Heart's desireWriters:
Meg (Lead Writer) Megaera@Megaera.demon.co.uk
StarWindDancer StarWindDancer@hotmail.com
Nicole Czara18@aol.com
Tarlan TarlanX@aol.comCATEGORY M/K Round Robin
SUMMARY A Mulder/Krycek romance. Occasionally from Alex's point of view.
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Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew,
Your cosmopolitan sympathies,
And god knows what antipathies....... Isaac Rosenberg.*******
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Mulder yanked on the cuffs, and I was caught off balance. I tried to compensate, but it was too little, too late. I tripped and ended up in an undignified position on my knees on the floor. To my eternal shame, I squeaked in surprise. Mulder swung round in astonishment on hearing the sound I had made.
"You squeaked!" he said disbelievingly.
I glared at him and tried unsuccessfully to look utterly ruthless. Difficult when you have to crane your neck to look up at someone.
"I didn't!" I growled.
But Mulder knew a squeak when he heard one. He grinned at me in satisfaction, things were just perfect as far as he was concerned. I was disadvantaged on all fronts. I wanted to curl up in shame and will myself into oblivion. How could I? In front of *him* of all people? Knowing Mulder, he would use it to his advantage forever more in our arguments. Well, at least he wasn't trying to kill me.
I like to cultivate a dangerous, lean and hungry presence, but Mulder always seemed to find the cracks in that facade. Even back when we were partners, he could just look at me in that infuriating way and reduce me to tongue tied incoherence.
The way he was watching me at the moment really got to me. Annoying how he's always so very self righteous. I'd love to wipe that smirk off those full lips. Of course, he's so very good at his job. Brilliant, even. And he knows it! How else would he have caught me? And I thought I was being so careful.
To be honest, he's usually quite predictable, but he gets these flashes of intuition that can be quite unnerving. Like he cuts through all the B.S. to the heart of the problem.
I guess that's what put him on my trail. There I was, in a small town, where I had set up a false identity and was arranging my finances in what I hoped was a secure location. I still don't know who or what tipped him off, but the moment I stepped into the bank manager's office for a pre-arranged appointment, I knew there was something wrong. Then he stepped out from behind the door, gun raised, smiling in quiet satisfaction, and I knew I was cornered. The one place in town where he knew that I couldn't take my gun, as I had to pass through a security check.
Damn him to hell!
I hope he hasn't found the safety deposit box yet.......
Maybe I can persuade him to tell me what tipped him off. If he's feeling smug enough, he might just spill the beans. If I ever get out of this particular mess, I'll know never to make that mistake again.
He's feeling pretty smug now!
He proceeded to drag me out to the car and cuff my arm to the car door. Great. Being a one armed rat in situations like this can be tough on a guy. I was going to find it difficult to even scratch my nose for the duration of the journey. I tugged at the cuffs ineffectually for a few minutes, then gave it up as a bad job.
"I'm going to drive back to Washington tonight," he told me, again with that irritating touch of smugness. "You should be safe and secure in a high security facility by tomorrow night."
This was enough to make me sit up and take notice.
"That's stupid Mulder! At this time of year......" I said. I was trying to make my voice sound patient and reasonable, despite the fact that I really wanted to beat up on him big time. "In Winter, the mountain passes over the Appalachians have been known to be blocked up for weeks. One time a bus load of tourists got stuck and...."
"Shut up Krycek!" He growled. "I don't want to hear any statistics from you at the moment! All I'm interested in is getting back to D.C. and the airport is closed down at the moment, there's a storm coming."
Great! Now he gives me the good news. This is definitely a bad idea. But when Mulder wants something, it's difficult to talk him out of it at the best of times. I should know after that trip to Russia!
Mulder climbed into the driver's side door and glared at me. "Don't open your mouth again Krycek, or I'll shut it for you!"
I wonder if he treats all federal prisoners this way? But I knew an immovable force when I met it. I sat quietly, watching him drive until I was sure he had noticed and was becoming unnerved. I couldn't quite hide my grin when he gave me a warning glance. I sighed heavily in a theatrical manner. This was going to be a long drive. Still, there may
be more opportunities to irritate the hell out of him. You never know your luck.
*******
Only Mulder could decide that hours of driving was preferable to sitting in a warm hotel room with hot and cold running room service, waiting for a flight. The reality was that we were in for a long and tedious drive. I tried to doze for a while, without much success, as night fell. The weather was closing in, and it was starting to snow heavily.
I stretched as best I could, for the hundredth time, trying to restore the circulation to my rapidly stiffening limbs. Sitting for many hours in one position was highly uncomfortable, to say the least. At least he could have found a restroom at some point. Or even a cheap motel. But the route he had chosen seemed to hold little in the way of convenience stops, for miles at a stretch. Only shut up summer businesses which would probably be closed until mid-April at the earliest. Great. Only about five months to wait then.
The motion of the car began to effect me in the end. The stupid fool actually wanted to make Washington before dawn, I think. The speed Mulder drives at, this might even be possible. Anyway, I had little choice but to try and get some rest. Maybe there would be an opportunity to escape later. Even Mulder has to rest sometimes.
We hit the dark forests sometime late in the evening, the shadowy limbs of pine trees lit up briefly by the headlights of the car. Most were by now dusted with snow, as the white flakes continued to fall from the sky with no sign of stopping. Even Mulder, I was pleased to see, bowed to the inevitable, and slowed his speed. The road was becoming dangerously covered in a thick layer of snow and it looked as though no snow ploughs had hit the highways yet. In a way it was kind of inevitable, given Mulder's reckless nature. Somewhere along the way, he took the wrong turning. Of course, if he'd let me finish my litany of mountain disaster stories, he might have learned what a bad reputation these hills have had, since way before the European settlers arrived there. The Native Americans called this particular stretch of country "The Land of the Lost" and whispered that evil spirits, from a time long before the first Europeans arrived on this continent, walked the Earth hereabouts. Superstition, I know, but the many disappearances are a proven fact. My Russian peasant ancestors would probably have run screaming away from such an unlucky place.
Evil spirits or not, the fact is we were lost. In the woods. In a snowstorm.
Mulder's temper wasn't improved by this, one little bit. In fact, he kept eyeing me as if it was *my* fault. As if I hadn't practically begged him not to drive up here. We were on some kind of road, fairly wide and straight, that was gradually climbing into the hills. In the far distance, in between flurries of snow showers, there was a suggestion of towering mountain peaks. But as if to outline how lost we were, the sky seemed to take on an almost sickly yellow glow, and I
could tell that we were due for a *lot* more snow, even though it seemed to be falling less heavily at the moment.
We crested a hill, and caught a glimpsse of the undulating landscape beyond.
"There!" Mulder said. "There must be a town over there, I can see the glow from the streetlights reflecting off the clouds."
I shook my head doubtfully. Mulder grimaced.
"Mulder, I don't think that's a town......... "
Something emerged from the woods at our right hand side, some sort of animal. It was far too late for Mulder to react in time. We slammed into it, and the car was jarred by the impact. Mulder tried to control it, but on the snow, his wheels had no traction. We began to slide sideways, and then we were off the road, the car sliding downhill uncontrollably.......
The car hit a tree, and we were both pitched forward violently as it came to a final stop.
I think I was unconscious for a few minutes. I don't remember hitting my head, but there was a dull throbbing round my wrist and I stared stupidly at the bruising marks left by the cuffs for a while. I wasn't immediately sure where I was, then I realised that I was sitting on a log, ten feet from our smoking wreck of a car. The old pine tree we had hit was shattered by the impact. Ancient, half rotten and almost dead, it lurched drunkenly sideways, gnarled roots sticking out and the trunk almost severed by the force of the collision. I daresay that if it had been in the prime of life, we would have both died instantly on impact.
How the hell had I got free?
The car looked as though it was going to burst into flames very soon. The front was caved in, and petrol was streaming from the tank. And I caught sight of a slumped, dark suited figure in the driver's seat.
Damn it to hell Mulder!
Well, I couldn't just leave him there. Whatever vestiges of a conscience I have wouldn't let me. With a sigh, I made my way towards him, and tugged the door open. It wasn't easy to get him out. Not with one arm and feeling as dizzy as if I'd drunk a bottle of good vodka. But I managed it. Barely in time. With a whoosh, the fuel tank went up before I'd even got twenty feet away.
He was semi-conscious, and a splash of scarlet across his forehead told me why. He could only cling to me for a vestige of support, and mumble curses under his breath. And as the fire died, and the biting cold of the forest took hold, I wondered if we were going to be found like this in each other's arms, come Spring.
********
I headed down the road, with Mulder in tow. I knew there was no settlement for at least thirty miles, on the road we had just taken. Our only chance was to try and find some sort of shelter before the full force of the storm hit. Even now, I could see the snow beginning to fall again heavily, after its previous momentary lull, and at least we were on some sort of road downhill. It must go someplace. I prayed it wasn't a logging camp.
Mulder was a barely mobile presence leaning into me on my right hand side, my arm round his waist. I swear it was rapidly becoming the only warm part of my body. At the moment, he qualified as walking wounded, or perhaps more accurately, living corpse. He was barely able to walk straight, and kept stumbling over in the snow, his legs unsteady. The only thing keeping him upright was my support. He was mumbling something senseless to himself, and I could sense that his feeble efforts to walk alongside me were draining his strength. The wind was getting stronger, and I guessed we would soon be in a whiteout as the blizzard descended.
Not long now then. I would leave him if I had to. My survival came first. In fact, I didn't really understand why I had helped him out of the wreck in the first place. Given half a chance, he would try to take me prisoner again, and I would *not* allow that.
Mulder tripped and fell to his knees. As the full weight of his body wrenched against my arm, I let go of him, and he sagged forward onto his hands and knees. The shock of the cold snow must have revived him a little, for he lifted his head bewilderedly. Hazel eyes tried to focus on me.
"Krycek........" he slurred. ".....Ratbastard....."
He really did make it easy for me to hate him!
I could see the knowledge dawning in his eyes that I was going to leave him to die. The fear that he tried to hide. The contempt for me, because I was living up to his expectations.
Mulder, when are you going to stop judging me?
With a heavy, theatrical sigh, I reached for him, awkwardly tugging him to his feet, and wrapping my arm around him again. He stared at me in confusion. Why did I help him? I don't know. I think it was because he irritated the hell out of me. All that passion which he directed towards such worthless causes, usually making life more inconvenient for me..... He would really *hate* being indebted to me!
And anyway, who would there be to antagonise if he were gone?
*********
We must have been walking for over half an hour. Stumbling now, both of us. Neither of us were properly outfitted for winter hiking, clothing and footwear being suitable only for a car journey. Mulder's breath was harsh and laboured, and I could feel him shivering. He was once again on autopilot. A small trickle of blood from his forehead was turning to gleaming ruby ice.
We were surrounded by endless groves of trees, turning from pines to some sort of mixed deciduous woodland as we descended into what seeme to be a small valley. At least the snow didn't seem to be falling as heavily now. I could hear the wild, eerie howl of the wind in the heights above us. Like a banshee howl, quite unnerving. Or a thousand voices screaming a warning, laughing and gibbering at the humans who had no business being in such a place on a night like this. Not that I was able to think much by now. The cold was biting into the unprotected parts of my body, face and hand. Frostbite was another possibility, unless we found shelter soon. Though I thought we were both going to die soon anyway.
********
We followed the road into a thickly wooded grove of trees. Much more sheltered. But so dark I could barely see the road. It was then that I sensed something quite different from the impersonal malice of nature. My instincts have always been good. You don't survive in my profession for long without a well honed sense of self-preservation. And the moment we entered the grove, I *knew* we were being watched. I came to a dead stop, and tried to sense where the watcher was, who he was......
Nothing.
And yet.......
I felt a cold finger of fear trace down my spine. What my senses were telling me was conflicting. I knew there was something there. But at the same time, I could neither hear, see, or even smell the watcher. But something *was* in the trees. And whatever it was, it hated me. There was such a terrible feeling of malevolence that I wanted to run away
from that place as fast as my legs would carry me. Mulder was oblivious to it. But I hurried us past the trees as fast as he could clumsily walk.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I caught a glimpse of clear ground ahead. It had almost seemed as though the *evil* presence kept pace with us, following us as we walked through the darkness of the trees, though I heard nothing. But towards the end of the grove, the trees arched up over the track, their branches interlacing above it, stretching out like fingers towards us. It was there that I had the greatest feeling of horror. For a moment, just the briefest instant, I could almost swear that the branches *moved* by themselves. Reaching out to seize us and hold us there, in the cold mountain air, until we froze to death.
I think I screamed.
Imagination can play strange tricks on the mind. How damn stupid, to get spooked by a couple of tangled up tree branches! I was instantly ashamed of myself.
For in the next instant, we were past and out into the open air again. And there before us was a Fire watcher's post, complete with massive observation tower, and, oh wonderful sight, a closed up but serviceable log cabin. I forgot all about the trees.
It was the most incredibly welcoming thing I had ever seen in my life so far. And as if to emphasise the welcome, a big brass door key was hanging on a hook to the right of the door.
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End of Part 1
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meg