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"For Now"
by Spike
5/98

Alex starts and wakes, abruptly.   Lies there open-eyed.  Not scared.
Dreaming his own death doesn't scare him like monsters in the dark.  It
just hurts.  It steals the world away from him.  Beside him, Mulder lies
sleeping.  That was the worst part.  The part where he didn't like
Mulder.  Didn't love Mulder.  He'd loved someone else in the dream.
Loved them and lost them.  And Mulder had loved him, but he hadn't loved
Mulder.

Christ it hurts.  It's like betrayal.  Looking at the long, smooth back
beside him.  He is angry at Mulder.  How could you let me not love you?
How could you not be good enough?  He doesn't want it to be that way.
And it's not that way.  Not in life.

But it's so hard to shake off the dream.  He was crazy in the dream.  He
didn't care.  He'd been staring into the fucking sun.  And he'd done
that before in dreams.  Stared into the sun until he was blind.  Until
the flesh burnt and bubbled, skin split and fell off his skull.  Not in
this one though.  The sun had been pale.  Pale and not hot enough to
burn away anything anymore and he could still feel the ache of that
loss.

But what?  What had he lost?  He'd said:  'we won!'.  So hadn't he won?
And why was Mulder so far away?  And why the fuck wasn't it fading back
into nightmareland?  Why was it rising, still rising like a fucking
piston in his head, making his throat ache and his chest ache and his
eyes burn?  Why did it hurt like this?

And Christ, his arm... he'd... don't.  Don't, he tells himself, but it's
too late.  He is making a fist of his ghost hand and he can't let go
because in the dream he'd grown it back, had it back and whole and
beautiful and holding a gun...and it had cost too much.  Hadn't been
worth the blood and...

"Alex...?"  Sleepy, but not as sleepy as it could have been.  A note of
fear beneath the muzzy concern.

"Nothing, Mulder,"  Alex says, not ready to confront, explain.  Wanting
to keep this locked away a while more.  But Mulder is turning already.
Reaching for Alex, sleep-gentle fingers just brushing the cheek he turns
away.

And Mulder stills his hand, pulls back.  Alex can feel him come awake,
come up on one elbow, frowning at him in the dark.

"You're leaving me," Mulder says.  It isn't a question and it hurts, oh
Christ, it hurts.  That fucking lump in his chest is going to crush him,
grind his windpipe into mush and he will die.  Only he doesn't die.  He
is still there on the bed with Mulder.  And he can't talk, can't even
begin to explain how much he doesn't want to go, how much he hates
this.  Fucking *hates* this...  And please, Mulder, please be good
enough to make it stop.

And maybe Mulder reads his mind.

"I can't fix this," he says.  "I don't know how."

"It's just a fucking dream," Alex squeezes the words out, hears the
angry lie in his own voice.

"Dream?  Whatever.  This has been going on for months," says Mulder.  "I
don't...  I don't know...

"Fuck."  He sits up, suddenly, legs over the edge of the bed like he's
going to get up.  But he doesn't get up, just sits there, hands fisting
the edge of the mattress like it hurts.  Hurts.  Alex wants to reach out
for him, but he's on the wrong side.  On the ghost hand side.  And he
doesn't even know if he would reach for Mulder anyway.  Or just lie
there wanting to.  Or wishing he wanted to.  Just like Mulder, he
doesn't know...fuck.

Mulder's head is bowed.  Shaking a little, but if he's crying, he's
doing it too quietly for Alex to hear.  Fuck it's cold in Mulder's
bedroom.  Cold and dark and it smells like dust and like the sheets need
changing and like drying sweat.   After a long time, the lump in his
chest shrivels enough that Alex can get a full breath into his lungs.
So tired, like he's been holding this pose for years.

"Mulder," he says, finally.  "Come back to bed."  Mulder, who hasn't
moved yet, shakes his head.  But then he lies back down.  Somehow, with
no more thought than plants turning toward the sun, they move together.

Mulder's skin is cold and dry as talc and Alex feels his hand move
automatically to stroke, caress the lines of his body.  Feels Mulder's
hands doing the same upon his own.  Not sex, not even comfort in the
touch, just need.  Blind need.  It feels like sorry.  It feels like
sorry, I love you, good-bye.  It feels like forever, but neither of them
leaves and Alex doesn't even notice when he falls asleep again, or that
the sleep is dark and quiet and mercifully without the penury of
dreams.

For now.

-end-