Novels are rare and precious in fan fiction. 2001 has been a bumper year for complex wonderfully written stories in novel length.
Chemistry*by Louise Wu
Chemistry also by Louse Wu probes the Mulder/Krycek relations and concludes that it is pure Chemistry. Here's a passage chosen by the writer for Chemistry: Chemistry is an incredible novel that defies category. It has hurt/comfort elements. It has a complex plot that include case file elements. I think readers will find a strong Mulder and a strong Krycek in this story yet romantics will also find stuff to feed their soul.
-----
Chemistry 1
I tried to pretend that it wasn't the best sex of my life. He took advantage of me during a weak moment. But all I could think about was his hot wet
mouth sealed onto my cock. God, that man knew how to give a blowjob. Do they teach that in traitor school?
I tried to tell myself that I wasn't really attracted to him. But it was hard to forget the sight of his beautiful green eyes. Even while we were
eating the pizza, he was just looking at me, but oh the way he looked at me.
Raw sex. It made me want him. So maybe I was just a little bit attracted to im. I'd practically begged him to suck my cock.
It was just sex. I'd felt no tenderness toward him. Right? But apparently I had. When I saw his arm I hurt for him. And I'd wanted to kiss him before he
left, but I wouldn't let myself do it.
Well, it didn't mean anything. After all, he just did me, right? I never touched his cock. But I wanted to. I was just afraid of what it might mean or where it might go.
At least I'm not gay. 'He looked like a man, Mulder. He smelled like a man. I think that was a man.' There were a couple of boys in high school, but adolescent jacking off doesn't really count. I read that somewhere. Lots of heterosexual men do that.
I've had sex with women. 'Did you enjoy it?' Yes. Definitely. I think so. I remember that time Phoebe and I had sex at Doyle's gravesite. Up till now
that was the sexual highpoint of my life. Up till now...
I won't do it again, I told myself. But by the time I got to that untruth, I already wanted him again.
**
Chemistry
I didn't care that his blowjob screamed novice. Watching that beautiful man with his mouth full trying to please me more than made up the difference in
technique.
Who would've dreamt that this cynical, angry man would be so sweet in bed? Innocent like the child he must have been before they took Samantha... What twisted sense of self-preservation allowed him to show that vulnerable side to me? It made me want to protect him.
And me, with all my masks and pseudo-masculine crap, I was just awed by him. I swear I checked his eyes twice for black film thinking it had to be some kind of trap.
I was in trouble. Big trouble. The only way I'd ever managed to stay alive was by not thinking about anyone but myself.
We fell asleep for I don't know how long, but were awakened by the doorbell. Sunlight breached the blinds. A clock on the bedside table read 8:27.
He said, "Shit," and rolled over wrapping an arm around my waist. That sleepy touch, when he could have been kicking me out of his bed, meant a lot to me.
"Aren't you going to answer it?"
Pounding on the door was followed by a muffled female voice, "Mulder, it's me."
Echo Lane* by Louise Wu
Echo Lane explores fully a story line that has been hinted at by other writers on line. Most of the story takes place in an alternate world where things took another turn.
Here provided by the author is an excerpt from the novel:
Scully says, "Mulder, take off your clothes."
"Huh?" I tilt my head, confused, until it dawns on me.
"'Kay." I agree, starting to unbutton my shirt, then I stop abruptly. "Not in front of him."
She puts a hand on my shoulder. "If you want answers, Mulder, this is the best way. He knows your body better than I do."
Fuck. There it is, right in my face, the thing I'd been avoiding. They think I'm Krycek's lover. The ghastly thought makes me shiver.
Krycek steps back a few feet, apparently aware of my trepidation.
I allow my shirt to fall onto the sofa.
"It's not him. You don't have to go any further." Krycek's voice is cold as he comes toward me. "What have you done with my lover, you bastard?"
I lean forward. If he wants a fight I'm more than willing.
**
Echo #2
My desk has two frames. My picture of Samantha. And one of those duo frames. One picture is Alex with a towel around his waist. The look on his face is
smoldering. No doubt we'd just fucked or were about to. What a sexy man.
The other photo is the two of us seated on the sofa in the living room. I was in the same tux. Alex wore a matching one, with a green tie hanging loose around his neck. Taken after the party. His head's thrown back and mine is resting on his shoulder. His arm is wrapped around my waist.
I want him. I want what this Mulder has.
Scully's peering over my shoulder. "I took that one."
"What was the event?"
"Dinner at the White House. Alex helped the Secret Service catch an ex-con who'd been threatening the Vice President's wife. She invited him." Scully
smiles in remembrance. "You were hesitant to go that public with your gay lover, but when I told Alex I'd go with him, you suddenly had a change of heart. Rubin's sister runs a limo service, so he borrowed a silver blue limo. We dressed him up like a chauffeur and he drove you there in style."
I look back at the picture. Here I have a life. A good one. Someone who loves me.
The Gift of an Enemy* by Sylvia
The Gift of an Enemy by Sylvia has been a slash zine favorite since 1998. This past year, 2001, Sylvia shared this novel online. This is Mulder/Krycek rip your soul open stuff. I think it would be difficult for any lover of Mulder/Krycek slash not to find many elements they love in this story. This is Mulder and Krycek on a marvelous case file. Certainly, Sylvia could have recast this story as a novel she could publish as original. Instead, it is Mulder and Krycek at their finest.
Here's a passage from the first chapter that I think most readers will recognize as quintessential Mulder/Krycek.
All of the pain, frustration, fear, and desperation exploded into a white-hot blaze of violence. His fist came up and he swung it with all his strength, straight at Krycek's face.
Something flashed briefly in Krycek's eyes and was gone. Mulder saw the other man begin to react instinctively begin to duck, block and counter-attack in a single, instinctive flow of motion that drifted through his body as smoothly and naturally as a ripple across a pond.
Then Mulder saw him check himself and straighten into the blow. Sprawl onto the marble floor with the force of impact.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-" As soon as Mulder realized that the voice apologizing was his own, he stopped. He had hit Krycek, so why was he apologizing? Granted, he had no idea why he had hit him at this particular moment, but when hitting Krycek, there was never a reason to apologize. Was there?
With a distant, rapidly fading sense of worry, he remembered where they were and swept a look around the lobby.
Everyone was gaping at him in the wide-eyed, slack-jawed way of people who couldn't believe their eyes. The Bellevue was not the kind of establishment where brawling in the lobby was part of the expected behaviour from guests.
But Mulder was beyond caring now. His mind was empty of thought, frozen into glacial impassivity.
"Mulder. Mulder? Come on, Mulder." Krycek was blocking his field of vision. "All right now? Okay? I think we should leave now, don't you? We can get a room somewhere where our reputation is a little less interesting. Okay? Come on, Mulder, talk to me!"
Some distant murmuring that failed to crystallize into meaning in Mulder's ice-numbed mind.
"No, thank you," the familiar voice answered. "There's no need. It was merely a misunderstanding. Yes, quite certain, thank you-I appreciate it."
He was taken firmly by the arm, and this time he allowed himself to be led tamely out of the building into a cool wind. A vaguely familiar young man in uniform came up to them and asked something he didn't bother to listen to.
He watched several brightly colored leaves tear loose from a tree nearby and blow away on the breeze. It was the most heart-breaking thing he'd ever seen and his throat clogged up so badly that he was afraid he might start to cry.
"I think we'll call it a day. Perhaps you could recommend another hotel around these parts, officer? This one is a bit too-shall I say, ostentatious?"
-----
Here later in the story, another vivid scene with our favorite characters:
-----
Mulder shook his head and frowned, irritated at his digressing thoughts. "Okay, he pushed you. That means telekinesis, preternaturally fast reflexes of course, telepathic or empathic hold over a maximum of one person at a time, and undefined abilities regarding the control of inanimate mechanical objects like locks, guns, and cars. It's possible Riley's car, the door, and the guns were also influenced by means of telekinesis, but considering how many different ways Max would have had to split the talent just now, it's not likely. The telepathic hold is a purely external one at first, not supported by internal and permanent factors like implants, but there may be a more permanent bond, perhaps established in part through physical intimacy. The interference effect caused by the pain could be chemical. Hormones, adrenaline, neurotransmitters, something similar. That would be easy to replicate. Or it could be mechanical. Some manner of neural overload."
No response. Krycek was staring off down the street, clearly not paying attention.
A surge of affronted anger rose in Mulder. "Apparently you have this all figured out, Krycek? If you think you don't have anything to do with this investigation you'd better think again after what-"
"When are you going to drive out to the Lawrence's, Mulder?"
Mulder glared at him. "What's this about? You afraid of being snatched by another alien influence?"
Krycek flinched, very slightly, but noticeably.
With perfect clarity, the picture of the witch and Krycek flashed into Mulder's mind. The way Krycek had stood clutching his gun, face white, eyes wide and almost black. How he'd briefly closed his eyes once the Lawrence had moved off, looking dazed and frightened... breathing with obvious concentration, the way people trying to stave off a panic attack often did.
Shit. Mulder felt like a brute.
"Look, Krycek, you held up pretty well in there. It must have been-"
"Next time a Lawrence witch gets that close to me, Mulder, I'm going to kill the bastard," Krycek said without looking at Mulder, his voice hard and flat. "You want to keep them alive, you keep them the hell away from me."
There was something odd in the way he said that.... On a hunch, Mulder called up the memory of the moment Maximilian Lawrence had reached out for Krycek. There had been a brief instant when Krycek's body had seemed to freeze into complete immobility. Then, still before the witch's leisurely gesture had been completed, he'd relaxed and shifted his stance. Moving in preparation for violence. He'd been about to attack then, before the Lawrence had ever touched him. Why hadn't he?
Mulder considered the memory and came up with only one plausible explanation. "You thought I was talking to you."
Krycek glanced at Mulder and, for the first time, seemed to notice that the other man was standing next to the driver's door, ready to get in the car. "Oh, you need the keys. I have them here somewhere-"
"You didn't attack the witch because you thought I had told you not to."
"Well, we both know how you get when you don't have everything your way, Mulder. I'm not in the mood for pain. Here, catch."
Mulder fielded the keys one-handedly and jiggled them in his palm, regarding the other man thoughtfully. "I didn't realize you'd be stupid enough to try and kill him for chucking you under the chin."
The younger man gave him a brief, hard glare and straightened away from the hood, wrenching the passenger's door open with more force than necessary. "Do me a favor and shut the fuck up, Mulder."
The automatic assumption, Mulder had been ordering Krycek, not the witch, to cease and desist. The way he'd said Mulder's name-not as though he were asking for help, but as though he were announcing something. Announcing that he wasn't going to be able to follow-orders? Yes. Orders. File that away for later consideration. The closed look on his face when the witch had moved off. Trying to lock the panic away before anyone saw it-before anyone realized he was vulnerable. The incomprehension when Mulder asked if he was all right.
Several more pieces of evidence to be fit into the pattern that was Krycek.... Pieces that fit nicely into the picture of a man raised for the purpose of being the perfect tool and weapon-a man who was, perhaps, even more alone within his own soul than Mulder was. A man who had demons locked in there with him that would give Mulder's a run for their money.
The pattern was not complete, but then no human pattern ever was, or could be. Mulder had a lot to work with where Krycek was concerned. If only he could remember to work with it.
Mulder got into the car, but didn't start the motor. After several moments, Krycek turned his head, giving him a coldly suspicious glance.
"I was talking to Max Lawrence," Mulder told him. "When I said 'don't,' which you apparently interpreted as 'don't be a stupid asshole and try to blow the guy's head off because you don't like being chucked under the chin,' what I was actually saying was 'don't chuck my-lawyer-under the chin because he won't like it and may be a stupid asshole and try to blow your head off.'"
Krycek shrugged and turned away to stare out of the window on his side of the car. "Crossbows," he said after a moment. "Pistol crossbows-or maybe that's already too complex, they might be able to jam the mechanism. Tournament or hunting longbows, though the projectiles have a much lower velocity. Maybe they'd be able to dodge, or catch them telekinetically. Knives, of course. Fencing foils with the safeties off and the tips sharpened. No poison-who knows what their body chemistry is like. Explosives should work, though. Telekinesis isn't much use against chemical reactions, I'd guess."
The Lateness of the Hour* by Cody Nelson
Cody Nelson is another classic X-Files slash writer with many on line stories and zines to her credit. What can one say about Cody Nelson except that it's a pity there are not two or three of her writing Mulder/Krycek.
"Lateness of the Hour" is one of the shorter novels, the long awaited sequel to "Restitution". It explores the issues of pain and pleasure, longing and mistrust that are the core of the finest Mulder/Krycek stories.
I'm cruel. You have to read the entire thing again to find out what happened before this scene. Wait, that's a good thing!:
"That was fun," Mulder said, a somewhat tentative lilt in his voice.
"Yes, it was," Krycek replied firmly. At least, it ended up being fun. His nerves were still a little raw from having had a gun shoved in his back. "You know, you scared the shit out of me at first."
"Yeah?" Mulder grinned.
"I thought you were going to kill me."
There was a pause while Krycek's words sunk in. The grin slowly faded. "You're serious."
"I wasn't really sure it was a game until you stopped to go get the lube. I was just getting ready to make a break for it when you backed off."
Mulder shook his head, confusion giving way to distress. "I can't believe you thought I was really going to hurt you."
Krycek could only stare. That wondrous Mulder denial: it was almost charming, in a thick-headed sort of way. Krycek could still count the bruises Mulder had given him, the number of times he'd stared down the barrel of Mulder's gun. Could Mulder really believe the past all wiped away and forgotten?
-----
Somewhat later in the story; here's a definition of Mulder and Krycek's painful love for each other.
Now here was that black passion again, all the anger and pain, never far away, just temporarily pushed aside. "I don't know!" Mulder's voice rose, and there was a tremor in it, nearly breaking. "I don't know what else to do. You make me so... crazy, I just don't know what to do. Sometimes I just want...." His fists worked, his knuckles gone white as his fingers dug into his palms, and he spoke in a harsh whisper.
"Sometimes I want to rip you to pieces with my bare hands, every last cell of you, until there's nothing left." He stopped, drew a deep, ragged breath. "But I can't. So I fuck you. It's the only thing that makes it at all bearable. It lets me forget, for a little while."
Santuary by Jami and Jennie
"Sanctuary" by Jami and Jennie is one of the late most offerings of 2001, but what a way to end the year! The novel category just happens to span the many eras of Mulder/Krycek canon and fan fiction. This story is set late in the canon of the series and explores a more mature and reflective Mulder and Krycek. Jami and Jennie have been an incredible writing team, adding new life to Mulder/Krycek slash.
Nothing like a strong start to draw you right into the story:
The house is warm even though I'm the only one in it. It doesn't even feel like I'm hiding anymore, although that's really what I'm doing - I can't lie to myself the same ways these days. Especially since they dug me up. It still seems incomprehensible to me that I was actually buried and in the ground, my cold, gray, decaying corpse lying in the casket so lovingly selectedby the few friends and family I have. It doesn't seem the appropriate ending for a man who's journeyed across the threshold of human technology and found himself in the here and now with hardly any recollection of what happened. I've never equated abduction with death, for some reason. Maybe because I secretly believed that to be abducted myself would be the answer, the key to the Grail, the experience that gave me all knowledge that I had ever lacked, or sought, or fought to find.And here at the end, in the twilight period of my life, in a retirement that I convinced Scully I wanted more than anything now, I wonder just exactly why it is she swallowed that. Scully knows me better than I know myself, she understands my motives and impulses more than I do, and yet she let me go.
-----
Here's a lush passage from midway through the novel:
-----
I slide to one side, lying along his length, and tentatively explore his chest. I can feel his warmth through the fabric of his t-shirt and I like it. A lot. But, I want- "Would you take your shirt off, Mulder? I want to feel your skin."
"Oh yeah," he says, quickly working his way out of the garment. Taking my hand in his, he places it on his chest. Soft. A sparse scattering of hair. A thundering heartbeat under my hand. I think he likes it. I know I do. And, if he feels this good...
I shift position and open my mouth to taste him.
"Ah!" He arches up and ruffles his fingers through my hair. "'s good, Alex." His eager reaction encourages me to continue. Curiously, I keep on caressing him with tongue and hand, fascinated by his unabashed reactions.
When my mouth lands on one nipple, he gasps. "Yeah," he moans. "More. Please!"
Reflexively, I press my hardened cock against his hip as I continue to explore him. I don't know exactly what we do next, but whatever it is, I now feel sure that I WILL enjoy it. Mulder will make sure of that.
***
Mulder:
He's... unraveling me, turning my brain to mush and my insides to jelly. I want him so badly, so fucking BADLY... I can't just push him into this, and yet he seems so desperate to please. His cock is a burning brand against my body, and I realize that I'm going to have to do something to get this show on the road.
"Alex," I manage, "I want to feel your skin, your body. Here, help me take these off." I start squirreling out of my shorts, and he assists me, pullingt hem over my feet. He's still wearing the t-shirt and sweats, and as I reach for him, he stops.
