Title: Elemental

Author: Marcia Elena

Email: marciaelena@hegalplace.com

Keywords: M/K

Spoilers: Takes place just after RatB, so anything up until then, possibly.

Rating: R

Summary: A meeting with destiny.

Written for the 2nd M/K Wheel, the 'Married or Buried Wheel', June 2004.

Disclaimer: Not mine, but each other's.

Author's notes: More than a week late this time, sigh. My apologies to everyone, especially to Alea, who sent me wonderful lyrics to work with. It's not her fault that my Muse didn't want to cooperate. I started and abandoned a couple of pieces that just weren't working. This one came to me unexpectedly, and I wrote the whole thing in a day. I don't know if it's any good -- probably not. This is one weird story, if it can even be called a story. But at least it's done. Just don't expect any plot.

For Leda, with my heart and soul.

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Elemental
by Marcia Elena

Mulder stands by the grave, looking down at it, watching as a slow drizzle falls, the drops almost shyly caressing his face and hair, leaving tiny smudges of wet on the bare earth at his feet. He's made a point of visiting all the graves of the victims of the recent alien burnings, and this is the last one on a long, long list. The gentle music of the rain is hypnotizing, and for a moment he thinks he can glimpse all his loved ones' graves, dead ones' and still living ones' alike, a succession of wavering, latent images, one on top of the other, certainties just waiting to happen, existing already somewhere in time and space. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again there is only the one grave once more, freshly dug and freshly covered. His nostrils flare as the rain-stirred soil releases its dark scent, seeming to whisper of life and death at once, running a shiver through him.

He closes his eyes again when lightning flashes, thunder rumbling off in the distance. He remembers an early adolescence dream, a fantasy: lying in bed with his eyes closed, listening to the storm raging just outside his window, wondering how it would feel to step on the sill and, with arms outstretched, take flight. He had imagined then that the swirling wind would pick him up and lift him above the house, above the town, above the clouds, and he had longed to taste that freedom, to perhaps keep flying until the wind and sun shriveled him up and he disintegrated, self aware particles of dust floating forever in the streams of time. He knows better now, but the desire still lingers inside him, and he wishes-

Lightning again, and his eyes snap open. All the pain of his life, the burdens he's carried, the betrayals and disappointments, all of it suddenly weighs him down, and he thinks that not even the strongest winds would be able to keep him in the air for more than a moment.

But maybe a moment is all he needs.

`````````

Krycek hears the thunder from his motel room, and in his half-awake state the booming, roiling sound reminds him of salty waves being tossed against a rocky shore. He can see the foamy water splintering into sun-kissed droplets, hovering in the air for a millisecond before showering back down onto the ocean, becoming once again a part of that vast body. Eternally swaying and eternally cradled. Eternally whole.

He doesn't know what 'whole' means. Yet he yearns for it.

The scent of rain breezes in through the open window, intensifying his sea-dreams. Lightning and thunder dance in the sky, twin entities courting each other, winks of light and murmurs of sound chasing one another, chasing.

Weariness threads through Krycek's bones, and he doesn't fight it. Years of running and hiding, of killing and lying wound around his heart in a tight, tight grip. He's worked hard to maintain a facade of indifference, learned to harden his expression and guide his will. But the crust around his heart is not that thick, and beneath it he is only flesh and blood.

He's a man who won't let himself be, wanting to belong. More than anything, he wants to belong.

At length he gets up from bed and gets dressed. Rain is still falling as he steps outside, harder now. He briefly raises his face to the sky in a gesture as close to prayer as he can manage. Wishing. Wishing.

And he starts to walk.

`````````

Mulder walks. He doesn't know where he's going, if his steps are taking him back to his apartment and his own window sill, or if there'll be a bridge along the way, a ledge, somewhere where he can firmly plant his feet for a last vertiginous moment before taking the leap. But he can feel that destiny is calling him, no longer willing to wait; promising release from guilt, from a life ill-spent on useless searches. Peace, at last.

He knows there are people walking along the same sidewalks as him, crossing the same streets, that there's a cacophony of voices and horns and rain around him. But he doesn't see them, doesn't hear anything except the sure, slightly frantic beat of his heart.

Until someone stops in front of him, blocking his way.

He stops as well and looks up, meeting Krycek's eyes. He's not surprised to meet him like this; it seems, indeed, that they cannot keep from meeting every now and then, fate and chance and sometimes choice all conspiring to bring them together again and again. The familiar anger that always blinds him when faced with the man is gone; and it's as if he's looking at him with new senses, as if a veil has been lifted from his brain and his heart.

He looks. And he sees.

He sees.

Krycek is the window sill. The bridge, the ledge. He is the leap, the wind and the flight, the dream and the promise, all the latent possibilities of his future just waiting to be realized. The ghostly memory of Krycek's kiss flutters against the corner of his mouth, making Mulder's lips part on a breath. And it seems to him -- no, more than seems -- that this is the first true breath of his life.

`````````

Krycek watches Mulder watching him. He watches as Mulder's eyes well with tears, watches as one breaks free and rolls down his face, and he knows that if he were to lean forward he could lap it away with his tongue, and that Mulder would taste like the sea. He holds Mulder's gaze with his own, and he cannot remember another time when that gaze was so completely open to him. The lure of cool dark depths is in there, the promise of safety. All the things he's ever wanted from Mulder are abruptly and unexpectedly not only present, but within his reach. He watches Mulder's lips part, hears Mulder's almost-sigh, and with his own intake of breath he swallows that sigh and feels it stroke its way into his body, awakening every quiescent part of him and making him burn with inevitability.

He takes a step back, and another. Not retreating, but beckoning, never dropping his eyes from Mulder's. And Mulder follows.

Mulder follows, and when Krycek is pushed against the dirty brick wall of the alley they've stepped into, he half expects Mulder's fists to connect with his mouth, as they have so many times before. But instead it's Mulder's lips that bruise his, Mulder's fingers unfastening their pants, Mulder's tongue tangling with his as they both grunt their desire into their kisses. Krycek wraps his plastic arm around Mulder, holding him in place, insinuating his real hand into the back of Mulder's pants to knead his flesh. Mulder's hand is in his hair, gripping him just as tightly as he is being gripped, his fist wrapped around their cocks while their hips roll and thrust against the other in a dance that is both universal and theirs alone.

And everything else falls away.

`````````

Wide awake, they dream together. Held and holding, kissed and kissing, moving as one as they dive deep and fly high. The rhythmic pulsing of the tides is in their blood, the flowing currents of all the world's winds is in their breaths, and in each other they taste freedom. With each other, they are whole.

Peace.

At last.

Much too soon, their moment out of time is coming to a close. Yet the moment, short as it is, imprints itself upon every part of their beings: it will stay with them now, becoming an intangible organ. One which they'll come to call Love.

Glistening wet and trembling in each other's arms, they are like a newborn creature. The scent of life lingers between them, a third presence. Blessing them.

They kiss. They breathe together. For another long-short moment, they don't speak.

"Alex," Mulder finally whispers. Kissing him again. But in his voice what Krycek hears is 'mine'.

"Mulder," Krycek answers. Looking at him.

And in his eyes, what Mulder sees is 'forever'.

~never the end~

```````````````````````````````````

Down In A Hole - Alice In Chains

Bury me softly in this womb
I give this part of me for you
Sand rains down and here I sit
Holding rare flowers
In a tomb...in bloom

Down in a hole and I don't know if I can be saved See my heart I decorate it like a grave You don't understand who they
Thought I was supposed to be
Look at me now a man
Who won't let himself be

Down in a hole, feelin' so small
Down in a hole, losin' my soul
I'd like to fly,
But my wings have been so denied

Down in a hole and they've put all
The stones in their place
I've eaten the sun so my tongue
Has been burned of the taste
I have been guilty
Of kicking myself in the teeth
I will speak no more
of my feelings beneath

Down in a hole, feelin' so small
Down in a hole, losin' my soul
I'd like to fly but my
Wings have been so denied

Bury me softly in this womb
Oh I want to be inside of you
I give this part of me for you
Oh I want to be inside of you
Sand rains down and here I sit
Holding rare flowers (Oh I want to be inside of you) In a tomb...in bloom
Oh I want to be inside...

Down in a hole, feelin' so small
Down in a hole, losin' my soul
Down in a hole, feelin' so small
Down in a hole, outta control
I'd like to fly but my
Wings have been so denied
 

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