It's Heaven
by Laura
email: wolfens@cox.net
Summary: After the war
Written for The Mulder/Krycek Wheel inaugural Wheel of Love
Rating: Adult
Warning: I have found out I am out of my depth. But I tried.
Thanks to Kashmir for the lyrics.
The first rays of dawn crept into the abandoned farmhouse, painting a column of gold across the hardwood floor. Mulder stirred in his sleep, waking slowly as his eyes adjusted to the morning light. He languidly got up, taking care not to disturb the young man slumbering by his side. Alex's face was peaceful, wisps of raven hair spilling over his broad forehead. Mulder brushed them away with light fingers, and gave in to the urge to linger and merely look at him. It amazed him, he lover could look so angelic while sleeping. The lines around his eyes softening, making him appear much younger than his years.
Mulder had used to sit like this long before they became lovers, watching him, hesitantly sorting the emotions he had felt beginning to stir in him. But since the first day they had met, Alex had always invoked strong conflicting emotions in him. Things hadn't changed, only now Mulder could recognized his feelings for what they truly were.
In the beginning, when Alex had returned to them with the rebel aliens and a plan to stop the invasion, Mulder had treated Alex like the traitor he had believed Alex still to be, still believing that one day he would wake up and Alex would be gone.
The war had dragged on months. They had fought, side by side, finally destroying the destroyer. Still, he had guessed, and hoped, as the long battle drew to its conclusion, that they were beginning something new from what had burned under the surface for so long. There had been instances of such yearning, such intense feeling between them, moments that had breached every barrier and suspicion and whispered and gasped: He is something else. He is someone to live for.
Mulder left Alex, with some regret, to his dreams, and knelt by the hearth to reawaken the embers. The morning seemed a little chilly, and the house, where they had sought shelter from a nighttime rain, was drafty, but dry. There were several of Alex's infamous meat pies near the hearth, the remainder of last night's supper, carefully bundled into cloth.
Just how many times had Alex been up before him, kindling a fire, with quiet but poorly hidden delight waking him with the warm scent of food? It might be time to return the favor, if only once. Alex had earned his sleep.
He let his mind wander as he went about the task, picking up a still sound pot from among the debris littering the kitchen.
He remembered when, amidst the smoke and the fire, he had suddenly felt a wave of strange warmth from his hand; the skin and flesh seemed to crawl and quiver with a powerful prickling sensation completely unlike the hollow ache he sometimes experienced, a gnawing, foreboding sense of the void.
He had slowly, hesitantly, begun to unwrap the artifact, both dreading and hoping.
Alex had run up to intercept him, bleeding and hurting, but his green eyes shone with a fierce light. His face tight, he had reached to take Mulder's hand, and, trusting in what he now knew, gently loosened Mulder's grip and removed the artifact from his trembling hand.
He had looked up at him, and tears drew pale traces across the soot and blood on his face as he held his right hand to Mulder's cheek, his fingers meshing with Mulder's, the artifact tumbling from his grasp. It was then that Mulder clutched Alex against him as tightly as he could, and stood there, gasping and shaking in the face of elation so vast that it was unbearable, letting Alex hold and support him as much as Mulder did him, until the others found them. The war was finally over.
Perhaps it had been then that he had known. Here by my side, an angel.
They had taken to wandering after the last battle had been ended, frequently visiting their friends, but both still feeling the call of the road, to put it all behind them and it was too strong to resist. Those were good days, mild and pleasant, the land aglow in the summer heat, mostly with only themselves for company. But they had needed no others, and after a while the companionable solitude became something more, blossoming into a deeper bond.
It was under an autumn moon that they first made love, shyly almost, finding their way with one another. A slight smile stole across Mulder's face at the memory, and the one thought that memory still conjured: we are not the bearers of death any longer, but free, free to be and stay with each.
After that, what he had never seen necessary to tell Alex, he knew he could express in other ways. They settled in a small town as winter had drawn near, and waited there through the snow, slowly learning about each other. Not that they did not have their disagreements, those could be blazing if triggered at the right moment, but Alex merged with him like no other ever had.
Alex was turning over in the blankets, forest green eyes glancing up at him. He ran a hand across his face, trying to grasp the waking reality and the sight before him.
"You...made breakfast?" He stared at Mulder.
Mulder only smiled in return.
"That was sweet of you," he remarked, and rose to his feet and walked into Mulder's embrace.
Mulder returned the hug, breathing in the faint scent of his hair. No sweeter than what Alex had done for him, time and again. Giving and receiving. Helping and sharing.
And he knew, as he had before, that Alex did not need to hear any words to confirm what he knew Mulder felt with all his heart. Words were fleeting, soon forgotten. Alex had used them for purposes foul and fair so long he had almost grown wary of them. How could Mulder ever tell him what it was like to hear his laughter, to see his face and sense his warmth as he awoke in the morning, to have Alex by his side day by day? Nothing like that could fit into words. Some of it might, perhaps, fit into the gesture of the breakfast that was now cooling next to the bedding as Alex unashamedly stole a kiss from him while blinking away the last vestiges of sleep.
Mulder held him in the growing golden light that poured in through the doorway, and smiled into his hair, voicelessly whispering the word into the morning breeze.
Here by my side, it's Heaven.
Weapon - Matthew Good Band
Here by my side, an angel
Here by my side, the devil
Never turn your back on me
Never turn your back on me, again
Here by my side, it's Heaven
Here by my side, you are destruction
Here by my side, a new color to paint the world
Never turn your back on it
Never turn your back on it, again
Here by my side, it's Heaven
Careful, be careful
Careful, be careful
This is where the world drops off
Where the world drops off
Careful, be careful
You breathe in and you breathe out
For it ain't so weird
How it makes you a weapon
And you give in
And you give out
For it ain't so weird
How it makes you a weapon
Never turn your back on it
Never turn your back on it again
Careful, be careful
Here by my side, it's Heaven