Title: Circled Around Your Heart

Pairing: Mulder/Krycek

Rating: PG

Summary: Love, love, love.

Warnings: Implied m/m love, takes off as an AU from S8

Author's Notes: Sequel to Two Triangles Crossing. The second instalment of the Geometry series. Krycek’s POV.

Disclaimer: CC lost his rights to Alex Krycek when he killed the Ratboy. Mulder belongs to CC, 1013 and FOX, but mostly to Krycek.

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“I want you to find out where they took my son,” Mulder said to me, and I finally knew this was it.

Not exactly a pledge of eternal love Shakespeare would have approved of, but then again, we were two bleeding Romeos caught in a tragedy so fucked up the poor poet didn’t even dream of writing. The gold and maroon of the oak leaves rivalled that of the sunset. The air was crisp and saturated with hope. He reached out for my hand and tugged it under his coat. My chilly fingers bundled his shirt, grateful for the warmth, even more so when his hand covered my own. We had come to a full circle.

“Let me be what you can’t be,” had been my vow of devotion when he was back home and lucid enough after his coma. “We don’t have much time left before the end, but there are still ways to fight them. You can’t do it alone. As much as you might hate it, you will need me to be there to pull the trigger when your conscience freezes you, you will need me to be ruthless when you’d be compassionate. They tossed you out when you weren’t useful anymore. Now that you’re back, they will hunt you down like an animal. Let me teach you how to run and hide.” Let me keep you alive.

“Why? Why, A-Alex?” You are the reason I am alive. He leaned on the wall, hair tousled and eyes wild, the tiny scars discernible even in the half-light. It broke my heart to see him like that, his innocence stripped and sense of wonder shattered. No words existed that could have put him back together, so I dropped down, unzipped his jeans and took him in my mouth. After he came and I swallowed, his knees gave under, and he slid down on my lap in a tight ball. You know you will belong to me now, don’t you? Do I have anything else left?

Scully’s disgust and horror crashed out of her in waves so strong I could taste them like bile on the back of my throat, when Reyes and I drove her down to Georgia. Alexander Krycek –one-armed hitman, survivalist, all-around schemer, Spooky fanboy, and midwife. I don’t know which one she resented more: me actually being there with her at the single most important moment of her life, or the fact that Mulder had wanted me to. Always been such an easy target for taking out frustrated anger, and if she hadn’t had her new partner caring for her, I think she would have shot me point blank one of those times I brought her a message from Mulder when he was hiding. But she had nothing to worry, not even after she gave their son for adoption. Mulder would be back to her, because he never stopped loving anyone. Even if you tore his heart and fed the shreds back to him drenched in vinegar, he would always want you, if he had ever carried the smallest smidgen of love for you.

No, I didn’t feel sorry for her, no matter what monsters she was facing with her baby. She had Mulder for so long, it was my turn now. He was in New Mexico with Gibson Praise for a couple of months, while I moved across the country like some absurd, modern-day Hermes, messenger of the gods. We both could feel it, the thrill and menace of the impending doom, yet I don’t think I had ever felt so centered or serene, as if swinging low on a calm sea. He looked illicitly fragile as I studied his shadow-shaped supple form, asleep on the bed, but I knew it was just an illusion. They would never beat him –never–, not as long as there was one breath left in my body, and I doubted even death could keep me away from him or him from fighting against them. Sometimes, I couldn’t bear awaking him and gazing at those eyes that always found me like two magnetic searchlights, but I always touched him, feather light, still burning. One night, I fastened a collar around his neck.

Mulder wants us to meet in a forest outside the city, under a lonely rugged oak. Only a couple of times, he has arrived alone. I amuse myself with the thought of telling Doggett the reason we come here instead of some abandoned warehouse at the docks and how Doggett’s jaw would dislodge if he saw the strip of soft leather under Mulder’s turtleneck. I always leave our encounters grinning like a fool, but when we meet, I barely remember he is tagging along with Mulder. The man must suspect something though. You don’t spend years as an agent half-blind and without an alert sixth sense.

Every time I see Mulder standing there, wearing a leather jacket and jeans, all bent-up energy gingerly reined under an impenetrable exterior, it is like a revelation. We have balanced like yang and yin, and just like the two forces we have blended. I hand out the file with William’s medical records to Mulder and turn to leave, but he doesn’t let me go. This is what a lightning rod feels, struck by high-voltage Mulder. For a moment, he is completely open, and his emotions floating towards me are excruciatingly beautiful. I can almost picture them as hungry tendrils seeking out to embrace me. He shivers slightly, and I want to pull him closer than my skin.

Oh yeah, special agent John Doggett, kiss us and tell Scully. Mulder is mine too.