From: RhymePhile@hotmail.com   
      
   Title: "Ceaseless" (1 of 1)   
   Author: RhymePhile   
   E-mail: RhymePhile@hotmail.com   
   Distribution: Archive freely   
   Rating: R for language and mature themes   
   Category: S, A   
   Keyword: Mulder/Krycek friendship/UST   
   Spoilers: Post-ep: Set right after The End, before the Movie. Other   
   spoilers: Patient X, The Red and the Black, Folie A Deux, and a certain   
   overall foreshadowing to the scene in Existence   
   Summary: In this sequel to "Constant," Mulder decides to take action and   
   find Krycek in order to prevent his suicide.   
   Disclaimer: Fox and Alex belong to CC, 1013 Productions, and Fox   
   Productions. No infringement intended.   
   Author's Note: This is a follow-up to my fic "Constant." Thanks to everyone   
   from RATales and M_K:Velocity who subtly insisted I write a sequel.   
      
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   
   "Ceaseless" (1 of 1)   
   by RhymePhile   
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   
      
   His blood was smeared across the refrigerator door.   
      
   Mulder sat on the kitchen floor, looking at all that remained of his   
   confrontation with Alex Krycek.   
      
   Like a crimson rainbow, Mulder thought, studying it. Blood. Always blood. In   
   Mulder's mind, he often saw it surrounding Alex: Red. Rage. Anger. Blood.   
   Death. He recalled the violent scene in the Hong Kong airport, Alex pushed   
   against the pay phones, eyes teary, nose bloodied. He saw Alex prone against   
   the hood of a car, choking, Mulder's gun on him, gash on his mouth bleeding.   
   And Mulder remembered cradling his own father's head, his clothes becoming   
   drenched in the warm color of an early evening sunset.   
      
   He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clearing his head of the memory.   
   When he did, his senses brought him back to the present, his nostrils   
   filling with the lingering smells of a Chinese dinner for two growing cold   
   on the kitchen table.   
      
   It felt like he had been sitting here for days, unsure of just what he   
   needed to be doing. His life was collapsing around him. First the X-Files   
   were taken away from him, then his life's work had been reduced to embers,   
   and now Alex Krycek hoped Mulder would kill him.   
      
   Shit, I could use a drink, he thought.   
      
   His gun was lying beside him on the floor, and Krycek's prosthetic arm, its   
   plastic fingers turned upward, lay next to it. Mulder ran a hand through his   
   hair and sighed. For a former profiler, he thought, you sure are stumbling   
   in the dark when it comes to Alex Krycek.   
      
   Did he hate him? Mulder pondered that for a moment, his eyes glancing back   
   and forth between the lifeless appendage on the floor and the red swath   
   Krycek had left behind. He could hate what he did to his father, for his   
   betrayal of their FBI partnership, for having a tenuous connection to   
   Scully's disappearance, but Mulder realized he didn't hate Krycek.   
      
   He couldn't, not after what happened here in his kitchen.   
      
   It was an act of desperation from a man in obvious emotional pain. Mulder   
   recognized it when Krycek stared into his eyes -- the haggard, drawn sight   
   of him, looking haunted and defeated. Mulder thought back and cringed at his   
   behavior. Krycek knew he would easily lash out in anger; he expected it and   
   had hoped to drive Mulder to kill him just from his mere presence in the   
   apartment.   
      
   But why not just kill himself if he wanted to die? Because he knew how easy   
   it was to get a rise out of me instead, thought Mulder. The notion bothered   
   him and made him angry -- hell, Krycek knew Mulder better than he knew   
   himself sometimes. Krycek could push the right buttons, say the wrong   
   things, and Mulder would react like a trained attack dog.   
      
   But Alex admitted Mulder wasn't a killer, yet he came to see him anyway. It   
   was as if...Krycek needed something from him. Perhaps it was his warped way   
   of asking for help.   
      
   Mulder guessed Krycek didn't have friends or anyone close he could talk to.   
   He imagined that in Alex's line of work, human contact was kept to a minimum   
   unless absolutely necessary. To Mulder it seemed like a punishment to go   
   through life without being able to touch another person. That was probably   
   why he routinely touched Scully. His hand nestled comfortably in the small   
   of Scully's back, or her light, familiar nudges were his intimate tethers to   
   the world around him.   
      
   Mulder wondered if the kiss -- or the caress of Alex's fingers against his   
   cheek just an hour ago -- were related to the desperate need to reach out to   
   someone. With everything Krycek had experienced, was Mulder the person who   
   fulfilled Alex's basic human desire for touch? Was he the one who grounded   
   Krycek to his humanity? The thought made Mulder feel even guiltier. In his   
   own -- albeit misguided -- way, Krycek was relying on the only person on   
   Earth with whom he shared a connection.   
      
   Mulder couldn't have known that of course, but a surge of anger welled up   
   inside him when he thought about how quick he was to resort to violence. He   
   wasn't a violent man. Was he? Mulder glanced at the red path of Krycek's   
   blood again. He must have slammed the other man's head against the fridge   
   hard enough to make him bleed. God, he felt like the abuser who smacked his   
   kid around because he knew the child wouldn't fight back. Mulder hated that   
   side of himself, the way he automatically responded with his hands when   
   Krycek baited him.   
      
   But fortunately, thought Mulder, Krycek didn't ultimately get what he   
   wanted.   
      
   If in fact Alex was in over his head, if he really was so deep within the   
   belly of the beast that he'd rather die -- that didn't sound like the Krycek   
   Mulder had come to know.   
      
   True, he hadn't really gotten that close to him in the short month they   
   worked together as partners, but Mulder recognized in the man the will to   
   endure. Krycek had gone up against the highest-ranking members of the   
   Syndicate to sell information from the MJ files. He had been infected with   
   the Black Oil and felt it squirming through his soul. He somehow survived   
   the terrors of the missile silo -- and Mulder knew he had lied regarding his   
   rescue -- because despite what Krycek said, his eyes told the truth about   
   how absolutely terrified he was. Alex even willingly traveled halfway around   
   the world with Mulder without knowing the reason why they were headed to   
   Tunguska. Mulder couldn't understand why Krycek had ever trusted him.   
      
   Mulder's eyes caught the sight of the lifeless prosthesis again. Krycek paid   
   for his double-cross in the gulag ten times over, but it was in a way that   
   Mulder never could have imagined. He felt guilty knowing that the man who   
   sat next to him on the plane and softly, almost reverently, told him about   
   the village in Russia where his parents met had suffered so horribly. It   
   wasn't vindication for Krycek's previous actions; Mulder wouldn't wish that   
   kind of treatment on anyone. He couldn't. Mulder wasn't that kind of man.   
      
   Perhaps that was why Krycek's visit disturbed him once he found out the real   
   reason he was there. Alex Krycek was a fighter, a man who more than once   
   faced death and overcame it. Mulder had to be honest -- Krycek had helped   
   him in the past. The receipts for the truck full of explosives in Queens,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)