Burning/Bridges, by realitycek

Burning/Bridges

by realitycek

Rated: T, for language and implied m/m interaction

Spoilers: "The End"

Summary: After the destruction of the X-Files, Mulder receives a visit from someone who knows all about rising from the ashes.

Disclaimer: Property of Ten-Thirteen and 20th Century Fox.

Author's notes: Sue had a craving for schmoop. This isn't it, but it's about as close as I get. She wanted it posted, so don't blame me...

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The quiet 'snick' of the lock registered on the fringes of Mulder's consciousness, but he neither moved nor reacted as the elongated rectangle of light from the hall poured a shadow briefly across the floor, followed by soft footsteps that stopped at the door of the darkened living room.

Not now. Christ, after all these months, not now...

For a long while the only sound was the hum and burble of the fishtank pump, until the ringing of the phone, the intercession of the answering machine. "Mulder?" Even through the tiny speaker, Scully's voice was vivid with concern. "Mulder, pick up..." A sigh; anxious, irritated. "If you check your messages, call me. Please. Or at least don't do anything stupid without telling me first, okay?"

"You should have answered that." A step forward.

"She's called once before, she'll call again." Hoarse, apathetic.

"Really? I'd have been willing to bet she'd be going for her car keys, as we speak."

"I don't think I'm the one who has to worry about that."

"Mm. Good advice, though."

"Doesn't matter. I've already done something stupid."

"Oh?" Another step. "And that would be...?"

"You're not dead yet, are you?"

Alex smiled into the dark. "Neither are you. Might not have been me, you know -- now that was stupid."

"I really don't feel like playing this right now. " Mulder's voice grated with weariness. "What do you want, Alex?"

"World peace. The cure. A pony. What the hell do you think? I came to see if you were all right. Maybe have a drink, or..."

A sharp, humourless laugh. "Not to gloat, of course."

"No." Almost inaudible, and Mulder finally looked up at the sound of it, startled to see that Alex was standing at the other end of the couch now. In a tuxedo. Holding a bottle of wine in his dead left hand. In the otherworldly gloom created by the shifting glow of the aquarium and the faint streetlight seeping in through the closed drapes, he seemed the perfect finishing touch to the surreal quality of the whole evening. And breathtaking.

I do not need this...

Mulder raised his eyes to Krycek's shadowed face, quickly looked away. Just a trick of the light, it had to be, but he couldn't take the mix of emotions he thought he saw there. Didn't have the interest or the energy to try to determine which, if any, were genuine. "And you didn't know anything about it, right? That's why you're here before the embers are cold."

With deliberate slowness, Alex sat on the arm of the couch, setting the bottle down on the coffee table with surprising grace. Mulder still looked like shit even in the dimness, and his wilted clothes still reeked of smoke and sweat. Careful... "No, I didn't. Not until less than an hour ago." A pause, and when he resumed his voice seemed strained, remote. "We...I was at a reception full of witnesses, actually. French Embassy. Got a call." He shrugged, the rest seemingly self-evident.

Mulder's head was pounding and his mouth felt filled with ashes. It was the night for them. His stomach twisted, and he wanted to leap across the few feet between them and choke the life out of the man for helping Them bring things to this. For being here like this. Choke him, beat him bloody, and then... But he was just too tired, and it didn't matter anymore. "Really. I hope you have a no-refunds policy, then."

Alex tensed, eyes narrowing dangerously, then with a quick shake of his head let it vanish. Back in the days when he'd given a shit about anything -- a lifetime ago, last week -- Mulder had always wondered at the seamless way Alex's masks slipped into place, envied it more than a little. Volatile, passionate, impassive, ice... Now, though, he just leaned back and closed his eyes.

He kept them closed, even as he felt Alex move to sit beside him. Felt his solid warmth and the soft brush of fine-spun wool against his arm. Sandalwood and something else mingled with the man's familiar scent, troubling his senses and calling up an unexpected memory. Oxford, beautiful boys in bespoke suits and private-blend Penhaligon...

Mulder could feel the younger man watching him intently, yet Alex made no move to touch him, and they merely sat together for a few long minutes. "I am sorry, " Alex murmured after a while. Low, sandpaper whisper that had offered him secrets, wild obscenities, easy lies...but never before even the pretence of regret.

"Was it him?"

"I don't know."

"Was it?"

"Probably. I'm having it looked into."

"Why?"

"Why am I looking, or why do I think he did it?"

"Both."

"Because it was stupid, unnecessary overkill." A long breath. Considering. "If he hurt you just to send us a message..."

"Us?" No answer. Mulder hadn't expected one. Wasn't sure he wanted one.

"Out of things too long, though -- made his move too late."

"Seemed pretty fucking timely to me."

Alex smiled to himself at the flash of bitterness. Anger was life. "You don't need them anymore." Quiet rustle, shifting. "That's...I wanted to..." He shook his head, vagrant light glinting from the diamond stud in his ear. "You can see that, can't you?"

Mulder sat up, stared. "What the hell are you talking about? My life was -- "

"Right. Your life." Eyes black in the dimness, searching Mulder's face. "Sometimes it all has to go, Mulder. It's all got to go so you can see it was only getting in your way, holding you back." Warm living hand on Mulder's knee, emphasis rather than overture.

"So now what?"

"So now it's time for the next life. The one that son of a bitch doesn't realise he's freed you up for."

"Without proof -- "

"It was never about proof! Look, as long as you were chained to those files, convinced you were powerless without them, then you were. As long as you somehow thought that some poltergeist in West Bumfuck was going to tell you the secret to life, the universe and everything, they could sell off the whole fucking planet without interference... Now the files are gone, that lifetime's gone. But you're not, Mulder, and neither is what you know. And that's what's going to bring them down. Put that fucker down for good. There's still time." A light squeeze to Mulder's knee before the hand was withdrawn. "Sometimes it all has to go," he repeated, as if to himself.

"Speaking from experience?"

"You oughta know." A speculative sidelong look. "Things change."

"And people?"

"People don't change, they...emerge. Sometimes it's enough."

Mulder snorted grimly. "Not quite." Amazed at how choked his own voice sounded. Time for the next life...and where will you be, Alex ...? He tried to clear his smoke-roughened throat. "Okay. What else? I know you didn't come here just to hold my hand."

"Maybe I did."

"Maybe?"

Challenging , inviting. More signs of life. About to speak when the phone rang again, Alex looked up in a challenge of his own to Mulder's sudden hesitation, the sense of his sliding back into a black weariness of the world outside that room.

A beep, unnaturally loud in the air between them. "Mulder? It's me again. Pick up..."

"Answer it. Talk to her."

"And tell her what?" But he stood and reached for the handset, even as the alternately blistering and sympathetic message came through the machine. "Yeah...yeah, Scully, it's me. I -- "

Sounds of movement, life and death of arms firmly around his waist...startlingly gentle, undemanding kisses up the side of his neck...the whisper in his ear. "You tell her you're alive and you're going to stay that way. And that you'll talk to her tomorrow."

"Mulder, are you there?"

"Um -- yeah. I'm still here." He leaned back into the embrace and allowed himself a faint smile. "I'm still here."

End

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