Title: A Post-Modern Eden
Author: Arsenic
Rating: R (language, discussion of and implications of m/m slash and violence)
Keywords: Lyric Wheel Challenge, Sequel to "From this Nettle..."
Characters/Pairing: Sk/K
Disclaimers: The frolicking duo belong to CC and Ten Thirteen, who do not often allow much frolicking to occur.
Thanks: To Josan for the lyrics.
Dedication: This is for Ursula, who has been such a wonderful fan, in honor of her getting on my ass so regularly to continue my thoughts on these two. Thanks, and I hope this satisfies your craving!!

---

Skinner hated the fact that it didn't surprise him when he got visitors past one in the morning. Half the time he felt like Danny Glover in the "Lethal Weapon" movies. *I'm too old for this shit.* It took him a few minutes after the firm rap at his door to remember through the haziness of several shots of scotch that Mulder was gone, that he had lost the man while practically standing next to him. Which made a two a.m. visitor something of a mystery.

He came near to shutting the door again as soon as he saw the man on the other side of it. Not feeling in the mood to push his luck, he settled for an insult. "You look like shit." It took him a few moments to realize that he had been speaking the truth. The man outside had lost too much weight to look healthy and he had the subtle expression of a permanent flinch, as if he was bearing unhealed wounds. The realization took some of the satisfaction away on Skinner's part.

The other man didn't stoop to his level. "Gonna invite me in?"

"So that I can, what, save face?" Skinner gritted his teeth and threw his right arm in the direction of the living room, palm up.

The visitor walked past him and settled himself carefully on the couch. Skinner sat in a chair caddy-corner from him. "What did you come for Krycek? Nobody up and around to torture but me?"

Krycek's eyes went hard but his lips twisted slightly, one of the only nervous habits Skinner had ever picked up on from the man. "Because I owe you."

When the words penetrated his mind, Skinner was aware of hysterical laughter building up inside him. With a little concentration he managed to brutally suppress it, going instead for a sardonic smile. "Is this some kind of understatement game?" He got up to pace so that he wouldn't take his anger out on Krycek, unintentionally committing suicide. "You throw a man off my balcony, subsequently placing me in deep shit with every Bureau committee and board that everybody has never heard of, kill me in a particularly painful way and then strip me of any self-worth I have by forcing me to work against what I believe in for the right to live in constant fear. Am I leaving anything out?"

"Since you ask, yes." Krycek stood up so that he could stand eye-level with the man now pacing at a speed illegal on most interstates. "You forgot to mention that you took care of me the night before all this went down." He shook his head in something akin to regret. "I know you aren't going to believe me, but I chained myself back out there after you left because I thought that way, when Mulder came, he wouldn't have to know, and things could go back to normal for you. We've both acknowledged my tendency towards pure, instinctive survival, though. When that man saw me, well, flight wasn't an option."

"I suppose we're going to just gloss over the nanocytes."

"Don't have any good excuses for you. They told me to kill you, put the thing in my hands, made it clear that the punishment for not following orders would be death or infinitely worse. So I killed you, I just made it not permanent. I justified it in my mind that if they thought you were under my, and by proxy, their control, they wouldn't so much care that your heart was still beating."

Skinner sneered. "So I should be thanking you for your benevolence in sparing my life."

Circle-rimmed eyes flashed in anger and, more predominantly, disappointment. "Look, you can refuse my choice of payment, but the only person you'd be fucking over is yourself."

"I can find a whore for whatever you were going to propose." Skinner stopped pacing.

Alex turned in the direction of the door. "I bet you'd have to pay him a lot of money to find Mulder."

Skinner lost any semblance of control he had been holding onto. He rushed the man whose back he was facing and shoved him so that he collided face first with the wall. Any squeamishness Skinner felt at the sharp moan from Krycek upon impact was quickly overcome by the rush of satisfaction and release of attacking something that had so long kept him in an agony of anxiety. He pulled back a bare foot and kicked the man who had curled slightly in on himself. Krycek arched back and gave Skinner the perfect target for a series of three kicks. When Krycek pulled back into a ball, Skinner reached down and dragged him up by his collar and forcibly turned him once more to the wall. He grabbed Krycek's right arm and twisted it back at an awkward, wrenching angle.

Krycek screamed and began to talk hurriedly. "Please Skinner, don't, please." His breath quickened and he kept repeating the plea again and again. Skinner pushed slightly further on the arm.

"If I had begged you not to let me believe that you would kill me at any given moment, would you have listened?"

Krycek shook his head no, having run out of the air to do much more than start the word "Please" again and again.

"Then give me a reason I should heed your pleas."

"Because you're a better man -- person." The words came out as mere breaths, but they came out and Skinner dropped him as if bitten. Unable to clutch the arm, Krycek curled it close to his body and wrapped as much of himself as he could around it. He turned to look up at Skinner. "You take care of people, of things," the self-loathing in that statement was thick, "that other people throw away as worthless."

Krycek took a breath before saying more. "I told myself when I pushed buttons that made you fall over in pain that it was alright because Mulder and Scully would take care of things...you. They did, too. But now he's gone and whatever is wrong with Scully, she isn't exactly a pillar of strength at the moment. So even though you don't want me involved in any part of your life, I have to get Mulder back so that someone is around to be on your side."

Skinner closed his eyes to consider the confession. When he opened them it was to a man who was starting to form severe bruises on the left side of his face and probably all along his ribs, as if he hadn't looked bad enough before. He needed food and rest. Skinner let go of the hysterical laughter he'd been hanging onto since Krycek had walked in the door.

Krycek looked at him with concern that was probably for both of them.

Skinner waited until he could speak. "I was just thinking that history has an interesting way of repeating itself." He started to walk towards the bathroom and Krycek pulled himself to his feet and followed. Skinner walked to the hall closet and grabbed some fresh towels, which he threw on the counter by the sink. "You want me to see if I can find you a pair of sweats?" It wasn't that his clothes were in terrible condition, compared to some of the times he'd run into the man, Krycek looked positively well-kept. However, if he was going to let the younger man clean himself up, feed him and probably end up offering him the couch, he might as well give him something to change into when he was done with the soap and water. That was how he saw it, anyway.

Krycek looked at him without the slightest bit of surprise and thanked him. It was irritating, to say the least. He left the room and came back with the same pair of sweats he had given the man three years before. It was still the only pair he had that was small enough. The shower was running, so he tossed them by the door and continued on his way to the kitchen.

It took him two moments of staring at his cupboard to rebel against the situation. *I am not cooking for him.* It was not the middle of the winter, he had not left Krycek on his balcony for hours, the man had deserved any beating he had been given to put it lightly, and most of all, he did not care about the welfare of the other man. That was that. He picked up the phone and ordered carryout; told himself he didn't care whether Alex liked his picks.

Alex emerged damp and swaddled in the large sweat suit. "Thanks."

Skinner had never noticed how the point between blatant hostility and screwing each other mindless was so awkward for them. He gestured for Alex to sit at the kitchen table. "I ordered food."

Alex surveyed the kitchen as if checking to see that nothing had changed. It hadn't. "Pizza?"

"Chinese." It made Skinner ridiculously happy that he hadn't ordered Alex's first choice.

Alex stared at the table. "Duck?"

Skinner frowned at that. "It happens to be my favorite."

"If I didn't know you had-" Alex seemed to choke on what he had been going to say. "You have good taste."

Skinner just nodded as though he expected the man at his table to accept this fact without question. He ignored the aborted sentence. Lusting over Alex was a testament to excellent and horrible taste all at once. Both men were glad when the doorbell rang.

The food gave them a chance to have silence without it being tense. Afterwards, cleanup gave them that opportunity. When everything was thrown or put away, Skinner said briefly: "I suppose you're staying."

"Here is nicer than anywhere else I could go." He didn't add the 'especially now' that popped into his mind whenever he thought of Spender's body sprawled out lifeless at the bottom of the stairs. He didn't regret the act for a moment, but he wasn't particularly pleased over the precaution it was going to take to avoid getting killed until he could get in contact with the few higher-ups still left.

Skinner sensed there was more, but made his way to the linens closet rather than inquiring. He was busy convincing himself that he didn't care. He. Did. Not.

He paused before making the sofa up. "You're going to help me find Mulder?"

"To the furthest extent that I can."

Skinner grimaced and set the pillows and blankets down. "You can do this how you like it."

Krycek didn't tell Skinner that with him sleeping above, memories would keep him from sleep that evening, not uncomfortable bed sheets.

Krycek was dozing when he heard the moaning. Used to waking up in foreign surroundings, Alex knew exactly where he was and, more importantly, from where the sounds were coming. From whom the sounds were coming. It was like deja vu done backwards. Hesitating only a second, he climbed the stairs and peered cautiously into Skinner's room.

Skinner was thrashing, sending sheets and blankets every which direction. His mouth was twisted in an expression of terror and pain and was emitting soft shouts of denial. Krycek went in closer. On the one hand, these nightmares were probably pretty routine; he could leave Skinner to them and they could both pretend nothing had happened in the morning. After all, whatever he was dreaming about had at least a fifty percent chance of including Krycek, and not as a good force. He was convinced Skinner was not the type to sleep without some kind of protection, so waking him could result in his own death, or at the very least, another beating.

On the flip side, he hadn't been kidding when he had claimed to owe the man or when he promised that he would make good on that debt. There was a small voice in Krycek that said part of that was making sure the man didn't suffer unnecessarily. There was a large voice in Krycek that reminded him he had no qualms over taking the chance to touch Skinner, even if it was only for seconds, to wrench the man awake. That was the voice that won.

He carefully laid his real hand on the man's chest and said his name at a normal decibel. When that didn't work he moved his hand to Skinner's arm and shook lightly, repeating his name louder and louder. He was calling out a third time when he found himself under the larger man being strangled. He attempted to call out to Skinner and lift his knee for a defensive kick all at once. Before he could put either plan into action he was sitting on the floor, coughing.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" Skinner sounded as if he didn't know who to be more pissed off at.

"You," cough, "were having," cough, cough, "a nightmare."

"And it didn't occur to you that you might not be the first person I want to see when waking from a nightmare about being slowly killed over and over again and not being able to do a fucking thing about it?" It hit Skinner that he had said more than he had wanted to and he sat back down on the bed.

"I thought about it." Krycek rubbed at his throat. The next sentence was thrown out defensively. "You woke me up from a nightmare once."

Skinner sighed, not wanting to remember or debate. "C'mon, I'll get you some water."

Krycek rose. "I can get my own, one arm still works."

Skinner swung his legs back onto the bed. "Fine."

Krycek went to leave the room; he was surprised at the murmured "thanks" that followed him out.

Krycek stayed and things settled in to a routine, if an awkward one. Skinner did most of the cooking and Krycek the cleaning. Krycek could be gone for days at a time, come back battered or healthy, with something of interest to tell Skinner or without. Other than those information sessions, the only words really exchanged were "pass the salt" and an ironic "hi honey, how was your day?" from Skinner after a particularly long day at the office. Krycek had been glad that Skinner had gone straight up to change rather than coming into the living room to see the wince that remark had caused.

He had come down in jeans with his t-shirt un-tucked and Krycek had fought to keep his face expressionless; the man looked exhausted. He had gotten up and poured a Scotch, handed it to Skinner. Skinner started to smile before catching himself. He took the drink and threw it back instead.

"Allow me to touch you?" If Alex had been one for nervous ticks he was pretty sure his toe would have been digging at the carpet and his finger curling the ends of his hair.

Skinner eyed him skeptically. "Have a particularly good reason?"

"I give good massages." He hadn't survived until this point on his assassin's skills. Not that they weren't good, but in the ranks of the Consortium he wasn't sure being able to kill someone with your little toe would get you out of having to perform more base tasks. Which was why he was scared shitless that whoever had been holding Spender's "leash" was still alive and well.

"With one arm? Try again." Skinner actually chuckled.

"Right." Krycek went distant. He had been told by the women he had dated, back when dating was viable in his life, that he was very good at distant. "In that case, should I order something for dinner? You don't really look to be in chef-mode."

Skinner saw the withdrawal. His not caring theory was wearing more thin every time Alex came home with new information and fresh bruises. Last time one of his fingers had been broken. He had almost given up the game then and told the man that he would take care of things himself. Instead he had sharpened his cruelty and sent up a prayer that he could play out the game until Krycek left.

Right at the moment, though, life was not giving him any aid in the effort. He had spent near to all day explaining to the higher-ups what the situation on Mulder was while making sure to keep his source confidential. Krycek hadn't said a word but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he was hiding out. Skinner was tired, still grieving the loss of a man he considered a friend, worried for Scully, whose pregnancy was refusing to go smoothly even in the early stages and on edge from having to hold shields up in his own home. He wanted a massage, one handed or no.

"Wait." Skinner rubbed his forehead at the barely discernable spark of interest that flared in Krycek's eyes. "You win."

Krycek didn't push his luck, he arranged some pillows from his sleeping spot on the sofa on the floor and gently pushed Skinner down on the them, stomach to the floor. He began at the feet and worked his way slowly to the neck and shoulders, careful of tensed and swollen muscle tissue, at times harsh and at times barely making contact with the skin. Certain things brought Skinner back to a hint of awareness: his shirt being removed; his body being turned over; Krycek's breath ghosting over him as the man began to breath slightly harder. Overall, he was too relaxed to do anything. If the nanocytes had been activated at that moment, Skinner wasn't all that positive he would have felt anything.

When he had finished, Krycek fell back into a sitting position on the floor and waited for Skinner to come around. After awhile, the complacent man turned his head just enough to see the man next to him, threw out an arm, found the collar of Krycek's shirt and pulled him on top of himself. Krycek struggled lightly before realizing that Skinner's eyes held no callousness. A second later he was propelled onto the man's lips.

The kiss was aggressive and heady and too powerful to be called merely sexy. Krycek pulled out of it. "Skinner." He waited until the man was actually looking at him. "You don't want this -- I mean, if you want this, now, I can do it for you, but I don't think you do."

Skinner's eyes unclouded and he considered this. "Let's get dinner."

Krycek thought this meant they were going to forget this every happened -- that he had offered himself like a whore because it was what the man desired at the moment -- perhaps that the man had ever desired it. He tumbled off of Skinner and watched as the older man walked to the telephone and ordered food.

Skinner came back in the room and gave him an uncomfortable smile. "I ordered pizza."

Ah, an apology. "That wasn't necessary, I'm not a picky eater."

Skinner sat down on the couch and motioned for Krycek to join him. "I've noticed." He motioned again, this time Krycek submitted to his wishes. "Why do you keep looking for Mulder? I hardly figure you as stupid and even I pretty much realize that it's a waiting game at this point. Besides, the guys you get your info from don't exactly go easy on you."

"It's our way. One service tradeable for another. Less hassle with taxes that way, I s'pose."

Skinner spoke through a clenched jaw. "Have you ever thought that you were better than that?"

Krycek took a deep breath. "Once. For one night." He turned his eyes up to Skinner. "Tell me it wasn't a trade of services that night and I won't ever mention it again, strongest promise I can make." He took a chance and went on before Skinner could end the illusions he held onto for survival. "Thing is, I pissed off Spender awhile back, sold some shit that belonged to him, not the least of which was myself. Payback's a bitch and all, though, so I ended up in this Tunisian prison, which was a blast. You wouldn't believe the way the temperatures can swing out in the desert," Krycek shivered just enough that Skinner noticed. "You get to these points where the only thing keeping you sane is will power and the small shards of memory that you bother storing inside. With me, especially being held in at night, or when I couldn't fight off bigger men with both limbs for food, it was like there were these miles and miles of empty space in between us that just weren't important. I got so good at thinking about that night...I just close my eyes and I'm with you. I'm sorry about all the things that have gotten in the way of that empty space. Still, I don't think my decisions would be any different if I had to do it all over again right now, because they got me here, and I'm too smart to complain about that."

Skinner wondered how the hell you became the sanity of a man you truly believed you hated. The only thing that was clear to him in the moments after listening to what Krycek was trying to explain was that his one clear reaction to the man was lust. The others were all caught up together. The pity was mixed with reluctant admiration, the anger with hesitant gratitude, the fear with creeping interest. Never one to rush things, he hated having to come up with a response to Krycek's admission without having gathered more data, for lack of a better analogy. He took the middle road. "It wasn't just a night. I'm not sure that it was anything substantially more though. You'd have to stay longer for me to know."

The two men stared at each other, both aware of what had just been offered. This was not an arrangement of convenience anymore -- if Krycek stayed there would have to be emotions involved. Emotions, and between the two of them, quite possibly the occasional fist or cutlery implement. Nonetheless, it took Krycek all of a second to decide. "As long as you'll have me."

The routine changed in the days to follow. At first sharing duties was awkward. Krycek felt like the archetypal boy at a school dance, too nervous to do anything but step on his partner's feet. Of course, when feet were stepped on between the two of them there was a lot more growling and cool posturing than stammering and apologizing, all the same, it was strange.

When Krycek began to realize that they had fallen into each other's patterns, begun to know when the other was going to speak or move, he had to wonder if that was just something that happened with someone you were around a lot. The place where he kept what passed for his dreams hoped that it signified something larger.

Krycek moved from the couch to Skinner's bed, but no further than his edge of it, at least not the first few nights. It took them three nights before they touched for any other reason than to hand one another objects or accidentally. They were watching the sports update on the news. Krycek was grinning, excited over the score of a certain soccer game. Walter looked over just in time to catch the expression and wondered why it looked so foreign. On impulse, he grabbed the younger man's hand. Krycek was so shocked by the sudden contact that he almost hit Skinner in self-defense. He stopped himself, gripped the larger hand even harder and gave Skinner a bigger grin than the one he had been showing before. That night they held hands while falling asleep.

The next night, Krycek was already there when Skinner came home. He came out to where the AD was neatly placing his briefcase. Ever so cautiously, he placed his hand on Skinner's back. When he looked up, Krycek gently and rather chastely kissed him before straightening up and walking back to the desk where he had been reading. It was less than a minute before he felt hands on his back massaging him deeply on the right side, more gingerly on the left.

"You can dig." Krycek sounded near to giddy.

"The object of this is not to hurt you." Skinner didn't change his consistency.

"Sometimes, the deeper you go, the better the feeling afterward." Alex whimpered as the hand bored into him in response.

"When you did this for me, and I kissed you, you said that you would do it, have sex, for me." Skinner pushed so hard that Krycek actually leaned forward. Softly, Skinner rubbed over the spot.

Krycek nodded for him to continue, much more aware than he wanted to be just then.

"You said for me. No mention of yourself."

"You can't honestly believe that I wouldn't enjoy the experience. It's not something you haven't had proven to you."

"All the same, no mention of yourself."

"Fucking is fucking."

Skinner frowned. "And that is what we did."

"We had sex, which is slightly higher on the chart."

"I suppose sex is just sex as well?"

"In the grand scheme of things, yes." Krycek sounded as if he were explaining the facts of life to a two year old. You have to tie your shoes or you will trip. Look both ways before crossing the road. Clean up after yourself when in somebody else's domain.

"Have you ever made love?"

"Do me a favor and don't ruin the moment by being an asshole."

"I'll take that as a 'no.'"

"Love is for people who have the security and time to indulge, or didn't Sharon teach you that? Perhaps Mulder, if Spender's theory is right." Krycek sounded doubtful.

"A bad ending does not mean the whole experience was worthless."

"If I ever find out I'll give you a call."

"You wouldn't have to if you were lying next to me."

"I think you're missing the point. Until you start to actually care whether I am still under the covers come morning, sex or fucking or whatever you want to call it remains a meaningless act of possible pleasure."

Skinner walked away, afraid to have his hands on Krycek's body at that moment. He felt the way he had when he was twelve and he would argue with his mother even after he knew she was right. He still had a tendency to fight for things that weren't true if he felt they should be.

He liked having another human being in the house. It was nice that when things went silent the place never felt empty. Hearing someone breathing near to him each night was soothing. He had admitted all these things to himself with little hesitation.

It was the other things that he found himself holding back from even thinking about. Krycek smelled good. He didn't complain unless something was genuinely bothering him beyond bearing. He was a great listener. He admitted when he didn't know something. He wasn't a picky eater and he liked quite a bit of the same music Skinner did, which made it easy for them to enjoy evenings in near silence. He had a nice laugh, which he shared surprisingly often. When Krycek had caught the startled look Skinner had thrown him after a long bout of laughter he had just grinned and said, "Why is it that nobody expects assassins to have a sense of humor? How else are we supposed to get by?"

It was the words "get by" that had caught Skinner's attention. That was what Krycek did. Despite the laughing, his obvious enjoyment of constant meals, his appreciation of sleeping in a bed, his ease at an evening spent doing nothing, Skinner had seen Krycek talk himself out of bed in the morning.

Krycek would have killed him if he'd known he was being watched. Skinner had just stepped out of the shower and was moving into the sink area silently, not wanting to wake the other man. He heard some mumbling and began to peer into the bedroom, worried that Krycek might be having a nightmare.

The man still in bed had his eyes closed, but the way his right hand was playing with the headboard it was obvious he was still awake. "...Haveta find Mulder for him, c'mon, haveta go out and do that. Besides, you like it here. Safe. Warm..."

Skinner had slunk back into the bathroom before Krycek could realize he'd heard -- he doubted the words that were still coming were for anyone but the man saying them.

He had great reason not to trust Krycek, fantastic reasons to hate him. Any sane man would. He was beginning to suspect that some of Mulder's less stable elements had rubbed off, because he did not hate Krycek. His feelings towards the man were beginning to lean considerably towards a mixture of the tenderness he had felt for the agent that Krycek had been and the frozen ball that he had dragged off his balcony so far back, with a touch of frighteningly real enjoyment of the man as a friend. Given time, maybe something more.

He turned back to Krycek who was still sitting, staring at the desk while pretending to read whatever it was he had in front of him. Skinner spoke softly. "You're right."

Krycek's laugh was bitter. Skinner didn't like the sound of it. He liked the next words out of the younger man even less. "It's alright, it's not like I have my virginity to keep in tact. If you want to fuck I suppose I can give up these newfound principles for awhile."

"Why is it so important to you that we not...fuck?" Skinner emphasized the "we" and swallowed the "fuck."

"I should think that would be obvious."

It wasn't so Skinner asked another question. "Why did your feelings change since the last time?"

Krycek turned around and gave him a look that practically branded the man an idiot. "They changed because of last time."

Skinner thought he heard a muttered "moron" but wasn't sure, he was so busy metaphorically picking himself off the floor. "Ah."

Krycek mimicked the inadequate response. "Ah." He turned back to his work, waiting until he heard Skinner leave to bang his head softly against the desk.

Skinner came home to an empty apartment two days later. He searched the apartment twice to make sure Krycek wasn't hiding out somewhere before he realized that the clothes he had lent him were folded neatly on the bed. Skinner sat down next to them in order to think.

Things had been awkward since that conversation. The apartment had seemed even quieter than when he had lived there alone. If he had listened to what his instincts were telling him, he would have known the man was going to flee. Skinner wondered if perhaps this was a better decision for both of them. He got up to put the clothes away and was surprised when a small black object tumbled from them upon being picked up. Setting the clothes back down, Skinner stooped to the ground, subconsciously holding his breath. The object, which now looked more like a tiny computer, had a note on it.

"Guess you knew I wasn't really going to use this anyway. If I learn something about Mulder, you'll hear. Thanks for the hospitality. -K"

Skinner leaned back against the bed and modified his last thought. This was not a good decision, for either of them. If Krycek didn't want to be found though...well, he was just going to have to wait and hope that the man found something on Mulder soon.

---

The first message came by e-mail. Skinner had the gunmen track down where the message had originated from and ended up with the address of an internet café near Georgetown. The next e-mail was traced to a library near the capitol. It was on the third try that he got lucky with someone not only having seen Krycek use the computer, but actually heard him tell a cab driver where he was going from there.

Skinner followed the directions to a lower middle-class section of town. He found the apartments that he had been told and asked several landladies about a tenant they might possibly have staying there. Eventually one of them said that she thought there was a man of that description living in one of her units, but that he kept to himself most of the time. She shrugged and said that he had been able to pay the deposit up-front so it wasn't her business to care about any odd activities on his part.

Skinner climbed the stairs to the third floor and rapped softly on the door of apartment 39. He was not surprised to be greeted with a gun before seeing a face.

"Let me in Alexei." It wasn't exactly an order, but then, it wasn't exactly a request.

Alex pulled the door back and lowered the gun. "Couldn't live without me?"

Walter wrapped his fingers around the hand that had just re-holstered the gun and pulled the smaller man against his chest. "It wasn't half as much fun as you would think."

Alex struggled against the hold and Walter let him go. He looked in the AD's eyes with an angry wariness. "I gave you your life, I left your house, I'm looking for your pet agent. What the hell else do you want from me?"

"I want..." Walter pretended to consider it as he brought his hand up to caress Alex's too prominent cheekbone. "I want to keep you looking like meals are a normal and accepted event in your life. I want to take showers with you. I want to teach you how to play card games so that I won't be stuck with solitaire. I want to have conversations where you tell me what you really think about things instead of the opinion you find safe to lay on the table. I want to buy cd's to put in my collection for you and keep your drinks in the wet bar. I even want to see if you can help me understand the intricacies of soccer."

Alex looked like a fish that knew it was drowning and couldn't do a thing to stop itself. "You forgot to mention the sex."

"No, I didn't forget, it just wasn't as important as all those other things."

"Right." Alex sounded like he would believe a politician telling him taxes were going to be decreased sooner than what Walter was telling him.

"Alexei-"

"I go by Krycek."

"Alexei, I want sex with you, how could I not? I just...want love and companionship more."

"I'm bad about love, it's pretty much endemic to the life I lead."

"So you say." Walter used the sarcastic tone Alex had used mere moments before.

"And you know me well enough to insinuate that I am lying?" Alex snarled.

"I know you well enough to know that you rarely show what you see as your vulnerabilities. I also know you well enough to know that if you come home with me this has a chance of working."

"Who would have pegged you as an optimist? Too many things in the way, Walt, you know it as well as I."

"I can deal with those things as they come, so can you." Walter practically growled as Alex stayed as tense as before. "What can I say to get you to try?"

Alex tilted his head slightly. "That if I want to leave, you won't stop me."

Walter's eyes narrowed for a moment, but he nodded. "Fair enough."

Tentatively, Alex reached out and took Walter's hand. Walter laughed softly.

"What?" Alex sounded as if he was unsure he wanted to know the answer.

"I just never thought I'd be in a relationship where I was the talkative one."

Alex didn't laugh, but the smile that formed in his eyes first and spread to his lips was promising. With Alex in the lead, the two men walked out of the single apartment with little room its one occupant, and headed back to one that was designed with more than enough space for two people to share.