DISTRIBUTION: Do not archive at Gossamer. Elsewhere by permission. Email forwarding is OK.

SPOILERS: Up to and including "Two Fathers" (season 6).

RATING: R for M/M stuff.

SUMMARY: Spender/Krycek slash. Missing scene from "Two Fathers."

NOTE: I'm not sure it was a good idea for me to read five other stories about this scene and *then* write my own, but I've tried hard not to be derivative. I hadn't planned to write about this at all, but "Come, said the Muse" and I came, the better to get back to other WIPs.

DISCLAIMER: Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox own the X-Files, not me.

February 1999

Thanks to Laura for linguistic assistance.

For all the Ratgirls and Ratboys. I almost understand.


BEYOND THE PALE
by Halrloprillalar
<prillalar@geocities.com>

He's standing on the curb like a nervous rentboy when I pull up. The old man gets out to talk to him. I can see him in the rearview and through the curling smoke, his face is pale.

When the pick hisses out, he starts. I could take a lot of money from that boy at the poker table. I wouldn't even have to cheat.

The old man tucks him in the back seat and shuts the door on him. The pick still fascinates him. I half expect him to touch it, prick his finger, fall asleep for a hundred years.

It gets easier, I want to say. It gets better, much better. "Watch where you point that," I tell him and he sees me for the first time.

I drive away, taking Jeffrey Spender to make a man of him.

We don't speak as we travel, but I can feel him composing himself. The blade hisses back into the base, his jaw sets, his eyes close. Don't want to be a failure at the family business. Smoking Bastard & Son, Conspirators and Assassins.

At least when I sell myself, I do it for money.

I take the long route, just for fun. Tension fills the car -- a tease, a taste. It's drifting in the stale, smoky air, rising in the fine hairs at the back of my neck.

At last we arrive. I stop the car and don't look at him until he's out and climbing the lawn. All determination, no grace. You can do it, Jeffrey. _Udachi ty vih_.

As soon as he's in the door, I move, creeping around the back and readying my own weapon before I let myself in. I made my choice before we got here. Rebel though he is, this one has to die. They don't hear me, don't see me in the shadows. Spender stands, makes his clumsy move. He might as well have screamed, "I'm here to kill you."

Now? No, rub his nose in it or he won't learn. The man chokes him and Spender, struggling, tears away his face. Tears more than that away from himself. My old wounds ache in sympathy.

Now. Behind the alien. Snakelike, I pause for a fraction of a second, savouring the anticipation, then strike. I plunge the pick into the base of his skull and the power of that penetration is so sweet. The look on Spender's face is even sweeter.

When I kill a man -- or alien -- there's a moment when I'm drawing in his life, a moment when I know I'll live forever. I tried to explain that to a colleague once. All it got me was derision and the name "Lestat." But that rush of immortality is on me now and Jeffrey is pale -- chalk pale-- and shaking, while the green blood hisses out onto the floor.

Lestat. Maybe that's apt. Should I kill him? Turn him? Let him go? He's sucking air through his open mouth, staring horror-stricken at the bubbling body. It's the only spot of colour in the room. Do you want to live forever, Jeff?

Stepping over the mess, I close the distance between us. Put my hand over his carotid artery. He flinches away but I follow. His life beats against my fingers, fast and strong. I'm still immortal and now I'm horny as hell.

I kiss him, too hard. His mouth is still open and I catch him without any breath. I'm still pressing on the artery, exercising these small controls over his heart and lungs. Resist or serve, Jeffrey. Which will it be?

Suddenly, it's neither. His arms are tight around me and he's sucking down my tongue and at the nape of my neck I feel his fingers and a brush of cold metal. Oh God, he's still got the pick and maybe I'm not immortal after all. It strokes against me once and then I hear it thud onto the carpet. I'm tumescent with lust and fear and death. So is he.

Maybe Jeffrey's never killed a man before, but he's sure as hell fucked one. Our bodies slide together easily, leather and denim and cotton. His hands are inside my jacket, on my back, my sides, hesitating at the chill of my left arm, then down to cup and knead my ass. I'm pressing closer and our cocks rub hard against each other. We find a rhythm for our frantic bump and grind, no need, no time for anything more complex or demanding.

Now I put my mouth against his neck, opposite my hand, sucking at the pulse, biting at it. Maybe I should mark him, send him back to daddy with my red stain on him. Send him back to Mulder.

Mulder...it's been a long time since I had his body tight against my own but I can feel every difference, every variation. What if he were here with me? Would he be thrusting himself against me? Would he have thrust the pick into the alien's neck? Would he have thrust it into mine?

If my weapon weren't still stuck in that disintegrating body, I'd touch him with it now, touch Jeffrey with the point, press it to the base of his skull, see if fear of death would make him come.

The thought and heat and friction twist within me and I'm undone, warm and sticky and biting hard on yielding flesh. He's still not there, so I move my hand down and finish him, staring into his closed eyes as he shudders and gasps at the acrid air.

There's more than one reason assassins favour black.

I push him back into a chair and retrieve my pick from the ooze. He's still pale, still shaking, still trying to believe impossible things. And he's one damn good fuck.

Turn him. Treat yourself. You know just what to say...

F I N I S

This was my first real stab, you should pardon the expression, at Krycek. Did it work? Let me know at prillalar@geocities.com