Usual disclaimers:  Not mine.  Don't own 'em.  No profits made.  You know the routine.  Hell, you could probably choreograph it, but I always sprain my ankles when I try to dance....
Rated:  R for mild slashiness, but hey, that's an overstatement, honestly.
Written for the X-Files Lyric Wheel: lyrics below.
3rd in the Time & Tide series.  Previous stories were Needs Must and Etudes In A Minor Key.

Neap Tide

The door number had changed; the current apartment took up an entire floor of the converted building, instead of being tucked into the corner of a complex; but the locks and alarm system still stood no chance against Alex.  No matter how badly the winter winds had lashed through his bones, or how many hours since he'd last slept.

Some things, however, hadn't changed.  The familiar stacks of papers and folders, obscure, erudite texts next to National Enquirer back issues, met his gaze and were so familiar, so blessedly normal after years of surveillance, that Alex found his face hurt from smiling.  Simple, uncomplicated pleasure felt as alien as the oil that had poured through him more times than he wanted to count over the last few years.  At least he'd never feel that again.

"Even the same damn leather couch," he muttered, that hazy content still washing through him.  He never knew if it was the warmth or the familiarity of it that undid him.  Alex simply slid from awake to asleep within a moment of sitting down for just one moment....

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mulder didn't really mind the Metro.  It was relatively quick, efficient, and, at the hours he used it, rush hour crowds weren't a problem.  "Of course, if I ever stop living at the Bureau," he mused as he walked home through the frigid drizzle, "I'll have to actually start driving again.  It's that or worry about being stabbed some night on the way home," he added dryly as he strode up the stairs to the house and unlocked the front door.

He had no illusions about what his superiors -- hell, even most of his peers -- thought of him.  Half of them despised him; the other half wished to God he was dead.  The crux of the matter, so far as Mulder could see, was that he'd been right.  They'd have forgiven anything else.  But he'd pushed for the truth, even when the lies were easier to find.  And they'd found it, where no one had ever expected to see it:  the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Earth had no vaccine against the aliens yet, but the aliens had left all the same.  Ran, more like, Mulder thought derisively, automatically glancing over his junk mail and throwing it in the recycling bin in the foyer, which left him with a whole two bills and this month's issues of Scientific American and American Heritage.  I don't know why we were so surprised.  AIDS has jumped species before now.  But who knew that it would be even more lethal to the aliens than it is to humans?  HIV kills us 99.9 percent of the time -- but it takes months to years most of the time.  It went through them like bubonic plague, two to ten days and boom! they're dead.  Until all they could do was run like hell.  The ones who were still alive, that is.

Mulder chuckled at that, remembering the consternation across several government bureaus and throughout the military when top-ranking officials simply started vanishing.  More than enough of them, and highly placed enough, to show Mulder why he'd had such problems from the very beginning.  And far, far too many to hide.  He understood the former Soviet Union had had an even worse time.  It had been bedlam trying to account for the missing, to cover up the truth with some plausible lie that wouldn't shake governments down as it, too, spread and mutated.

And now?  Everybody's waiting to see what we're gonna do, those of us who ferreted out the truth.  Mulder shook his head in disgust, drops of rain beading his hair and coat.  "Fuck if I know," he growled, suddenly wanting nothing more than sleep and for the weekend to be better than this long week had been.

Knowing that the other two residents of the house were both out of town -- one on a case, the other taking a long vacation to visit friends in Washington state -- Mulder checked their mail, too, and slid it under front doors for them.  Like him, they didn't want anyone to know when they were in... or out.  He understood that perfectly; it had saved his ass once or twice, too.  But that one last chore done, he headed to his own door on the second floor.

He made it through the locks, the alarm, resetting the locks, resetting the alarms, and throwing his wet coat onto the chair near the kitchen before he realized there was someone else in the house.

Mulder glanced sideways at the living room and saw the sprawled figure on the couch, the one that had been reflected in the glass of his aquarium.  He wanted to curse, or rant, maybe just to howl his frustration at the skies.  Instead, he took a deep breath and forced it back out, slowly.  It felt so good he did it again, then again, and, as tired as he was, the instincts that had made him so good as a profiler, that had helped him pry out the odd clues that had given the X-Files such a healthy solve rate, kicked in.

So instead of drawing a gun, or cursing, or any of his other, more usual reactions to Alex Krycek, Mulder shrugged and finished putting keys and wallet in the 'stuff bowl' on the kitchen counter, toed his shoes off to dry under the coat rack, and turned on the overhead light at the stove to provide some illumination for the night.  That done, he walked into the living room and studied the recumbent man.

Tired.  More tired than I am, poor bastard.  He didn't question that description of his betrayer, the man who had privately admitted to killing Skinner and reviving him, to killing Bill Mulder.  He did deny Melissa Scully, Mulder remembered, strangely willing to trust that. Why did I know that this had to come?  That he and I had to run into each other?  It was inevitable, I guess.  I should have known this from the start.  But his mind's eye pulled up his first view of Alex Krycek, the young, green agent in that lousy suit and worse hairstyle, comparing it the exhausted figure on his couch.  The alien invasion had been no easier on Krycek than on him.

No decent sleep in weeks from the look of him, no real chance to soak and get clean.  And lousy food the entire time, too, I'd bet, Mulder decided almost absently.  So he sat down on the coffee table, dropped a pillow onto one end of the couch, and swung the other man's feet up and his head down.  He considered the boots on the leather couch, then shrugged and worked them off, too, amused by the way Alex's deep, even breathing never paused.  Finally, Mulder reached out and tugged the heavy Hudson Bay blanket off the top of the couch and draped it over Alex.  He walked over to the heavy chest under the windows, and, after moving three piles of paper and unearthing two books he'd nearly forgotten he'd purchased, came up with a heavy navy blue comforter, which he also pulled over his unexpected guest.

Mulder yawned then, so deeply that his jaw nearly popped.  The need for sleep rolled over him and he decided that everything else could wait for morning.  As he headed to the comfort of his own bed, all he said over his shoulder was, "Alex?  Don't leave in the morning without talking to me."

He didn't bother closing the bedroom door.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

It's time to walk away.  Any smart man -- hell, a smart chimpanzee -- would walk away from here, Alex realized, eyes still closed.  He hadn't moved from the couch yet.  It wasn't the weight of the blankets, although that was a satisfying heaviness, a thick, deep warmth along the length of his body that was slowly seeping through his bones to displace the chills he'd lived with for so long now.  It wasn't even that Mulder knew him well enough to know that he was awake and only permitting those manipulations of his body, although that was unnerving, too, in its way.  It was the fact that this was the only place left in the world that he wanted to be, and that made him vulnerable.

It's not that I don't have money.  Or access to it.  I just don't have anywhere else I want to be right now.  Long habits of practicality kicked in, though, and he sighed.  On the other hand, thinking about something important when I'm this damn tired is stupid.  He's not going to kill me, for whatever reason.  And that nap was the best I've slept in... too long.  Fine.  I'll figure everything out in the morning.  After I raid Mulder's shower and his coffee.

He did put his gun under the pillow, though, where he could reach it immediately.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"I didn't know you could cook."

Mulder didn't turn around from investigating the contents of his refrigerator.  "Sheer self-defense.  You remember what it's like being in the field.  I got sick of take-out and all-night diners before I ever got out of college, and Quantico just made it worse.  French toast okay?"

"Yeah, sure."  Krycek's voice sounded carefully neutral, but Mulder didn't smile.  This was going to be difficult enough as it was.

"Clean clothes in the bathroom if you want to get a shower," he offered instead.  "Call it about thirty minutes until I've got breakfast together.  Long enough?"  The silence tugged him around as surely as the moon tugged at the sea.  Those startled eyes were sea-green, Krycek's skin gone moon-pale under the accumulated grime.  So Mulder said gently, "Alex.  'Home is that place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.'  Get a shower.  Breakfast will be ready once you're clean."

Rather than move, though, Alex slowly finished the quote. " 'I should have called it something you somehow haven't to deserve.' "

Mulder raised an eyebrow.  "You like Frost, too?"

"Yeah."  The defiant set of shoulders and head dared Mulder to make something of it.

He nodded quietly at that, everything settling perfectly into place as it did during the best of his cases.  "Quit worrying, then.  We'll work this out.  We have to."

"Do you know why?" Alex asked him, not quite desperate suddenly… barely.

Two sets of hazel eyes met, matching wry smiles spreading slowly across faces, then Mulder promised, "Yeah, Alex.  I know.  I'll explain it after breakfast."

"I'll hold you to that."

That got a chuckle.  "You're wasting valuable shower time.  Get going."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The last remnants of cinnamon-sprinkled syrup made interesting patterns as Alex trailed his fork through it.  He looked across the table finally and said bluntly, "So where's the pod?"

Mulder threw back his head and laughed, a roaring belly-laugh that was somehow contagious.  Without being quite sure what was so damn funny, Alex found himself laughing too.  Warm, fed, wearing clean jeans and sweater, the annoying growth of beard gone for the first time in days -- he felt too damn good not to laugh, actually.  And every time one of them would start to calm down the other would look up and say something about 'Serta pod-turepedic' or 'absolutely, pod-itively has to clone them overnight' and they'd start all over again.

Alex finally wiped his eyes with his hand put his head down on his arm so that he couldn't see Mulder.  It still took a few minutes to stop the last few escaping chuckles, but he didn't begrudge that.  This was the best he'd felt in... years.

Mulder's voice caught his attention.  "God.  That was terrible, Alex."

"Since when am I Alex?" he asked, without ever looking up.  "I thought it was Krycek or rat-bastard."

"Since we both retired."

That brought Alex's head up.  "What?"  Mulder looked perfectly serious though, and oddly... content with it.  "When the hell did you quit?"

"About 8:50 last night, I think."  Mulder shrugged and settled back in his chair.  "I didn't realize how sick of it I was until I saw you."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Mulder studied him instead with those damn thoughtful eyes that always seemed to find everything no one wanted exposed.  "Do me a favor.  Say my name."

Alex tilted his head to look back at him, bemused.  "Mulder."  When that only got him a sardonic smile, he said, "Fox," voice suddenly, unexpectedly husky.

Mulder huffed a thin smile, glancing down for a moment as if to shield his eyes from giving anything away.  It was all still there though when he looked back up a moment later, and the wry resignation and affection settled into Alex's stomach only to ignite an instant later.  Whiskey felt like that, slugged so that it hit the throat and stomach before turning to incandescent fire along nerves, heat running through the center and out to every individual cell.

"It's not like we're working on opposite sides anymore," Alex offered at last.

"No, we're not.  And I've been wondering for a while now if we didn't have the same goal, in a lot of ways."

"We're still here," Alex growled.  "That was all I wanted."

"And you were willing to pay for it, too," Mulder agreed softly.  "We'll have to talk about that, later.  I fucked a lot of things up for you."

Alex snorted.  "Yeah, well, you scared the shit out of a lot people for me, too.  It gave me maneuvering room."

"I didn't know I was doing it."

"No," and Alex caught those too-sharp eyes with his own.  "You didn't.  In either case.  Yeah, Mul--" and he stopped short, then changed it, "Fox, we'll talk about it.  Later.  Retiring, huh?"

"Mmm-hmm.  You?"

"Oh, yeah."  His own odd behavior made sense now.  "I was--"

"--coming to say good-bye," Mulder finished, then frowned when he saw Alex's startled look.  "You didn't know?"

"I was running on instinct."  One shoulder lifted in a cocky shrug.  "I'm good at that."

"Yeah," and Mulder grinned.  "You are.  All right.  Let me at least get a shower before we start rearranging our lives, okay?  Mind cleaning up the kitchen."

"You cooked," Alex pointed out, gathering up the plates.  More sharply he asked, "Fox.  Why are we doing this?"

Mulder came and leaned against the counter next to him.  "A lot of reasons.  Do you want the two big ones?"

"Yeah."  The Russian braced himself against whatever incisive revelation might be coming.

"Because who else would understand why the pod-person joke made us laugh so hard?" Mulder said instead and Alex had to grin at that for a moment.

"Shared history, you mean?"

"Yeah.  And this," and he leaned in and kissed Alex, mouth sweet with cinnamon and syrup and lust, bitter with coffee and regrets and memories, hot and wet and that tongue was far, far too skilled after years of chasing sunflower seeds around.  Alex dropped the plate the few inches into the sink, giving into the desire he'd given up on as Mulder rolled over him like the sea, like a wave, and he wanted nothing more than to be the sand under that water, constantly covered and exposed and covered again.  And Fox's eyes were green-grey as the sea, warm and knowing as the kiss went on, as his arms wrapped around Alex's waist, as Alex's hand wrapped around his nape and fingers threaded through his hair.

When he finally pulled back, flushed and smiling, Mulder murmured, "God, I wish we could have done that years ago.  Let me get a shower and a shave, Alex.  But it's time for us to walk away from all this."

Krycek could only nod, and wipe a hand across his mouth, startled and wondering when stubble-burns had become an aphrodisiac.  So this is what it feels like to be part of an us.  And he thought about the smile Fox had given him as he turned away... and followed him into the shower, to see if maybe they could scrub each other clean.

-=-=- finis -=-=-

Previous stories:  Needs Must, Etudes In A Minor Key

Comments, Commentary, and Miscellanea:

For the curious:

A neap tide is the ebb between spring tides when the waters are at their lowest point.

The Robert Frost lines are from "Death of a Hired Man."
 
 

Lyrics provided by Ratboy:

"Walk Away," by Bree Sharp

 sailors have charted these waters since 8/2/00.

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