3/15/99
Suffered
Author- Araxdelan (krycekluvsmulder@hotmail.com)
Rating- PG
Disclaimer- If anyone sees CC headed this way, yell real loud, so I know to 
hide. Or run.
Summary- Nobody knows Alex Krycek




[:::::::::]
 Suffered
[:::::::::]



	If I was walking down the street, people couldn't tell a thing about 
me. If people met me, they still wouldn't know. I can play at being the
innocent fairly well; the only tell-tale signs that slip are the weariness 
around the eyes, and the stiffness of emotion. Only those who know my job can
hazard a guess at what I'm like in the inside, and they're usually wrong. 

	But they think they know. "He's had such a hard life," they think, 
"He's seen so many things, done so many things. He must be icy stone on the 
inside. His emotions withered away."

	A simple solution to a complicated problem. What most people don't 
realize is that Occam's Razor doesn't apply to psychology. Quite the 
opposite. There are no simple solutions when it comes to human reality. And 
yes, my emotions might be a little rusty with dis-use, and yes, some of them 
have died completely, but that doesn't mean you know all there is to know 
about Alex Krycek. When you see a piece of a puzzle, you can surely guess at 
the sum of the whole. Doesn't mean your guess is right.

	So while people might wildly speculate at what goes on in my head, 
they can never be totally right. They might get bits and pieces here and 
there- he's strong, self-reliant, cold- but they can never *understand* what 
any of that means.

	How could you even define strong? How can you explain a quality, 
something that has no pure substance, and no permanent form?  What is it 
about me that is strong? I may posses the trait in question, but I myself am 
at a loss to bring it into understanding. 

	I suppose that the closest I could come to explaining strength, in my
case, is a driving force of will. When I am tired,  injured, I force myself 
up, on. Physical needs be damned, I have someplace to be, something to do! 
But that only explains half the story, doesn't it?

	What happens when the world crushes me? How do I get back up then? 
When there are no breeches of flesh to account for my wounds? People are 
especially fond of calling survivors of these such pains strong. And this is
precisely the kind of strength they don't understand. Despite numerous 
mis-guided minds assigning me this quality, I do not have it.

	Sure, I've walked away from serious traumas, sure I've murdered 
without blinking an eye (why I'm called cold, I suppose), but I have never 
truly mastered rising above petty mental pains. If I have, I wouldn't succumb
so easily to temptation. If I was *truly* strong, I would not think of him 
at all. When I'm in the middle of a serious fuck-up, when I'm in pain, or, 
worst of all, when I'm in bed at night, and the cold seeps in, and the 
darkness finally becomes too strong.

	No human can be strong- we all have our weaknesses. And we weren't 
meant to hide in the shadows. Everything is obscured there, and there are 
mis-conceptions abound. And if you stay too long in the darkness, when 
attempting to emerge, the light will blind you. And after that, there's 
nothing to do but slink back and let the dark envelop you, leaving nothing 
but pure black.

	I hope that I have not been here too long. I know now, rather 
belatedly, that no one can live here, that eventually all who try wind up 
dead. So I gradually advance forward to the luminescence of a truthful sun, 
wise to the fact that too quick a jump will send me running back a final 
time. 

	But still... my strength wanes, and patience is in short supply. 
Scummy hotel rooms and dirty sheets always bring him to mind, and I have to 
clutch myself, shaking with need, to keep from throwing myself at his feet, 
and letting him have his way with me, mattering not if his way means my 
death. *That's* what they don't know... that such weakness flows through my 
veins. Exists with every breath I take, every beat of my heart. And since 
weakness is the opposite of strength, I can never be called strong as long 
as the disease named Mulder and the unyielding need for freedom course 
through me, can I?

	So on those blustery nights when I prove everyone's bland perceptions
of my psyche wrong, on those nights when my mouth chants but one name, and 
my mind holds but one thought, I forcibly pull myself back. It's only the 
fact that I haven't run to him yet that forces me to admit that I must have 
*some* strength within me. But so many close calls, so many nights of 
suffering over staying away from him even though I never doubt that it's for 
the best... they show who I truly am, the part of me no ones knows, would 
even think to look for. Appearances can be deceiving.

	So while everyone ventures in the wrong direction in their quest to 
understand me, I will keep this part of me secret, keep edging out of the 
darkness, and towards him. And no matter how hard it is, how many times I 
have to tear myself up inside just to keep away, I will edge *slowly*. And, 
in the end, when I can finally stand out in the bright of day, Mulder in my 
arms, perhaps *then* I will be strong.  I just have to remember that staring 
directly at the sun isn't wise.



[:::::]
  The
  End
[:::::]