A rose, by any name, would smell as deadly

 by Mort

Sequel to Thorns
Pairing : M/K
Warning: Semi non-con.

"Zombies aren't bloodsuckers," Mulder mumbled.

"WHAT?"

"I said I didn't forge your signature, Sir. I merely waved a form around and 'suggested' you had signed it," Mulder amended.

"And that makes it okay?" Skinner demanded.

Mulder dropped his eyes and chewed petulantly on his lower lip. "No one would listen to me, Sir, and I did what was necessary to protect the local population."

"Of course they didn't listen to you! You'd just spent two days trying to convince them that they were living a re-run of 'Night of the Living Dead'. You've made the FBI a laughing stock in this town, Agent Mulder."

"I only said the killer *thought* he was a zombie," Mulder protested. "The evidence Scully collected from the victim's fingernails had traces of formaldehyde and decayed flesh. The killer is wearing clothing that has been on a corpse. My theory is that this person *thinks* they are dead. Maybe they were even pronounced dead and buried alive."

"Then clawed their way out of the grave and started eating passers-by?" Skinner drawled sarcastically.

"Exactly," Mulder said, too enthusiastic to pay attention to Skinner's mocking tone. "That's why Scully went to see the other body straight away. Haines said it has far more distinct bite marks. If we can match the bites with the dental records of any of the townsfolk, we will find our killer."

"Unless it's a drifter or someone who goes out of town for dental work," Skinner pointed out.

"*That's* why I decided to carry on physically looking for the killer instead of waiting for the lab results," Mulder said defensively.

"WITHOUT BACKUP!" Skinner roared.

Mulder opened his mouth to give a fresh excuse, couldn't think of one, and shut his mouth again with an audible snap.

"So, let me tell you what is going to happen, Agent Mulder. I am going to spend the night here, in this godforsaken town, and tomorrow morning we are going to sit down together with the Mayor and the Sheriff and BY THE BOOK we are going to get to the bottom of this mystery."

"Um…the motel owner left town yesterday. You can't get a room," Mulder mumbled, deciding it was probably wiser not to explain that the man had bundled a suitcase into his car and had fled the 'zombie' in panic.

"That's okay, Mulder. I'll take the bed. You take the couch. I'm not letting you out of my sight until we get back to Washington, and *then* I'm going to bury you with so many phone-surveillance cases that you will be old and gray before you get out of your basement again. "

"Look, Sir. I know I broke a couple of rules, but I'm right. I know I'm right."

"Know something, Mulder? I don't care whether you're right or not. What I do care about is one of my Agents running around with a death wish."

"A what?"

"You heard me. For the last month your behavior has been becoming noticeably bizarre, Mulder, and believe me, it takes a lot to make *you* seem stranger than normal. I don't know what's going on in your head, and you've refused every attempt I've made to try and talk to you. So, it stops here and now. I want to know what is making you jump every time a phone rings or a door opens. I particularly want to know why you have taken this case and behaved so outrageously that it appears you either are trying to get your ass kicked out of the FBI or, god forbid, hoping you'll become a victim yourself."

Mulder gaped at Skinner in astonishment. He knew he'd been on edge. Who wouldn't be fucked up if a possibly insane assassin had declared undying love for them? He didn't see what that had to do with anything though. He'd been doing his job, that was all, and if he'd gone at it a little too enthusiastically it had only been because he'd been feeling light-headed with relief at being out of Washington, away from Krycek's secret surveillance. 

He hadn't gone after the zombie alone because he had a death wish; he'd gone alone because, in the scheme of things, facing a zombie was a hell of a lot less terrifying than the idea of facing an amorous Alex Krycek.

"I thought we were past this stage, Sir," Mulder sulked. "I thought you trusted me." 

"So did I, Agent Mulder. If I had a dollar for every time I've put my ass on the line for you I'd be sitting in Bermuda sipping a cocktail. Instead, I'm in 'buttsville' Tennessee, staying in an uncanny imitation of the Bates Motel . And why? Because yet again you've managed to take a perfectly ordinary situation and turn it into an X-file!"

"Flesh-eating killers might be *your* definition of ordinary, Sir," Mulder huffed. 

Skinner scowled but gave a tiny nod of apology for his temper.

"It's 2am, Mulder. I suggest we both get some sleep. Otherwise we'll both look like the living dead in the morning. Hopefully, Scully will be back in time for breakfast with the dental records and maybe we'll get to the bottom of the mystery."

Mulder nodded, grateful for Skinner's attempt at reconciliation, and then took the opportunity of Skinner disappearing into the bathroom to quickly strip, grab a spare blanket, and dive onto the couch. He huddled on his side and pulled the blanket up over his face so that he wouldn't have to watch Skinner crawl into bed.

Whatever he might have said to Krycek, Mulder had a horrible suspicion that if Skinner stepped out of the bathroom buck naked, he'd come just from the sight.

"SLUT!"

The outraged shout was accompanied by a savage blow against the back of Mulder's head.  The punch drove him to his knees and he rocked forward drunkenly, using his hands to brace himself as  a thudding pain echoed through his skull and starbursts of light exploded in his vision.  He didn't even attempt to evade any further blows. That one screamed word had been sufficient clue of who had been waiting for him in his apartment and he'd had four weeks to consider the futility of resistance when this inevitable moment came.

"I thought you promised not to hit me anymore," was all he gasped, as inhuman fingers clutched his hair and yanked his head back until he was sure his neck would break and he was staring at the strange, upside-down vision of a furious Krycek.

"So you *do* remember our conversation," Krycek snarled, his lip curling into a sneer of derision. "Do you remember what else I promised you?"

"You...you said...if I fought you...you'd kill...Sk...Skinner..." Mulder stuttered, more because he could barely breathe though his twisted trachea than because of nerves. He had *no* intention of fighting, so he had no real expectation that Krycek would hurt Skinner. Killing Krycek, on the other hand, was a definite possibility.

Mulder had given it a lot of thought over the past few weeks. Krycek's message had been clear. Either Mulder had to submit to him, or kill him. There were no half ways in this situation. Mulder either had to let Krycek 'love' him, or he had to put the assassin in the ground.  The problem was that Mulder couldn't see himself getting the opportunity for a clear shot at the other man unless he first lulled him into complacency.

So when Krycek's next word was a vicious bark of "strip", Mulder complied.

He rocked back on his heels and cautiously removed his jacket, then slowly unbuckled his holster, knowing Krycek would be ready and able to punish any effort to pull his weapon. Then he took his time with his shirt, carefully undoing each button under Krycek's hungry gaze.  The chill air of his apartment made his nipples harden into prominent nubs as soon as they were exposed, and Mulder saw Krycek's pink tongue flicker between his lips as he stared. 

Mulder dragged it out, knowing Krycek wouldn't dare stay long and hoping that he would distract him for long enough with his striptease to leave little time for the inevitable rape. Perhaps his thoughts showed in his expression, because Krycek stormed forward and grasped his hair once more, dragging him to his feet.

"I don't want a sex show, slut. I said STRIP!"

Mulder blinked in confusion. This was the  second time Krycek had called him a slut. He decided he'd preferred the Krycek who sent roses and whispered 'I love you', after all. As he pulled off his shoes, pants and socks, until he was left shivering in only his boxers, he could almost feel the waves of anger rolling of the younger man.  Krycek was pissed, big time, and Mulder was damned sure he was going to regret it if he didn't at least try to calm Krycek down.

"What's wrong, Alex?" he wheedled.

He saw a flash of appreciation in the green eyes for his use of Krycek's first name. It was just a momentary, almost reluctant, softening of the rage that swirled in the intense glare, but it gave him a little hope that Krycek might be reasoned with. He relaxed a little, only to be doubly surprised when the hand that was holding his hair gave a vicious twist, lifting Mulder to his toes in agony.

"Hands behind your back," Krycek snapped.

Mulder did as he was told and felt his wrists cuffed together by Krycek's other hand. As soon as he was bound, Krycek hauled him into the bathroom by simply marching forward without releasing Mulder's hair. By the time Krycek released him, and shoved him so hard that he stumbled against the bath, Mulder's eyes were streaming with tears of pain, so it took him a moment to see and then recognize the rubber tubing curled on the floor of the bath like a snake.

Even so, he gave a bleat of "What the hell?"

Krycek took advantage of his momentary surprise to rip Mulder's boxers off, leaving him exposed and humiliated in the cold, harsh glare of the bathroom striplight.

"Get in the bath, Mulder and kneel down."

"Look, you don't have to do this, Alex. Please. Let my hands go and I'll make sure I'm clean for you."

"CLEAN?" Krycek roared, losing his patience and physically forcing Mulder to step into the bath. 

Mulder quickly sank to his knees, unwilling to risk being knocked down onto the unyielding ceramic.

"You won't be clean until I've washed every trace of his spunk out of your dirty ass, Fox."

As Krycek's titanium hand forced his head down until his forehead touched the chilly bath ,so that his ass was left vulnerable to the greased tube that Krycek immediately began to force into him, Mulder finally understood what was going on.

"No," Mulder gasped. "You're wrong. We just shared a motel room. I slept on the couch, Alex. He never touched me. I swear!"

Krycek ignored him and continued forcing the rubber pipe between Mulder's clenched buttocks. 

"I told you, Fox. I warned you. Your ass is *mine*. Nobody else touches you. Do you understand me? I said DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND ME?"

Shuddering with cold, shock and fear, as Krycek raped him with the hose, Mulder could only sob and gasp he understood, while he continued to protest his innocence. Krycek tapped him gently on the ass cheeks. 

"It's in," he proclaimed cheerfully. "Now let's wash that fucker out of you."

He turned the tap on and watched carefully as the water flowed through the curled tube.

"I don't want to damage you, Fox, so we'll do this nice and slowly."

Mulder gasped as the cold water emerged into his bowels and began to fill him. He'd given himself enemas before, but always with warm water and a small douche bag. Never with freezing water that continued to flow into him even as his whole insides began to strain with pressure.

"No more. Please, Alex. It's enough," he gasped, as he felt his bowels beginning to contract.

"A little more, I think," Alex replied coldly. "We have to be sure you're *really* clean. If I have to do this twice, it's going to really hurt when I fuck you."

Mulder sobbed but choked back a protest. Despite the grease, the hose had scratched and abraded him as Krycek had pushed it in. The thought of suffering the sensation again was enough to make him try to tolerate the pressure building inside him. Then his bowels heaved violently, refusing to accept his mind's control.

"PLEASE," Mulder yelled.

This time, Krycek seemed satisfied. He turned off the tap and carefully removed the  hose.

"Clench," he warned, "Or you'll shit yourself."

Cheeks burning with humiliation, Mulder gritted his teeth and concentrated on controlling his bowels as Krycek helped him to his feet, out of the bath and then seated him down on the toilet. Then, to his shame, instead of leaving his alone, Krycek perched himself on the side of the bath and smirked.

"Go ahead, Fox. Let it all out. You'll feel so much better."

"Bastard," Mulder snarled, no longer capable of pretending compliance. "At least give me some privacy."

Krycek gave a wry chuckle, but his eyes were flint-hard.

"You're mine, Fox, and you betrayed me. But from now on, if only because you remember this moment, you'll never again forget that your ass belongs to me."

"I told you," Mulder gasped,  closing his eyes in embarrassment as his bowels contracted once more and the flood inside him began to gush into the toilet bowl. "He didn't touch me!"

Krycek watched Mulder thoughtfully as he spasmed wretchedly on the toilet.

"Maybe he didn't," he finally concluded. "But you wanted him to, didn't you?" 

"NO," Mulder yelled, but his shout sounded false, even to his own ears.

"So" Krycek asked, as he ran his tongue slowly down Mulder's spine. "Was it a real honest to god Zombie?"

Lying in an exhausted heap on the bed, his hands now uncuffed because Krycek knew he was too weak now to struggle even if he wanted to, Mulder tried to ignore the shivers of sensation that were trickling down his back and continued the story that had begun as a plea for Krycek's understanding but had changed, somewhere in the telling, to some form of intimate confession.

Mulder was tempted to lie. Either to make himself look less stupid or to test Krycek's gullibility, yet it wasn't only his fear of Krycek's retaliation for a lie that made him tell the truth. It was the strange fact that it felt good to have someone to talk to, someone who understood, even if that same someone was a ruthless assassin who was shortly going to be fucking him through the bed. And even more strangely, the closer Mulder's tale was coming to a close, the less the prospect of his imminent 'rape' concerned him. How could it, when the heat of Krycek's body was like a comforting blanket over his chilled limbs, when the touch of Krycek's tongue alone was sending impulses to his own cock, and when even the earlier humiliation of the enema was becoming cloudy in his mind. His sense of personal outrage was dimming in the light of Krycek's obvious obsession.

As terrifying as it was to be the object of Alex Krycek's love, it was also oddly exhilarating to realize the power he held over the younger man. Simply the suspicion that he had been 'unfaithful' had been enough to drive Krycek almost insane with rage. As scary as that had been to experience, it was also addictively flattering.

A sharp nip from Krycek's teeth reminded him that he'd been asked a question.

"No," Mulder confessed. "Neither was it someone who had been buried alive and had crawled back out of his grave. He turned out to be the local car mechanic. I was wrong, but I was right too."

"How so?" Krycek asked, as he reached for the lube and condoms he had brought with him.

"It was the dental records that caught him. He had a particularly evident overbite as a result of a serious car accident six months ago. He broke his jaw in the accident and  he had recent x-rays on file for comparison. Anyway, it turned out that he 'died' on the operating table. He had the whole near-death experience. Only instead of bright lights and heaven, he envisaged a much darker place."

"So, you're saying he figured he was going to hell, so what the hell?" Krycek chuckled, as though he knew the feeling well.

"I don't know. I haven't had a chance to interview him yet, but from the little he said when we arrested him, he seems to think he *is* dead. He thinks he died in the accident. In other words, he does *think* he's a zombie," Mulder replied, then gasped as a slick finger breached his still loose pucker.

"In other words, he's a nutter," Krycek concluded, bored now that the mystery had turned out to have such a mundane explanation.  He prodded carefully, grinning at the way that his single finger made Mulder begin to squirm with reluctant excitement.

"Of course, he's a nutter," Mulder snapped. "He killed people and ate them. It's hardly sane behavior, is it?"

"I don't know, " Krycek murmured, sliding down Mulder's body until his face was level with Mulder's buttocks. "I kill people, and now I'm about to eat *you*." 

Before Mulder could react to Krycek's words, he felt the finger withdraw from his ass and replaced by the wet heat of Krycek's tongue.

"Jesus," he moaned, arching his back and thrusting himself up to welcome the sensation of Krycek's tongue as it dove in and out of his ass in a flickering motion that sent shivers through his whole body. Krycek's tongue seemed unnaturally long, unbelievably thick as it forced through the walls of his anus and licked his ass into quivering submission, yet at the same time it seemed too small, too short to satisfy the sudden raging desire that coursed through Mulder's whole body.

He didn't resist as his legs were pushed apart to allow better access. He didn't even complain when Krycek's artificial hand was a little too enthusiastic as it reached around and fondled his cock. But he sobbed when Krycek finally withdrew his tongue and gave a last, loving lick across his pucker.

"Next time I insist that you are clean for me, you won't argue, will you?" Krycek commented, and Mulder only sobbed a little harder as he realized that Krycek was right. Suddenly the embarrassment of the enema seemed a small price to pay in exchange for the feel of Krycek's tongue inside him like that.

"What do you want, Fox?" Krycek teased, slicking his cock with lube and then moving so that it brushed lightly across Mulder's opening, yet then pulling back each time he saw Mulder's ass quiver in expectation.

Mulder clenched his jaw to prevent a groan of need escaping. All he wanted, all he needed, in that moment was for Krycek to complete what he had started. But he'd be damned before he admitted it to the bastard.

Krycek began to rock against him, each forward motion leaving a small drip of precum on Mulder's already shining pucker. It took all his self-control not to simply plunge inside to quench himself in Mulder's depths. Mulder was hot for him. His breath was coming in ragged breaths, the muscles of Mulder's lean back were rippling with excitement every time that Krycek's cock touched him and Mulder's own cock was leaking so badly that Krycek was sure that the mattress would be stained.

Yet, still, Mulder refused to admit his desire.

"You don't have to beg, Fox," Krycek whispered. "You just have to say 'yes'. That's all. I know you want me. So that's okay. Just say that one word and I'll scratch your itch for you."

He thrust against Mulder again. This time he let his cockhead breach the rim of Mulder's ass, and then he again proved his self-control by withdrawing completely again. There was no hurry. Mulder was his. He didn't care if it took the rest of his life to prove it to the other man, although judging by the sweat now pouring off Mulder's quivering body, he suspected that his Fox was *almost* in the snare.

So when the word that finally emerged from Mulder's mouth was "NO", instead of erupting in fury, as Mulder had expected, Krycek simply rose from the bed and began dressing himself.

"What are you doing?" Mulder gasped, dragging himself up into a sitting position.

"Things to do, people to see," Krycek replied casually. "I've no time to play games with you tonight, Fox. You'll have to deal with that yourself," he added, with a casual wave at Mulder's swollen cock.

And he left.

"Forento's attorney called," Scully told him, as soon as Mulder entered the basement. "He's pleading not guilty by reason of insanity."

"Well, that's a given," Mulder replied distractedly. "Hard to claim sanity when you think you're a flesh-eating zombie."

"I know Skinner gave you a hard time, Mulder, but he was right about how stupid it was for you to try and lure Forento out alone. You *promised* me you'd stay in the motel. I wish I could kick your ass myself."

"Cheer up, Scully. I'm sure Skinner will do enough kicking for both of you," Mulder groused.

"You haven't heard, have you?" Scully asked, her face filling with a new concern.

"Heard what?"

"Skinner's in hospital. Intensive care."

"WHAT?"

"It's okay, Mulder. He's going to make it. They're just taking every precaution because his lung was punctured in the attack."

"What attack? When?" Mulder asked, his voice suddenly so quiet that Scully could barely hear him.

"Someone broke into his apartment last night and beat him up. He never saw his assailant. He's got a fractured skull, three broken ribs and a lot of bruises. He was left unconscious but alive, so whoever did it was either disturbed or didn't mean to kill him. The punctured lung was probably an accident."

"What time, Scully?" Mulder asked dully.

"A little after 3am," Scully replied.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"Skinner only called me an hour ago, and I assumed he'd already spoken to you."

Mulder nodded, and filed the fact away for later. Why *hadn't* Skinner called him?

"Did the perp. leave a note?"

"How did you know?" Scully asked suspiciously.

"It's a logical question," Mulder snapped back defensively.

"Yes, but it doesn't make sense," Scully replied. "It just says 'He's Mine'."

The End