Title: Journeys in Shadow (snippet)
    By: Jessica Harris
    Rating: NC/17 for darkness and violence, S&M content. Not hugely
    explicit, but dark.
    Summary: M/K. The boys go far, maybe too far.
    Disclaimer: Not mine. No profit.
    Notes: This is a snippet directly inspired by a passage in Te's
    "Shadows of Better Men" and is posted with her permission. One
    version of the Mulder Krycek might wish to create . . .
    Thanks to Te for her gorgeous visions.
    Feedback: Sure, but remember *I'm* not into bloodsports so be
    gentle! lumpj@hotmail.com <mailto:lumpj@hotmail.com>

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    Journeys in Shadow
    Jessica Harris
    03/01/99
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    I knew it had to happen eventually. I, of all people, should have
    realized that secrets have a way of making themselves known. I
    should have been better prepared when Scully stumbled in on us.

    It's easy to say that I should have bolted the door, that we should
    never have used my apartment for our purposes anyway. But if it
    hadn't been that it would have been something else that gave us
    away. What I should have done was have some words ready, some way to
    talk about what we were doing.

    Though I don't think she would have listened. I'll never forget the
    look on her face when she saw us, when she took in Alex stretched
    out painfully over the padded bench, when she registered what I
    wore, what I held in my hands. That awful look and all she said was
    "*Krycek*, Mulder? Why him?"

    I suppose I should be grateful that that was all she asked. She
    knows me better than I might wish. But it was one of the hardest
    questions to give her an answer to.

    Why him? Him because of his soft skin and his hoarse cries. Because
    he has seen what I have seen and more, because he has deep dark eyes
    that understand the things I cannot speak. Because his cock gets
    hard when I cuff his hands behind his back, when I slide my belt
    from my belt-loops, when I promise him terrible things.

    Him because it couldn't be anyone else, not here, not like this.
    There's no one else who could ever be a part of what we have become.

    To Scully it probably looked like I was the one in control. It was
    my body wearing this shell of leather, my voice speaking these
    commands, my hands wielding these implements of pain and pleasure.

    But really it's him. He lets me take him places where no one else
    would venture, and these are the places I call home now, where I
    feel the blood sing in my veins, discover pieces of myself I didn't
    even know were missing.

    Without him I would never have gotten here.

    Every mark on his skin tells of how deeply I am bound to him. Our
    beginnings were in the welts left by hands, by belts, by whips.
    Later our bond was written in the clean slits of blades (the song of
    bright blood on pale skin a mere afterthought to that moment when
    his flesh parts beneath my tools), in the braille of the burns and
    those near-invisible silver dots where needles (hollow, of course,
    coring small slivers of flesh from him) have been slid clean through
    his skin. All of these marks have their invisible equivalent on me,
    *in* me, and though you can't see them they have changed me beyond
    measure, are far more ineradicable than his. I will never be free of
    them.

    Him, Scully, because his moans when I finally stop and gather him to
    me (to feed him comfort, rewards) are so sweet . . .

    and him because when I *don't* stop and we travel a little further,
    a little deeper, because then his moans are sweeter still.

    Even when his face contorts with screams around the gag, even when
    his lids slit nearly shut and tears leak from their corners, I know
    that if I look into those eyes (so dark, so dark, so deep, so
    *dark*, Scully) I will see that he is exactly where he wants to be.

    And so am I. I can still hear your footsteps in the hall, Scully, as
    you run from what you have discovered, and I know I should go after
    you, try to explain. But I can't stop now, can't leave. I shut the
    door again and turn back to Alex on the bench. His mouth is
    invisible beneath the device that silences it and his body is
    stretched too tight to move but I can sense the welcome in him, the
    smile in his eyes. Maybe I wanted you to see this, Scully, to see
    this and bear witness. Maybe the only words I need are those to tell
    you this: that I am right where he wants me to be, and I can no
    longer imagine being anywhere else.

    end