Lost 2- part 2 Author's Notes: This hasn't been beta'd - my reader is missing, and I haven't found a replacement, so all mistakes are my fault. I've changed the timeline - takes place not long after Tunguska/Terma. Feedback is drooled over, and greatly appreciated. Flames will be used to heat my home. Spoilers: All Krycek eps through Tunguska/Terma. Disclaimer: Fear of lawsuits forces me to admit that all things X-Files belong to Chris Carter, FOX, and 1013 Productions. Except Krycek, who belongs to himself, and Mulder, who belongs to Krycek. Summary: M/K slash, rated R - lots of angst. Krycek returns with some information that could prove more helpful than anyone realizes. Lost 2: Though The Brightest Fell by Broken Angel "And I will never leave you, until we can say this world was just a dream - we were sleeping - now we are awake..." -Live, "Run to the Water" "Oh, no - not me - we never lost control. You're face to face with the man who sold the world." -David Bowie, "Man Who Sold the World" It's surprising how gentle Scully can be, particularly when I'm the one she's being gentle *to.* After all, I did help Cardinale kill her sister - even if I didn't mean to - and I *was*partially responsible for her abduction. I suppose that she considers herself a doctor first and foremost, and hatred comes secondary to her Hippocratic Oath. Mulder is still glaring at me, and I want to tell him that if he keeps making that face it's going to stick that way. But I think he'd probably hit me. I settle for raising an eyebrow at him instead - he *hates* that - and for following the eyebrow with a particularly annoying grin. His frown deepens, and for a second, I think that he's going to get up and hit me after all, but he remains seated on the bathroom floor. I can't deny that I'm glad about that - I'm really in no mood to be hit - not even by Mulder, whose violence I tolerate because it's the only way to be near him, to tell him what he needs to hear, and to drink in the intoxication his presence provides. My damned leg is still hurting. It turns out that the bullet grazed my calf, leaving a half-inch furrow in my leg - one more scar that I will wear until the end of my days. Scully finishes bandaging my leg, and looks at me. Her bright blue eyes are cool, but I think there might be just a hint of concern lurking in their depths. Probably just traces of gratitude left over from my rescue of Mulder. "Are you all right Krycek?" she asks. Her words surprise me. Before I get a chance to answer her, Mulder interrupts. "He's fine, Scully. I don't think the wound was that deep." Ignoring him, I answer Scully. "I'm fine." I shrug. "I've been worse." Those sapphirine eyes flicker towards what used to be my left arm. She has more tact than Mulder, though, and doesn't mention my glaring disability. "So, why did you show up tonight, Krycek? Don't tell me you knew about the hit and wanted to save my life - I won't believe you." "You won't believe anything I say, Mulder, so I'll stick to what I can prove. I came to give you information. I didn't know about the hit - my appearance was a coincidence - I just happened to have some free time on my hands tonight, and some information I needed to give you as soon as possible." "Then give me the information so that we can get the hell out of here." He won't be safe if he leaves, with or without my information, and neither will she. I don't have much of a conscience left, but the shards of human decency his presence forces into me refuse to let me endanger them further. The only thing I can do is to keep them here until we - the three of us - can act on what I know. I hadn't wanted to involve either Scully or myself, but circumstances have dictated otherwise - damn them. "If I tell you now, you'll take off, and you aren't going anywhere tonight - it's not safe." To emphasize my words, I gesture slightly with my gun. Neither of them are happy with the situation, but they really haven't got much of a choice. Even though I let Mulder throw me around whenever he feels like it, I *am* a trained killer, every synapse in my body programmed to react as efficiently and as fatally as possible. I set Scully up in the bedroom. The surprise in her face when she sees the shower and full-length tub is almost worth the irritation of having her here, in what I consider my sanctum. I give Mulder the couch - he's used to it, after all - and ignore the look he shoots my way. I guess he's going to pretend that we never touched. He can pretend all he wants - *I'm* going to remember it for the rest of my life. While the two of them settle down for the night, I grab a spare blanket and pillow. With a final warning not to try anything in the middle of the night, I wrap myself in the blanket and rest my head on the pillow. Memories flood my thoughts, memories of the soft tone of his voice as he spoke, of the feel of his mouth when he leaned in, so gently, so--- no, Aleksandr. That way lies madness. Closing my eyes, I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood, and the metallic tang in my mouth is almost strong enough to banish the taste of him. I should never have been so stupid as to let him get so close to me - to get under my skin, like a virus, a rash that will never heal. "Never let anyone get close enough to steal your wallet," although cliched, is still one of the best pieces of advice I've heard. Of course I was too stupid to pay attention. It's the eyes - those terribly intense hazel eyes that broke through the defenses that my childhood carefully beat into me, the eyes that pick out, unfailingly, the lingering humanities of a soul steeped in blood. The temptation of swallowing a bullet right now is viciously tempting. I don't know what's happening to me. It used to be a simple matter to shake off the loneliness - I used to take pride in being able to rely only on myself. But the desire to trust someone is weighing me down, pulling at my soul with the combined weight of all my sins. But trust is a dream of innocents - and I am no longer innocent. I don't think I ever was. ~~The fire burns a dull red, and I can see its reflection in their eyes as they silently close in around me, moving infinitely slowly, but with a singleness of purpose that terrifies me. I try to get up, to escape, but something has frozen my limbs in place, and I can not move. I can barely breathe. One of them is bringing his hand up, and I can see the white-hot heat of the blade, can feel it as it moves slowly, closer and closer to my flesh. My skin begins to blister, and I can smell myself burning as the knife hisses against my arm. The pain sweeps through my arm in waves, intense and ragged, and I can feel the nerve endings in my hand begin to sever, can feel the sharp, stinging agony as my synapses communicate the last sensations that my left hand will ever know, the touch of dirt and pine needles in the frost-cold ground as my fingers cling to the Russian earth in their death agonies. I feel the knife slicing through tendons and muscles, each layer of my anatomy a different type of pain, twisting into a hard knot in my stomach as I thrash against the dozens of un-matched hands holding me down. I can hear the harsh, grating sound of the blade sliding along and *through* the bone of my arm. The noise of superheated steel on bone is worse than anything one can imagine, and the smell of burning flesh - *my* flesh - clings to the inside of my nostrils and to the back of my throat and I'm gagging on the smell of my own incinerating skin. A scream rips itself from the depths of my soul, tearing its way past years of self-restraint. And they are gone, vanished like so many wraiths into the night, leaving me there alone and bleeding, *dying* like I never have before, far worse than the smooth, cool, sanitary death of the silo, all darkness and emptiness, my voice echoing around and around the walls, reverberating itself into madness while the *thing* within me pours out of my nose and eyeballs and my pores, twisting my conciousness while the darkness and the thirst and the violent, aching hunger burn through me, and I scream, and scream, and scream...~~ I jerk upright, the hoarse noise from my throat that I barely recognize as human still ringing in my eardrums. My gun is in my hand - how did it get there? - and my breath is coming in ragged gasps, tearing at my throat. I can taste oil in my mouth, smell the blistering of my skin, and the remnants of my arm burn with renewed pain, throbbing with the remembered heat of a fiery blade on a frozen Russian night. Nausea wells up within me, bile rushing to the back of my throat, and I am up and moving before I can think, towards the bathroom, towards solace, and the pure white oval of porcelain that will wash away the acidic traces of nightmare. I haven't eaten anything in the last 24 hours, so it is pure acid that I choke on, fiery traces of sins etching their burning path along my throat, while behind me, my body wracks itself in convulsive heaves, muscles tensed and spasming, my hand clasping the sink the only thing holding me up, a white-knuckled link to reality, preventing my soul from following the acid burn of bile down into swirling oblivion. He comes up behind me, unusually silent, and he is the very last person I want to see me like this, weakened and shaking, doubled ingloriously over the toilet while everything I haven't eaten comes back up in nightmare-induced sickness. I straighten and turn, determined to meet him standing. And he's doing it again - looking at me with that dreadful gentleness in his eyes. I don't understand him. Less than two hours ago, he was sniping at me, making cruelly stinging comments - and now, there's such a strange mixture of concern and bewilderment in his face that makes my vision go blurry. "I don't know why I feel like this," he says, so softly as to be barely audible, "I don't understand it. You killed my father - you helped them take Scully - but I don't hate you for it anymore. Maybe it's because I trusted you, once, a long time ago, maybe it's because you saved my life tonight, but I can't hate you anymore - not after what they took from you. Maybe it makes up for it somehow, maybe it's a type of atonement - I don't know." I'm left reeling under the quiet assault of his words, dizzy from the tacit forgiveness I have craved for so long, and I open my mouth to speak, but he continues to talk, rationalizing the death of his hatred for me, and all I can do is listen. "It's six in the morning, and I haven't slept at all. I've been trying to convince myself to hate you again, that you're traitorous scum, but it doesn't seem to matter anymore. I don't know your motives, and I can't judge them until I do. But for now, you seem to be helping me, and I don't know why I should accept your help - after all, your last plan didn't work so well - but I know I will, and I know I can convince Scully as well. Why I'm going to do it, I don't know - but I will." He falls silent, and is about to turn and walk off, when some impulse makes him turn around again. He reaches one hand out, and traces one finger along the thin white scar on my cheekbone. It is a gesture that I don't quite understand - but it seems to fufill something within him, and he retreats to the shadows beyond the antiseptic light of the bathroom, leaving me alone and burning with the memory of his touch. ~End of Lost 2: Though The Brightest Fell~