Slip I- How Many Times... It’s so cold out, I can’t stand it. And it’s only November. Things are bound to get worse from here. I exit the cab, stretching my limbs after the long ride from the airport. I grab my one suitcase, and pay the cabbie. The case I just came home from was a real bitch. Dead bodies piling up everywhere, no sign as to how they were killed, and Scully bitching at me. And then it turns out it had a rational "scientific" explanation to it. And thusly, I once more proved my reputation to be true. I slug up the stairs to my building, surprised at how weary I am. I’m defiantly not a kid anymore. I’m getting older, and not making any progress in my work. I can’t keep chasing aliens and fending off conspiratorial plots to destroy the world. I’ll have to train someone to take my place soon, because I’m sure as heck not going to be investigating the paranormal from a wheelchair, and stopping every few minutes to take my pills. If I manage to live that long. I enter the elevator, and rest my head against it’s back wall as I patiently wait the familiar ride out. As I reach my floor, I step off, and dig in my pocket for me keys. I un-lock the door, and enter, slamming the door shut behind me. Suddenly, the hairs on my neck go up, and I can feel my adrenaline level rising. Something’s wrong, I can feel... "Hey Mulder." a voice called. "Jeeze Krycek! Are you trying to give me a heart-attack?" I question, relaxing slightly. The last time Krycek was here, he said he wouldn’t kill me, that I was too valuable to the resistance. Somehow, I don’t think he would have killed me anyway. We’ve known each other for too long, have been allies and enemies. In life, you need enemies. Not enemies like Cancer Man, but just ... someone to fight with, to spar with, to take your aggression out on. And that’s what Krycek was to me. A human punching bag. But maybe not even that anymore. After Tunguska, things felt different. I thought it was just me, but the last time he was here, with his talk of kidnapped rebels and the world ending... he gave me my beliefs back. Of all the people who could have broken into my apartment and told me that everything that had shaken my faith was an elaborate lie, it had to be him. Later, when Scully had come, I was pondering this, and I confused her with talk of inextricable relationships in life. Just as she had fallen into my life, Krycek had too fallen. And while Scully was a blessing in surprise, Krycek was... utterly indefinable. The man either helped me or hurt me. In some cases I still haven’t decided what. Tunguska had seemed a nightmare, and it had been him who left me to be experimented on. But quite recently, I realized that leaving me in the clutches of those mad scientists had allowed me to be vaccinated with the cure for the Black Cancer. My life had been protected in that artificial hive, and when that bee stung Scully. But whether he had intentionally left me so that I would receive the injection, or whether he left me to die remains to be seen. If he had left me so I would receive the vaccine, what does that mean? No one confuses me as he does. He has hurt me in the past; been involved with Scully’s abduction, killed my father (though I’m beginning to have doubts. Some of the evidence doesn’t coincide with him being the culprit). And he has (possibly) helped me; the vaccine in Tunguska, the information on the rebel, the reaffirmation of all I believed to be true. And he has popped up in my life, time and again, at the most incovienent of times, bringing me more questions than answers. And so we stand. Perhaps not on opposite sides, but on shaky ground nonetheless. A relationship so confusing, it hurts my head to think about it. And I still haven’t even *tried* to wrap my mind around that finale of his the last time I saw him. He kissed me, and I don’t even want to *think* about what that one meant. "What are you doing here Krycek?" I ask pointedly, too tired for our usual opening verbal play. He didn’t let it slide. "What? No rat bastard comments today? Mulder, I’m touched." Somehow, this snapped me out of my haze. He knows *exactly* how to press my buttons. I grab him by the front of his shirt, and pull him half way off the couch, where he had been sitting. "Listen here, I just got home from a case. I want to unpack and relax, because un-like *some* people, I have a *real* job, and I have to get up tomorrow. So, if you have information, give it to me and get out, before I beat the shit out of you!" I say, with more hate than I thought I could muster. He twists out of my grasp, and stands up, his face a mere two inches from mine. " I thought we were clear last time that we weren’t going to do this anymore." he says. "We’re not getting any younger, and this is just stupid. There’s a whole world out there to save Mulder, and a common enemy for us to fight. And it’d be a lot easier if we at *least* made an effort to stop bullying each other around. Cut the macho crap." That’s what pisses me off more than anything. How he seems to read my thoughts. How he cuts through all my bullshit and really gets to me. And this time is even worse, because he’s right. "Fine." I say. "Now, what do you want?" "That’s why I came here Mulder," he says, backing down and collapsing on the couch. "To call a truce." He suddenly looks very tired to me. Even more tired than I am. I look at him in the dim light streaming in from the street, and notice the circles under his eyes, and the weariness in his face. Suddenly, despite everything, I feel a little sorry for him. I try to dispel this feeling, but it keeps at me, nipping at my thoughts. Krycek does not look like a man who wants to be working for the consortium, and involving himself in world affairs. He looks like a man who has lived far longer than his years, a man who wants nothing more than to fall backwards and land somewhere safe, somewhere where he can rest. I tentatively sit on the other end of the couch, and say "Alright, truce." He looks at me, searching my face to make sure I’m not lying or teasing him. When he’s satisfied that I’m not, he exhales a long breath, leans over and puts his head in his hands, as though a large burden has been lifted from him. And maybe there has. Some of my tension leaves me, makes me feel safer, despite my company. I look over towards him, and he’s still holding his head in his hands. Something is unsettling though. I look at his leather clad hands, and realize what. I grab Krycek’s left hand, pulling the glove off of it. Underneath is flesh, not the plastic of his artificial arm that I had expected. "What the fuck is this!!!" I shout, grasping his hand tightly. He draws in a hiss of breath. "Stop it Mulder, it’s still sensitive!" "What do you *mean* it’s still sensitive! You’re not supposed to have an arm! You lost it in Tunguska!" "Seems you figured that out after I left." He says, bitterly. And it’s true. At the time, when he had made his comment about beating me with one hand, I thought he was just being smug, and I made a rude joke about it. Later, as I replayed the scene in my head, I had realized what that meant. The stiffness of the left side, how he never used that hand, and our trip to Tunguska... I finally put it together. Afterward I felt a little sick, realizing how close that had come to being *my* fate, and then I had felt guilty for joking about it. "I’m *sorry*! All right! I didn’t know!" I spit at him. " But that still doesn’t explain *this*!" I say, waving his hand by the wrist for emphasis. "It’s amazing what alien healers can do these days." He tells me, grabbing his hand away. "Alien healers... so your arm is..." I’m stunned. Bullet wounds, sure, but a whole new arm? I grab his left hand again, and pull up his sleeve, revealing more of his *new* arm. But that isn’t enough. I need to see the whole thing. I grab the sides of his leather jacket, and began pulling it off of him. "Mulder! What do you think you’re doing? Stop!" he says, and begins squirming. "Just shut up. I want to see it. I don’t know why you expected otherwise." After I say that, he stills a bit, but doesn’t move to help me. I pull the leather off, and then his other glove. When I pull his shirt off, he lifts his arms above his head in a helpful manner. And then he’s bare chested in front of me. He’s beginning to get goosebumps in the fairly chill apartment, and he looks at me angrily. I then realize the ridiculous nature of the situation, Krycek sitting half naked on my couch so that I can examine him. I hide a smile as I lean in to look at his arm. Just below his shoulder is a thin line of what appears to be scar tissue encircling his arm. Below that line, his skin changes quite drastically, becoming milky colored and smooth. Like baby skin. I reach down to touch the new skin, to see if it feels baby soft as well. I draw my finger lightly up Krycek’s forearm. As I do this, he becomes stiff, then jerks away, yelling "Stop!!!" in a painful voice. He then wedges himself in the opposite corner of couch, drawing up around himself. This startles me. I can see his bare back shaking with sobs. I’m not used to Krycek being so... human. I reach over and put my hand on the middle of his back, saying softly, "It’s all right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry." He abruptly turns around, and shouts, "What do you know Mulder! What do you know? It’s not alright! This is *not* my arm. My real arm is gone! This thing hanging from my side, I don’t know what it is! I just want my real arm back!" After this outburst of emotion, he begins sobbing again. It’s hard, too hard. A man sitting in front of me, a man I’m supposed to hate, a man I thought incapable of emotion is sobbing in front of me, and I feel bad. So I reach over, and take him in my arms. He is stiff at first, in surprise, and frankly, I’m surprised at myself too. But, somehow, this just *feels* right, just as I *know* it’s wrong. Krycek is my best enemy, and him finding comfort in my arms, however odd it may seem, seems like something that was destined to happen. Of all of my enemies, he was the most likely to turn into my friend. Fighting with each other all these years has brought us close, and all we needed was common ground to change our relationship. And now we’ve found it. I can tell he feels slightly odd where he is, like a person not used to being hugged. And combined with the fact that it’s *me* hugging him, it must be downright weird for him. But somewhere within him, I can tell that he knew we’d end up like this too. It was either this, or one of us killing the other. This doesn’t seem too bad. I sit with him, rubbing his back until his cold skin begins to warm under my hands, and, heaven help me, kissing the top of his head lightly, trying to soothe the lingering bits of anger and sadness and confusion and panic out of him. I can hear him sigh, so lightly it’s barely inaudible. And then I feel his body relax, and I know he’s asleep. Shit. What am I supposed to do with a sleeping Krycek on my lap? I think for a moment, and then resign myself to my fate. This is my fault anyway. I gently lower both our bodies until we’re lying on the couch, Krycek still in my arms. I can feel myself begin to drift off against my will, exhaustion finally overtaking me. I feel strangely comforted by Krycek’s weight as he lies half over me. I realize he’s still shirtless, and I manage to pull a blanket over us without disturbing him. As I loose conscienceness, I realize my arms are still wrapped around him, but I’m too tired and comfortable to care. The End ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Slip II- Blurry Eyed In my life, I’ve learned to wake up quickly, to adjust to my situation in seconds. It was either that, or death. But this morning I floated gently out of sleep. And now, I’m fully awake, wondering what the fuck happened last night that I ended up here. I came here, to Mulder’s apartment, to talk to him. I felt that after my last visit, we were on better terms, so I didn’t bother with the holding him at gunpoint business. I simply sat on the same couch I’m now lying on now, and waited. I honestly expected more of a fight when I came here, more resistance when I asked him for a truce. But he came in, his weariness playing on every line of his body, and actually agreed with me. Who knew? And while I expected a fight, him... and the arm.... that was something I didn’t count on. My new arm. I’m still not used to calling it that, and the whole thought of it still shakes me up. I’ve been forced back into the consortium (why they trust me, I don’t know), and one of the benefits they’ve offered me (besides information to use against them) is the chance for my biggest outer wound to be healed. I was enthusiastic at the opportunity to have a real, one hundred percent functioning arm back. So enthusiastic I never contemplated the psychological effects it would have on me. I...when I lost my arm, I bounced back quickly, I had to. I didn’t take the time to dwell on it, I pushed my loss down within me, beyond my reach. But in getting this new arm, those feelings have been brought up to the surface, along with some new ones. Some doubts about what is hanging from my left shoulder. I never expected to let my walls down in front of Mulder. Never. My feelings for Mulder have always been...confusing... and while I’ve always wished that he’s stop kicking the crap out of me for two seconds and listen to what I have to say, I never thought that it would actually happen. I have to watch myself around Mulder. I can’t let my personal feelings of endearment towards him affect me. He’s a dangerous man, and his irrational thoughts about what crimes I may have committed in the past have caused him to try and kill me when ever he sees me. Except last night. Last night, he touched me where I never want to be touched. And when I cried out, *he actually tried to comfort me*. And what did I do? I yelled at him. I told him things that I’ve never told anyone before. I let go of everything, broke down and cried for the first time since I was a child. And he took me up in his arms and held me while I cried. He *held me*. And all the feelings I’ve had about Mulder that I’ve tried to deny, everything I tried to hide from him, it was there. And I never thought he could care for me, the one man I knew to be true and honorable, and the one man I could trust. The one man who possibly hated me more than anyone else. And now he doesn’t. He rubbed my back and kissed my head, till I fell asleep in his arms. *In his arms*. And then he laid *us* down together, on this couch, and wrapped *us* in a blanket. And he fell asleep, cradling me in his arms. Now I’m sitting here, with his head resting on top of mine, and sometimes his stubble brushes against my forehead. He’s warm and he smells good, even after all the traveling he’s done. I know I should leave. Before he wakes up and realizes what he’s done, and then this lovely dream will be ruined. I try and move, and when I do, he makes a small noise in his sleep, and his arms grow tighter around me. He doesn’t hate me anymore. Where does that leave us? Here I suppose. I can live with that, even if it only last a few more moments. The End