Never So Alive by Te 8/98 Disclaimers: Not mine, please baby baby baby please don't sue. Spoilers: None, really. Summary: Alex helps Mulder get used to a few things. Ratings Note: NC-17... Yup, you heard me. Author's Note: Yet another entry from the "A Love of Dead Things" universe, yet another AlternateStateOfConsciousness!Te Production. (Viridian suggested I label.) "Freeze" "This Night" "Never So Alive" "The Idea of Forever" "Time" This takes place a few hours after the events of This Night. Acknowledgments: So many, so many. To Dawn Sharon, Di, Viridian, and Alicia for asking all those friggin' *questions*, few to none of which I've actually answered, but what are ya gonna do? Also to Alicia, for her usual much-appreciated Beta Brutality. And, of course, to my own OBT, my sweet, dark Sister Blue. Never So Alive by Te Daddy793@aol.com ****** "C'mon, I want to show you something." Mulder was sprawled in the passenger seat of the rental, gazing blankly out the window, and still, so still. //I'm dead.// The thought had no power in the absence of light, of his father, of any comforting stereotype. Utterly impossible to accept it rationally, not with the strange machine-fur of blue velour chafing his cheek, the taste of Alex lingering in his mouth. A hand fell on his shoulder, and it gave the older man focus. //How long have we been sitting here? //Where is here?// Mulder blinked once, losing himself briefly in the simple smoothness of lid over cornea, brush of lashes against his face. Turning, his movements were fluid, awkward in speed and painlessness. No ache there, no pull there... Mulder cried out softly and the hand tightened. "It's OK... it's all right. You'll get used to it---" Shaking his head, flooded with the impossibly clear impression of seat and leather and skin and dash and pale, pale skin and-- //What have I done?// He put his hands to his face, allowed himself to be pulled into Alex's embrace. Soft, husky words at his ear; Mulder was helpless to keep them from mutating into sense. Round sounds, need sounds, please-it's-all-right sounds... The older man buried his face against the throat; Alex automatically lifted his chin, made it easier and there was *something* coiling in his belly.... Mulder bit down hard. Too hard. The hand in his hair tightened reflexively as the flesh tore under his teeth... slow and cold and he didn't need this tried to pull back but it was so good... "Ahh-- Mulder... Easy, you can have--" ... and there was really nothing like that voice, the shifts of a body in the too-small car, offering and he pulled out his fangs just to feel the tug of //healing must be already// flesh and lapping helplessly //Would he let me kill him?// and Alex was moaning, petting him, lost in his own pleasure and this was easier to cope with than the weakness and fear, better that it be blood and flesh and want, better to take Alex's surrender for granted and he was just as still and solid and-- Yanked into a kiss of something like triumph and yes he could do that, too. Lips and teeth and his own name in the caesura of shared, useless breath. Less broken than trailed off, a distracted speech, stuttering to a close with words falling randomly there, and there, and again on his mouth before pulling back. Mulder let himself fall into the ring of green around the younger man's eyes, briefly saw a tiny Mulder skid over the limpid black of the pupil to dance and dance-- "Come with me." Snapped back again, looking down into the calm, serious face of his lover, Mulder nodded. Difficult to make it out of the car, tangled in each other as they were. Krycek hit the ground hard, chuckled at the sight of the older man trying to extricate himself from a surprisingly possessive seatbelt. "I think we could've done that better." Mulder finally spun himself out of the little trap, closed his eyes as fast as he could but //trees water bright bright moonlight trees water..// not quite fast enough to avoid the startlingly clear images. He rocked on his heels, trying to push back the analysis. //Every image a work of art... I can't do this...// Again, an embrace. "I know what you're going through, Mulder." Constant, low- grade nuzzle over his cheek and ear, gesture of comfort just a little too urgent... "We all do this at first. I can help." "Alex..." //This is too much. //Make it stop. //I never wanted to need you.// The younger man never stopped the animal brushings, occasionally planting a kiss, pulling Mulder out and out and stab at his throat too quick but exhilarating. "Will you let me help, Mulder?" Mulder looked down at his flexing hands, stilled them in the fabric of his jeans. //Too loose... I need to gain-- //Jesus, God...// "What is it, Alex?" "We're going swimming." Slow blink and he didn't *want* to laugh but it was absurd.... He looked up to find Alex's eyes gleaming greyly in the moonlight, lips quirked and balanced on the edge of laughter. Impulse to shake his head again, rapidly quelled, and then Alex was shrugging out of his jacket, pulling himself out of his clothes. Mulder stared, hungry in too many ways to count. March air was clean this far from civilization, but the breeze only brought him Alex. Mulder reached out, laid his thumbs flat against dusky rose nipples standing in sharp relief to the milk-white chest. Arch and a gasp and a hand gripping his wrist, bringing it to cool, silky lips. "Later, I promise." Nip and release. "Take your clothes off." Oh, he was glad to be wearing the ratty old t-shirt, worn and soft and it felt good pulled taut against his skin and he could lean right into it... More need sounds and before he could get the shirt fully off there was a hand tugging at the waistband of his jeans. Final luxurious sweep over face and hair and there was Alex, tugging him out and free in the //All that's left?// night air. It was shocking to find himself hard, just another overly powerful sensation amid a glut of same. A small, dim effort and he could feel the slow pulse of //human?// need differentiate itself from the prickle of his own body hair, the sharp tug of something undefinable on his every cell. "Fuck later." No preliminaries, Alex took him deep, groaning once around his length. A vision from his dreams; the hum made his knees tremble. Mulder braced himself on the iron-hard shoulders and thrust helplessly, grazing against a fang. Slow heartbeat to realize what would come next, another to feel the pain travel strangely, powerfully along his entire body and then Alex increased the force of the suction. Mulder heard himself sob, throw back his head and howl into the indigo and there had never, never been anything like this... When he could, when there was a release from the light behind and beyond his vision, he looked down. Alex was cleaning him with that cat-rasp tongue lovingly, thoroughly. Mulder ran a lightly trembling thumb along the corner of the younger man's mouth. Thick lashes fluttered, dipped and it was dry... //Don't think...// Moments of dazed bewilderment, inchoate fear too muted by everything else to do anything beyond silence the older man. Alex finally stood, pulled Mulder a little by the forearm to get him to step from the jeans puddled around his ankles. Virginia lakeshore mud, oozing shamelessly between his toes. Alex walked ahead, disappearing step by inexorable step into the water, muscles rippling, a statue in motion, right down to the mutilation of time. Deeper and deeper, dissonance to see the hard, trim waist disappearing in moonlight-black water when only his calves were being caressed. "Remember, Mulder, we don't need to breathe." And then the younger man was gone with only a brief ripple to mark his passage and Mulder was following. A twinge at suppressing the reflex to breathe deep and he was under, the murk no real obstacle to his vision. Flash of white and down and down, nearly losing himself in the curious paradox of sensation. The pressure of increasing depth pushing hard against him, familiar but muted, changed by his new form. The water was a caress, warming, and the power was thrilling. There was a slab of something... perhaps a wall stolen by some vicious storm. It was grey, pale green fronds of some unnameable plant skating along its edges. Mulder watched Alex wrap a few around his ankles, felt his heart beat once twice //almost normal...// before slowing again. Alex looked up at him and smiled gently, beckoning. Bemused, horny, frightened and then he was tied close to the younger man, who had relaxed his body, closed his eyes. Alex swayed with the current, beautiful and still, every boneless shift an invitation. Come with me, don't fight, We.... Mulder felt himself grow sleepy, let his arms relax and float up and up, hands straining against the tether of flesh, closed his eyes and let go. It was almost sleep and it was almost sex, and it was nothing of himself. A dead thing swaying in a moment's perfection, never to decay. Perhaps they would always be there, reaching for moonlight, a mockery of ambition. Time and time and a hand on his arm. Alex was smiling again, tugging. The fish and the dust were lovely irrelevancies and Mulder could be slow about this, easy and calm, letting the water push him into the kiss at its own pace. Gentle and sealed and he could hear... //Forever love you forever forever want touch feel this joy-- //Alex?// ... something in his soul, a bright truth lighting, starkly, all the things he'd left behind. He pushed it down, but it would always be there, now. Mulder pulled away, but couldn't quite remove his hand from the smooth cheek. Alex leaned into the touch for a moment before turning to flick his tongue once along the palm. It was time to surface. ****** End. ******