Other Paths III: All of the Animals
by Te
9/98

Disclaimers: They do not belong to me, damn it all. 

Spoilers: Small, hopeful, Tunguska thoughts. Also small one  
for One Breath. 

Summary: What we see, what we know. 

Ratings Note: NC-17 for poor, poor language and pretty men  
doing messy things. 

Author's Note: I dreamed this, more or less. These men 
won't  leave me alone. This is a roughly connected series:

"Nameless"
"Distance and Possession"
"Lucky Men"
"Liberty"
"All of the Animals"

Only "Lucky Men" and "Liberty" are really necessary to have  
read first, I think. 

Acknowledgments: To my Sister Blue, for showing me the 
Lucky Man. To Spike, Rye, and Nancy for wonderful beta, and 
also to Alicia for many helpful comments. 

Feedback: PLEASE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other Paths III: All of the Animals
by Te
Daddy793@aol.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex Krycek leaned back against the shower wall, careful of 
the bottle in his hand. Open, tilted away from the stream, 
slowly depleting. The first thing he'd done after leaving 
Mulder's place  was find himself an all night liquor store. 
Nothing fancy, just a bottle of J.D., dark and smoky and 
obliterating. 

The problem had come in trying to find someplace 
appropriate to appreciate his prize. The great outdoors was 
both prosaic and far too dangerous these days. One wouldn't 
have been so bad; both together were unforgivable. There 
was the option of any one of  his hidey holes, but even 
Mulder's place had been... 

So he'd wound up right back where he'd started from, 
Walter's place. Had enough time to regret the fact he'd 
already started drinking as he picked the older man's very 
new, far too secure  locks. And then he'd taken a look 
around the place, felt a pang of something harsh. It was 
too clean, too neat, too simple, and the bottle didn't feel 
any better here. Not even on the balcony...

******

... and he remembered hearing the front door close on 
Mulder's clumsy, apparently shellshocked attempt to seduce 
Skinner.

He'd closed his eyes and waited. And waited. He'd awakened 
to  a shiver as his body was finally forced to accept the 
fact of cold.  And waited. Finally, mid-indulgence in a 
fantasy of his own  lashes coated and drooping with sheaths 
of ice, the door to the apartment had opened. A bare moment 
to try to kick his brain  into gear, make it figure out a 
way to handle the situation, but  then he was being pulled 
to his feet by his collar.

If there was anyone who could glare like Walter he hadn't 
met  him. Easy to remember other times when those eyes had 
raked  his form, the pleasures that inevitably followed.

"Do you remember when you asked me to lie to you? Sir."

And that had been exactly the way to play it, of course. 
Warm, calloused hand cushioning the slam of his head with 
each  powerful thrust. His own hand on a warm hip and it 
felt so  good. 

After, Walter had brought him a cup of decaf and they had  
spoken of other times, other deeds, and he'd looked into 
the  older man's eyes and seen something he knew, very 
well. And Walter's mouth on his own cock was even less of a 
surprise  than the fact that, in the end, he'd left Alex to 
sit right there.

"You could untie me.... I'm not going anywhere." He'd meant 
it, of course. There had been business to be handled. 

"I plan on getting *some* rest tonight..." And there had 
been a ghost of hesitation, perhaps a bit of speculation in 
the dark chocolate eyes. But Alex couldn't stop the flow of 
his own  words to try to puzzle out the pause's meaning.

"You could always just handcuff me to the bed, sir." And 
he'd meant that too, but not enough and clearly not in the 
right  way. Walter had smiled, briefly and a little sadly. 
And a small  part of him knew, then. 

"I plan on getting some rest tonight, Alex."

And he'd smiled back, small and honest and acknowledging,  
and waited for morning.

******

Back in the present a brief, chill breeze worked over his 
nape  and he could -- almost -- feel a strong arm pulling 
him back  against that massive chest. Feel a chin settle on 
his shoulder.  Sense an ostentatious peer beyond him. Hear 
a dry, earthen  rumble:

"I hope you haven't thrown anyone *else* off my balcony, 
Alex."

And he could -- almost -- hear exactly how the laugh he'd 
make would mutate into sobs. And then someone really would 
have to go off the balcony.

And so he'd taken himself as quietly as possible up the 
stairs  and paused in front of the bedroom door. Took a 
swig, carefully.  He knew it was sheer luck that he hadn't 
woken Walter already,  and though Alex resented the 
solitude inherent in wakefulness,  he also knew he was no 
fit company. The shower, then, and  setting the bottle down 
just long enough to undress was a trial,  and the fact it 
was a trial made him snarl.

Looking up into darkness, eyes adjusting to a hazy 
rendering of  his usual night vision, Alex watched the 
steam rise into tiled corners. Wanted to touch it. Knew 
he'd been drinking for too  long. A shadow fell over the 
curtain, large and silent and Walter- shaped. Alex bit his 
tongue in an attempt to get himself back  under control.

"How long are you planning on staying in there, Alex?"

//I wondered how long you were just going to stand there,  
Krycek.//

Alex shuddered, and couldn't blame it on the still-warmer-
than- tepid water. "Christ, Walter, don't... don't say 
that." 

Walter threw back the curtain and just looked at him. 

"I suppose there's no point in asking how it went with 
Mulder."

Alex closed his eyes, let his head fall back against the 
shower  wall. Didn't flinch when Walter reached past him 
and retrieved  the bottle. Allowed himself to be tugged 
from the shower and  dried thoroughly, knowing full well 
that Walter knew he wasn't nearly as drunk as he was 
playing it. 

Finally, the towel was slung around his back and he was 
being efficiently yanked into a kiss that ended with him 
burying  himself in the darkly muscular neck.

"What the hell do you want with me, anyway?"

//Fuck.//

He tried to pull off, make it into a joke but Walter 
wouldn't let  him. That only made him angrier and he heard 
himself growl.  Instant release, which was both appreciated 
and regretted. He wanted another arm to grab. He did his 
best to cover his face  with his hand, started to turn. 
Abruptly, there was another  hand sliding into place over 
his left eye.

And he could close his eyes then, and laugh silently at the  
absurdity. He could rock just a bit, and if the motion led 
him  back into Walter's embrace that was all right, too. 
Long moments in a bathroom lit only by shameless moonlight. 
Walter smelled  like quiet and sleep, never mind the heat 
against him, making  him smile despite himself.

"Any chance on moving this somewhere I wouldn't have a 
towel rack digging into my spine?"

Something told Alex that Walter wouldn't have minded 
letting  the small, hot droplet stand on its own, but he 
played it off with a lick, anyway. 

"Sure thing, Waaalterr..."

Laughing shudder and he was being spun, awkwardly out the  
door. Into the bedroom, onto the bed. Luxurious, perfect. 
Gave  only just enough. One lazy morning Alex had checked, 
and was gratified to find solid oak boards resting between 
the mattress  and box spring. Of course. 

Another kiss and when that hand gripped him hard and slick  
Alex moaned around the calmly possessive tongue before  
throwing himself back and thrusting up and into the 
welcoming  fist.

"Look at me."

And when he did it was all right to let Walter see it all, 
just this once, because he knew it would make him happy. 

Afterward, something to be treasured: watching Walter 
watching  him -- the slow burn in the older man's eyes as 
he licked the  wide, hard palm clean; planted an 
embarrassingly light kiss on  the blunt fingers. Alex 
pushed the older man flat and began to mouth-map the 
lightly furred torso with slow care.

"I never told you about the Lucky Man, did I, Alex?"

"I never told you how annoying it is that you can hold a  
conversation in moments like these, did I?"

Walter only met the snark with a chuckle, ran his fingers  
through the damp, spiky softness of Alex's hair and pulled 
him closer. "This is important."

Alex quirked an eyebrow, ran a slickly clever tongue around  
one nipple before rolling off to the side again. The groan 
was certainly satisfying. "I'm listening."

The cheerful glower promised revenge, the smirk: 
anticipation.  But then Walter's eyes went far away.

"Fortune teller in Saigon. Some sort of runes, figures... I 
really don't know what to call them. You know what I mean, 
though?"

Alex nodded.

"Anyway, they were carved on these flat bone discs, and the  
discs were in this old wooden bowl. Me and Freakshow -- his  
real name was Foster, you understand -- wound up there  
Christ only knows how. Mama-san was old and leathery. 
Looked like you could use her skin to patch a boot. We were 
both this  close to blind on that nasty Vietnamese beer 
that you really  couldn't help but grow to love, after the 
sixth or seventh--"

"I've learned that tends to be true of any alcoholic 
beverage."

"Smart ass. This was a *different* sort of love... Anyway. 
We  toss Mama-san a few bills, she shakes the bowl. Out 
spills this  crazy scrawled thing. She points at us and 
laughs. Says  something that I translated, roughly, to 
"Lucky Man," or maybe "Fortunate One." Close to that, 
anyway, and I never really wanted to get much deeper than 
that..."

Alex nodded his understanding, let his hand wander the 
planes of the familiar chest. Walter caught it briefly, 
gently. Ran a  thumb over his wrist before releasing him 
again.

"Anyway, we had no idea which one of us she was talking 
about. Spent the next few days arguing about it at 
*length*, especially  since we both found ourselves back in 
the shit without getting laid *once*--"

Alex snickered quietly and took it as his cue to start 
tugging at  the boxers. Walter raised his hips helpfully 
and Alex began planting small kisses in the shallow bowl of 
the older man's hip.  The hand in his hair neither tugged 
nor petted, it was simply  there. 

"Freakshow died not long after that. Sniper fire. Stupid  
sonofabitch, too. Stood there and *watched* to see if he'd  
gotten anyone. Well, he had, but so did we. A squad's worth 
of  M-16s can do some damage to a man.... Felt like hours 
but it was probably only minutes before we turned back for  
Freakshow." Walter paused then, nearly imperceptibly, but 
it  made Alex eyes narrow slightly. "He'd taken a clean hit 
to the  head and his arms and legs.... Well, he was the 
rune. The Lucky Man."

Alex stopped, rested his head on the scarred, shifting 
abdomen and looked up. "A little cosmic irony with your 
blow job, sir?"

Walter laughed again, not nearly as darkly as the situation  
seemed to call for. "No, Alex, I don't think so. Or maybe 
it was. But.... Think of it this way: A few weeks after 
that the entire  squad except for me was mown down in an 
even nastier fashion. I got to survive, feel my clothes rot 
on me, hear the voices of the dead and dream of corpses, 
dancing, dancing...."

"So he was the Lucky Man." 

"Yes, and so was I. I did, after all, get to survive. They 
told me later that I laughed for days..." Walter trailed 
off for a bit and Alex settled. He could understand the 
power of memory. "There  was something so... so perfect 
about the Lucky Man. About a  God or perhaps just the 
random force of the universe showing  me so much in a bone, 
in a casual, meaningless fling of  limbs.... In a lot of 
things, Alex."

Walter caught his eye, then, and the fingers in his hair 
stiffened slightly. Some things needed acknowledgment. 

"I understand, Walter. I may even believe you, someday."

Gentle, rueful smile. "We take what pleasures we can get, 
eh?"

There was a long moment in which something inside him 
swelled to a burning ache, and then he was shaking free and 
taking the  older man as deep as he could, licking and 
sucking and humming and the helpless spread of powerful 
thighs to give him easier  access, the low, rumbling groans 
were perfect. No difficulty in  this, just the simple joy 
of pleasuring a man who claimed to  have reason to care for 
him.

He could allow himself this, the luxury of an outer belief. 
And  the small, bright, sharp thing that refused to believe 
otherwise  was just fine, too. It was the sort of pain you 
grew to love.

~~~~
End.
~~~~