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Post by Fox Mulder on Dec 3, 2008 14:24:23 GMT -5
((It's cool, I wanted to be sure.))
Not imagining she'd have gone out--or not daring to, as it would have suggested to him not coming back--Mulder decided Emilie was still asleep and deemed it safe to go downstairs. Well, safe for a certain value of safe which included further interaction with Krycek. But he was stuck with him, now, in a sense.
And in truth, it wasn't entirely against his will. For betrayal is least felt when the betrayer is least regarded. Something in Mulder had responded to Krycek, to allow him to react with such violence every time they encountered one another. He would not admit that to himself, but it had colored his actions since day one. Mulder reacted very much as a petulant child when disappointed in people; in a manner quite different from his general reserve and distrust of the world.
He slid in opposite Krycek. He'd wheedled a razor off the girl from the night before--chipper as always, as if she never slept--and had used it. Not, certainly, for Krycek's benefit but because he didn't want to present himself to Emilie all scruffy, as he didn't think she'd appreciate it and would likely point it out.
"Where's my coffee?" he demanded, though not sharply, and in an instant the girl was at his shoulder, pouring him a cup and darting away with a bob and a smile.
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Post by Alex Krycek on Dec 3, 2008 15:08:35 GMT -5
Krycek was so absorbed in thoughts that he did not notice Mulder immediately, not until the man slid into the seat across from him. He looked up, surprised, and in that moment appearing sort of vulnerable, although a moment later it clicked that he had been expecting him. Waiting for him, in fact. He had been very wrapped up in his own world, although in retrospect, even if he had remembered he was going to be joined by Mulder, he wouldn't have had the cup waiting for him. It was one thing to look like you're waiting for someone else to join you downstairs over coffee, but when the person came down shortly after you and the joined...well, it looked like there was some kind of prior arrangement upstairs, not in the way there was, in this case.
The waitress took getting used to. Krycek'd been there a couple of weeks and he still wasn't entirely, though he didn't distrust her. She was just, well, odd. "Makes me think of a puppet every time I see that woman," said Krycek mildly, still preoccupied, but not about to try and continue to think of Marita, at least not deliberately.
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Post by Fox Mulder on Dec 3, 2008 15:19:54 GMT -5
((I had to keep from lol-ing at work. Puppet!))
"A puppet?" Mulder echoed absently. The waitress' oddity seemed to slide out of his mind when she was no longer in sight, which he might wonder about later but for now was too preoccupied to care about. He sipped his coffee--good and simple, like everything else here--and squinted at Krycek. "You know this looks kind of funny."
He'd been in here last night with Emilie. And this morning with this pretty one-armed man. He wondered how "funny" it would look to Emilie herself, and wondered how he was going to handle this. He had no intention of leaving her high and dry, had no doubt that Krycek was going to be doing a limpet impersonation now that he knew Mulder was here, and was fairly certain he didn't want them interacting, as it could be good for the health of no one involved. Meaning himself and Emilie, of course. The health of Alex Krycek was of no interest to him whatsoever. Though it was somewhat infuriating to be presented with such a smooth, chipper personage before coffee. It spoke of robustness and something unsavorily well.
((So I made up a word, whatever!))
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Post by Alex Krycek on Dec 3, 2008 15:29:58 GMT -5
It was one thing for it to have occurred to Krycek, but for Mulder to point it out was almost unbearable. Nonetheless, it somehow made the implication more tolerable, because if Mulder thought of it on his own, then Krycek could pretend he hadn't, and it was all Mulder's idea. His desire to act almost as though he and Mulder didn't know each other evaporated. And the ludicrousness of the concept also chased away Marita's memory. How could he think seriously of what life had been like with her now that he was thinking of the hilariousness of life with Mulder?
Krycek couldn't help a wry grin and covered it - with a delay - behind his coffee, taking another drink. But he winked, almost imperceptibly. "Sorry I didn't have your coffee out yet, honey. I thought maybe you didn't want to look anticipated."
He lifted the cup to take another drink, but had to put it down again because he'd started laughing. It was only a short burst of laughter, but he ran his hand through his hair and felt relieved for it. It was good, it had gotten him out of brooding.
((...and for some reason all my characters think the thought of gay Mulder is freaking hilarious.))
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Post by Fox Mulder on Dec 3, 2008 17:16:32 GMT -5
Mulder glowered, but drank his coffee. He'd only been able to mention it, of course, because the very idea was ludicrous. Any conscious inkling of acceptance would have made it impossible to joke about.
Krycek was the last person he would imagine having sex with.
"That's too bad," he said mildly. "It's one of the only things you did really well."
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Post by Alex Krycek on Dec 3, 2008 18:27:56 GMT -5
Krycek sobered rather quickly, but not abruptly. He merely appeared thoughtful, though of course he was warding away all chances of woundedness before they could develop. "Yeah, well..." He took a drink of coffee. All things considered, he didn't actually like coffee that much, but somehow drinking it had become habit for him.
He set the coffee down and peered into the cup as though vaguely interested in its contents. "If I were you, I would be thinking about the unconscious implications of liking me as your errand boy." Or probably not. This was Mulder they were speaking of.
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Post by Fox Mulder on Dec 3, 2008 18:37:29 GMT -5
Mulder blinked, though laconically inclined as he was, the expression was not terribly overt. "But I'm not you," he reminded Krycek unnecessarily. "And it's only natural. Let me rephrase: it's the only thing you did really well that didn't involve screwing me, or my partner, over. So if I were you, I'd be grateful you'd left me anything at all to like you as."
He belatedly recognized the unfortunate phrasing that had produced "screwing me," and reflected that if Krycek was Mulder, he'd also make quick use of that gaff.
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Post by Alex Krycek on Dec 3, 2008 21:39:51 GMT -5
((Not only did Krycek himself mishear that, but I totally misread it. For a couple of seconds I had a gleeful WTF moment. Thank you.))
It had gotten to the point where not even Krycek wanted to point out what in the world Mulder's unconscious was doing. He had just resigned himself to listening to Mulder's hostile tone of voice rattle on heatedly about Krycek being a betraying bastard some more, talking another drink of coffee to steel himself, when he realized that following the words 'it's the only thing you did really well' were the words, 'that didn't involve screwing me...'
And even though Mulder did continue along beyond that and that hadn't been what he'd meant to say, he had certainly caught Krycek's attention. Krycek coughed painfully on coffee that had gone down into the lungs rather than the stomach, the pain almost nice because it didn't have to make him deal with staring at Mulder open-mouthed. He took a while to realize he'd finished coughing, however, because he began laughing rather quickly, hand on the table for support.
And he overcame that laughter too, but the fact remained that Mulder had said the words and they had come out in that order. "Mulder, you studied Psychology, for God's sake," said Krycek, laughter still in his voice. He rubbed at his cheek absent-mindedly, laughed again, picked up the coffee cup with his eyebrows raised good-naturedly. "I don't even think I have to say anything to you."
He took another drink of coffee. It tasted better this time around, for some reason.
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Post by Fox Mulder on Dec 4, 2008 19:19:55 GMT -5
Mulder used his glowery expression at Krycek, very different from all his other expressions, and waited for the man to finish his gleeful sputtering. "And you, it seems, didn't get past third grade," he said snidely, despite the fact he was usually the first one in the room to resort to juvenile humor. He didn't exactly subscribe to the opinion that everything that came out of a person's mouth revealed their subconscious desires--not least because he obviously didn't want Krycek and screwing in the carnal sense anywhere near each other, where he was concerned. Ergo, it meant nothing. He took a defiant swig of coffee, now worried about the logistical implications.
"As if I'd ever let you behind me," he mumbled, as his mouth once again started working independently of his brain.
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Post by Alex Krycek on Dec 4, 2008 19:39:58 GMT -5
Krycek wouldn't have called that the mouth working independently of the brain - he might not have directly believed in so-called Freudian slips, but he certainly believed in something along those lines, and that Mulder continued to accidentally give a dirty meaning to everything he said about the two of them was particularly hilarious, whether it meant something or not.
He laughed again. "You are such a closetcase. I should never have kissed you."
And ambiguous though that was in this room filled with people, Krycek took no notice, and finished his coffee. Absent-mindedly he looked into the cup, decided it had not been satisfying enough, and decided to find out what kind of juices they had. Orange juice sounded really good right then, or maybe apple. He motioned over the waitress.
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Post by Fox Mulder on Dec 5, 2008 10:57:37 GMT -5
Mulder, of course, had not meant to egg Krycek on but he was well aware of the meaning behind his words and stood behind them. There was no way Krycek was the screw-er in this relationship, and he'd meant--as much as he'd meant anything--to put the man in his place, albeit through means that implicated him squarely. He rolled his eyes now.
"Just because I'm playing into your masturbatory fantasies doesn't make me the closet case," he said mildly as the waitress came over attentively. She kind of did resemble a puppet, he thought. Rather smooth and too perky.
"Orange, apple, and cran-grape," she informed Krycek unexpectedly, as Mulder could not know she was partial to the stuff. "Will there be anything else?"
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Post by Alex Krycek on Dec 5, 2008 11:32:58 GMT -5
"Apple," said Krycek after a moment, "yeah. Don't think so."
There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that Mulder was the closetcase. He had never made any references of this sort before, so clearly it was not just something he was using to degrade Krycek in some way; it had to be tied into the fact that Krycek had kissed him. Kind of funny, actually, considering it had been a sign of brotherhood. It was a bit of a stretch to consider Mulder his brother; maybe comrade-in-arms, as though they were in the bloody Crusade and Krycek was the normal one there for the loot and Mulder the insane one there for the crazy Christian ideals. And logically that should stretch to brotherhood, although Krycek had yet to see him in a fraternal fashion.
He glanced back at Mulder, expression soft, somewhat contemplative. "What've you been doing here? Wherever 'here' happens to be." He was genuinely interested in the answer, partly because he wanted to tell Mulder what he'd been doing.
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Post by Fox Mulder on Dec 5, 2008 14:21:47 GMT -5
Since Mulder could not see any hint of brotherhood in Krycek, and no suggestion that Krycek might feel comradely towards him (except when in trouble and desperate), the kiss was entirely one-sided and sexual--for Krycek. In his mind, Krycek's unacknowledged sexual status was telegraphed by the kiss, the gun, the breakfast that morning... It all added up (to Mulder) to Krycek pining after him. Well, it wouldn't be the first time, would it? He was a mess, and he admitted as much, but he was a pretty mess. And maybe Krycek had some screwed-up complex that made unavailable, antagonistic Mulder a valid object-choice.
Not for the first time, he wondered about Krycek's parents.
He looked back from the departing waitress at Krycek's question. This was tricky, of course, because it was personal; that is, Mulder'd done very little that wasn't. And he wasn't about to tell Krcyek he'd spent some glorious weeks holed up with a shape-shifting alien with an uncommon need for sex.
"Brushing up my French," he said.
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Post by Alex Krycek on Dec 5, 2008 17:05:37 GMT -5
Krycek felt brushed off, but he wasn't surprised. He realized he hadn't been all that open on the subject, or he might have answered it himself first as though Mulder had asked it. Minimizing the potential for damage - his by Mulder. He gazed at something beyond Mulder for a moment, looking over his shoulder as though looking him in the eyes would be painful.
After a while, he nodded and looked right at him, unaffected by Mulder's behavior. "So how is it, then? Your French," he said mildly. But he wasn't speaking on what he'd done.
He thought rather suddenly of Marita again and looked down at the table as he waited for the waitress, possibly because a large part of what he'd done was reevaluate that whole Marita thing to begin with - wondering, now that he was free of the project, how things might have gone with Marita if they hadn't both been in an organization devoted to making sure no one knew about the alien colonization planned for the future. If they'd have still been together, or
He imagined it had something to do with breakfast, too. Breakfast made him think about her a lot. They hadn't done much dinner together, neither one of them, but breakfast had been common. Morning light and Marita. It still often made him think of her. He looked forward to midday for this reason.
((If you wonder about the Marita angst - it occurred to me that for our timeline, that betrayal just happened, and I imagine he's been thinking about it a lot. Will stop if I must, though.)
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Post by Fox Mulder on Dec 7, 2008 11:37:10 GMT -5
Mulder noticed for the first time that Krycek seemed to be... brooding. He hadn't hurt his feelings, had he? No, Krycek was probably thinking about something evil. Or something amorally survivalist that would be evil to any normal person.
"I'm a quick study," he said evenly, suddenly curious. It wasn't that he cared about Krycek's well-being, but dammit, he'd been here all this time and Mulder hadn't known. What had he been up to? "What about you? Not your French; what have you been doing?"
((No, no problem. Not for me, anyway.))
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