by brawlite
Fandom: The X-Files
Pairing: Alex Krycek/Fox Mulder, implied Cigarette Smoking Man/Alex Krycek
Rating: Explicit
Wordcount: 3,142
Description: Krycek has done so many worse things than play buoy for a drowning man.
Tags: alternate universe – canon divergence, dubious consent, consent issues, past rape/non-con, double agents, overstimulation, restraints, sex as coercion, unreliable narrator, motel sex, fbi-era, feelings don’t exist when you’re a double agent, references to forced sexual relations between krycek and the smoker, as well as other members of the syndicate, mulder isn’t at his best but he’s also not at his worst, krycek just didn’t do all the right math, the dove isn’t dead but it’s also not doing so hot either, ambiguous/open ending, under-negotiated kink
Published: 2024-02-11
It’s easy, in the end.
Krycek knows the figure he paints in the motel room doorway: long and tall and slender, resting against the peeling paint of an old door frame and backlit by the tangerine glow of the sodium lamps of the parking lot. His clothes are a wrinkled mess and his face is cracked wide open. He looks lost, he looks despondent. He looks like a mystery, an unknown.
The trajectory of it is careful, calculating, but not difficult at all.
The truth of it is this: lonely men are easy marks.
And lonely men who stand at the precipice of despair, grasping onto the phantom threads of conspiracy and treason for hope, for the solid foundation of belief, are even easier.
The hotel room door hadn’t even been locked.
Mulder had been practically begging for someone to come in.
Agent Dana Scully has been gone for too long now. Krycek knows the same statistics that Mulder knows: the more days that pass, the less likely it is that she’ll return. Of course Krycek knows more than just the basic calculations, even kept in the dark as he is, but Mulder is not without his own base of knowledge, too; he knows that this could never be so simple an equation, that nothing about his life anymore could be reduced to such simplicity. Nothing about this adds up cleanly.
Agent Dana Scully is not a statistic — but she might as well be. It doesn’t bode well for her future, much less her present.
Without her and in search of her, Fox Mulder is lost, unbalanced. And every day he gets worse. He is spiraling without rudder, circling the drain of his own tumultuous guilt and despair. He is in desperate need of something to hold onto.
“Mulder,” is all Krycek has to say from the doorway, carefully and cautiously closing the door behind him like maybe he’s a little bit embarrassed, a little bit ashamed. A little bit desperate, all frenetic energy caught underneath smooth, taut skin.
The picture is an easy one. After all, what else would Alex Krycek be after his first few cases but this? And it’s exactly what Mulder wants to see: his green and inexperienced partner floundering just the same as he is, a mirror-image that’s far easier to look at. And to judge, if he so chooses.
Of course, Krycek shouldn’t be here. He should be a good agent, a good partner, all settled down in his own motel room for the night. Instead, he’s here. Empty handed and wide eyed and leaning up against the thin door of Mulder’s motel room, making himself his senior agent’s problem.
“Agent Krycek,” Mulder says. The name sounds full, loaded, like there is more that he wants to say, though he does not continue.
Mulder’s gaze is dark and Krycek can practically feel its caress as it passes over his body, appraising. Calculating. It’s far from the worst phantom touch Krycek’s ever felt.
He knows what he looks like: his wrinkled shirt half-unbuttoned and untucked, tie and jacket long gone. He already looks disheveled, tenderized. Before he came here, he bit his lips almost raw, digging teeth into supple skin so that they would stand out against his pale skin, even in the dark.
He looks like he’s already gone a few rounds with someone with rougher hands than Fox Mulder.
Krycek could say I’m lonely. He could say I’m scared. He could say, I’m lost, Mulder, help me. But Krycek is none of those things, and sometimes the easiest lie is not a lie at all.
“It’s Alex,” Krycek tells him, like he’s hopeful.
There’s a long beat where Krycek watches Mulder’s face. The line of his jaw, the cut of his cheekbones, the dark set of his tired eyes. His tongue darts out to wet over his lips in thought.
“Alex,” Mulder tries, and the name sounds almost unfamiliar in the easy, almost friendly way it rolls off Mulder’s tongue.
No one calls him Alex nicely these days; it’s not a name built for kindness. Krycek can’t help the way it makes him bristle, like an animal’s fur being pet against the grain — but he pushes past it, swallows it down, and smiles like he’s pleased, like he’s won something by Mulder uttering something so simple as his name. Like he likes it.
For Mulder, Krycek knows, this is as promising a green light as anything. A consolation prize. And an acceptance of what Krycek came here offering.
Mulder’s lonely. And it seems like Krycek is, too.
But even with that piece of knowledge, Krycek knows that Mulder will not come to him — but that’s fine. Krycek has plenty of experience in putting one foot in front of the other and walking straight toward a ticking time bomb.
“You lose your room key, Alex?” Mulder asks, as Krycek begins advancing toward the bed.
“Something like that,” Krycek says.
Standing at the edge of the bed, Mulder almost looks soft in the way he’s leaned up against the headboard, sprawled out and relaxed after a long day. Krycek has never seen Mulder so soft or appear as touchable as this. Everything about him is always just a little rough, like sandpaper, like the texture of bark underneath his hand. Now, though — now, Mulder looks almost approachable in his evident fatigue, all those rough edges worn down, all those walls cracking and crumbling. This, somehow, is more startling than anything else.
Gain his trust, Alex, Krycek had been told.
An easy task, in the end.
All Mulder needs is something to hold onto. Krycek has done so many worse things than play buoy for a drowning man.
“Please,” Krycek says, as he climbs up and onto the bed, all long legs and errant limbs, as he straddles Mulder and looks down at him like he’s lost and Mulder is the north star.
“Please,” he says, as he leans down and brushes his lips tentatively, clumsily, against Mulder’s own. Mulder’s breath smells like toothpaste. And faintly, a little bit like vodka, too.
“Please,” Krycek whimpers, allowing himself to shiver as Mulder’s warm hands finally find his hips and grip hard enough to bruise.
Everything slots perfectly into place.
Under Mulder’s hands, Krycek’s body is warm and real. His form yields when touched, responding to every caress, every frenzied grab. But he remains solid, too, something easy for Mulder to hang onto, something real. For a man so lost and reeling, Krycek is a tangible reminder of the here and now. Even as he presses clumsy lips against Mulder’s throat, even as he moans out another stuttering plea, he offers Mulder a lifeline.
And when Mulder pushes at him, rolling them until he is the one shoving Krycek down against the mattress, Krycek goes easy against the hard and uncomfortable boxspring, yielding with his throat so perfectly bared.
Sometimes, a man just needs to be reminded of his own strength. Krycek can easily provide that, too.
“Mulder,” Krycek moans, breath hitched and eyes half closed, even as his heartbeat stays steady inside his chest.
The name earns him a pleased hum and a set of teeth against his throat.
Mulder is a heavy man, all height and muscle, but that kind of weight is familiar, an easy enough thing to surrender to. And Krycek knows these motions like the back of his hand.
So does Mulder, he learns. The man might spend most of his time watching pornography on his couch, but the play of two bodies — even two male bodies — is clearly familiar enough to him. He does not falter once, not even when he breaks away from the kiss to ask Krycek if he has a condom on him. Not having wanted to appear too hopeful or prepared, Krycek didn’t come here with one, but he knew Mulder would have one; he always does, even if he never ends up using it. It was the right choice, too, because Krycek’s answer makes Mulder huff out something amused about how Krycek’s lucky Mulder’s a hopeful guy. It just makes Krycek seem impulsive, fumbling, and a little bit desperate about his desire, too.
After Mulder peels off Krycek’s clothes and then his own, it’s all easy, rote. Just a checklist of motions to go through, something Krycek could do in his sleep. He sometimes thinks of it all like cleaning a gun. Dismantling it, cleaning off all of the pieces and parts, inventorying everything, and then putting it back together again. Clinical. Routine. A little messy, sure, but so is killing a man and that’s never made Krycek flinch, either.
When Mulder’s fist finds Krycek’s cock, when his long fingers wrap around his shaft and pull deftly, Krycek arches his back and opens his mouth in a choked off moan like it’s a surprise. It’s a performance he’s given a thousand times before; Krycek knows how to make his body look good, to make himself appealing to a man like Mulder, who just wants a little bit more control in life. It’s easy.
Krycek comes fast with a sob, spilling himself over Mulder’s fingers. He turns his head away, letting his cheeks go red and flushed, embarrassed. Mulder chuckles and wipes his hand on the motel sheets.
Mulder’s cock down his throat is familiar, too. Krycek knows how to make himself choke like this is new, like he’s too inexperienced and keen. Like he has something to make up for after coming so quickly. So eager to please. Mulder likes that, too.
“Mulder, please,” Krycek begs, voice rough from pulling off Mulder’s cock. He could keep going like this until Mulder comes — Krycek could make him come just as fast as he did, should he want to — but there’s more on the table here that Krycek wants to walk away with, more to win. Go big or go home, Krycek thinks. He never does anything halfway.
There’s spit on his lips. He knows because it catches Mulder’s dark gaze, because Mulder reaches forward to thumb some of it off before pulling away.
“Yeah? On your stomach, Alex,” Mulder says.
This, Krycek, knows too. The push, the stretch, the inevitable bite of pain. The rhythm of someone fucking him against a rough mattress until their own release. Even the press of Mulder’s lips to Krycek’s sweaty shoulder afterward is half-expected, too. Mulder’s not exactly a sentimental man, but the afterglow of fucking leaves everyone hollowed out in one way or another. And maybe Mulder just missed human connection; he seems to suffer from such a lack of it these days.
It’s all easy, so easy. Expected, by the book. Until Mulder shifts, rolling Krycek over underneath them so that they’re face to face, until he takes Krycek’s softening cock back into his hand, gives it a few strokes, and hums deep in his throat. Like a cat’s purr.
The sudden overstimulation is like a knife to the ribs in a back alley. Unexpected. Brutal. Underneath Mulder, Krycek is caged, trapped. And he could get up, could make Mulder let him up, of course — but that would jeopardize this all.
“Come on, Alex,” Mulder murmurs. “You’re a younger man than me. I know you can go again.”
Krycek finds himself shuddering.
Those lips are so sweet, so gentle as they brush against his temple. Teasing in their softness. Unaware of the sudden pounding of Krycek’s heart in the cage of his ribs.
The thing is, almost no one touches Krycek like this.
Between Krycek’s legs, Mulder teases his sensitive cock, dragging painful pleasure straight out of Krycek’s gut. But that’s not what’s making him feel split open, raw. It’s the way Mulder’s lips kiss at his hairline, the way he shifts and mouths down and over the column of Krycek’s throat like Krycek deserves this gentleness, this kind of soft touch.
It shouldn’t bother him, shouldn’t make him uneasy — it shouldn’t even be all that much of a surprise. But Krycek can’t help his weaknesses. He just thought he’d unearthed them all already.
He also can’t help the flare of anger in his gut. Krycek came here to get laid. To get Mulder laid. He came here to give Mulder a taste of the illusion of control. He certainly didn’t come here to be treated like a fragile lover and he didn’t come here for Mulder to try and crack him open in pleasure like it’s some kind of gift.
Krycek gave Mulder everything he wanted. Of course he’s asking for more.
Krycek gasps as Mulder’s thumb brushes over the head of his sensitive cock. He’s hard again now, thanks to Mulder’s attention, but it hurts, it aches, and he can’t help but jerk and jolt with the overstimulation. It’s so much, too much.
“You want me to stop, I’ll stop, Alex,” Mulder tells him, tone somewhere between teasing and serious.
Like a threat, his touch slows to a casual fondle.
It’s a challenge. And Krycek knows better than to roll over and actually bare his throat for the enemy. He keeps his lips shut and closes his eyes, and tries not to let the way Mulder says Alex drown him.
Mulder takes that as the permission it is, and continues. His touch is unrelenting as it strokes over Krycek’s length, fingers dry against Krycek’s sweaty skin. The uneasy friction only adds to the sensation, to the difficulty of it all. It makes the touch seem bigger, broader, more gut-wrenching than it could ever possibly be.
Krycek has experienced worse, of course. This is far from any kind of torture, which is what makes it all so absurd. Krycek hasn’t exactly built up a resistance to this kind of sensation, yet. Not many people care about Krycek’s pleasure first off, and even fewer would think to wring a second orgasm out of him, especially this way. There’s only one person who ever touches him like this, gently, only one person who calls him Alex while treating him like a poor facsimile of a lover — and the dissonance knocks Krycek completely for a loop.
He can practically smell the cigarette smoke hanging in the air.
It makes everything — more raw. More overwhelming. And the creeping realization is like getting his feet kicked out from underneath him.
Krycek can do nothing but yield. His body makes the decision for him, surrendering too easily to what Mulder wants from him. He doesn’t even have the capacity to put on an act right now, to give Mulder a show of what he wants to see — Krycek can only hope that reality lands somewhere in the right vicinity as he reacts in real time, gasping and groaning and shaking in Mulder’s hands.
“Good,” Mulder tells him, brushing his thumb over a drip of precome beading on the head of Krycek’s cock. Krycek jolts. Thrashes. Mulder holds him down.
“Just like that, Alex,” Mulder murmurs. Low and sweet and so totally in control.
Alex shudders. His stomach roils.
That doesn’t mean that his body doesn’t like it, though. There’s something sickening about the saccharine tone that strikes him deep like a chord, that makes his blood go hot even as he curls away from it like a punch to the gut. He hates it. He burns with it.
It’s as Krycek starts edge closer to a second orgasm, as his own pleasure climbs precipitously higher and higher, that he realizes he’s totally lost track of Mulder, of the plot. His own hands have found purchase on Mulder’s back, clawing against his skin. Krycek is panting, gasping, crying out, and Mulder is only calm and cool and collected, pressing his lips to Krycek’s skin. It’s too much, too raw, Krycek thinks — both the sensation and his own performance. There’s no way he can survive this and there’s no way Mulder will look at him the same way ever again.
Everything suddenly feels far too out of his control.
“Come on, come for me, Alex,” Mulder says.
And, just like that, as easy as it had been to stand in Mulder’s doorway at the beginning of the night, Krycek does. He cries out as his pleasure crests, his body surging upward only for Mulder to hold him down with his weight, with his lips. He strokes Krycek through it and past it, teasing him into the aftershocks until Krycek is whimpering, until he can feel tears stinging at the corners of his eyes.
Eventually, Mulder relents. He draws his hand back. Lifts his weight up.
Krycek’s lungs fill with stale, dingy motel room air.
“Fuck,” Krycek breathes out, only able to find his tongue after the pleasure has finally wained, ebbing like the tide.
He feels hollowed out. He feels stripped raw.
“There you go, Alex,” Mulder murmurs.
He brushes his lips against the hollow of Krycek’s throat and Krycek cannot stop himself from shuddering. Mulder chuckles.
“You’re so sensitive,” Mulder says. “Come on, you didn’t think I was going to let you walk away with just a quick handjob. Think of my reputation.”
Krycek makes himself laugh.
Unceremoniously, Mulder rolls off to the side, unpinning and freeing Krycek from his skeleton cage. The freedom should feel better, but the cool air of the hotel room only makes him shiver and feel far too small. Mulder had been so warm overtop of him, a veritable furnace.
The colors of the room feel washed out, worn, but maybe that’s just the light, the lack of it. Maybe it’s just Krycek’s heavy fatigue.
“You can stay,” Mulder tells him through a yawn. Krycek doesn’t have to be versed in reading people to hear the I’d like it if you did.
Krycek doesn’t wait until morning to twist himself out of sweaty sheets, to slip out from between them like a dirty secret. He waits until Mulder’s breathing has slowed down, until he thinks the man has likely fallen asleep — and until the itch under his skin has grown unignorable. Unfortunately, Mulder rouses slightly when Krycek gets up, bed jostling just so.
In the dim motel room, Mulder’s eyes look so bright. Another trick of the light, Krycek thinks.
Mulder’s hair is messy with bedhead. There are creases on his face from the pillow. He looks soft now, in a different way than he did before. He’s looking at Krycek fully now, pushing himself up in bed, eyes on Krycek’s face while Krycek’s breath catches in his throat.
Krycek wants to leave. He wants to fold himself back into bed next to the warmth of another body. He doesn’t fucking know what he wants at all.
“Alex, you alright?” Mulder asks.
Alex, like they’re friends. Alex, like they’re lovers.
Alex, like he’s got a cigarette between his lips, the smoke filling the cramped little room enough for Krycek to choke on it.
notes:
i know that krycek sleeping with mulder during his fbi-agent!era to gain his trust has been done many times before, but consider: two cakes. it’s too appealing an idea to not play with, especially if krycek has an unexpected time of it.
title from snuff by slipknot. a very krycek/mulder song.
thank you to the rats in the ratchat for the inspiration and the vibe check.