to know I want to know who you are I want to know what you want from 
me I want to know I want to believe I want to know what this is I want to know why 
you're here who you are*
	*I'm starting to get this, Krycek.  Just give me a little more time.*


And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge....
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of war.
-Julius Caesar