From: KacyKexler@aol.com
Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 01:24:26 EDT
Subject: If The Profile Fits
Source: direct

Title: If The Profile Fits

Author: Kacy Kexler (KacyKexler@aol.com)

Rating: PG-13

Category: VRA

Spoilers: The Red and the Black

Keywords: Mulder/Krycek romance.

Summary: After the episode, Mulder seeks answers from Krycek.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, etc., etc., and so forth. They 
belong to Chris Carter, Fox, and 1013. Please don't sue me, I'm a starving 
college student.

Archive: Please.

Feedback: Gladly accepted, but please be gentle. It's my first time :)


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
If The Profile Fits
by Kacy Kexler
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Kiss of betrayal.

Kiss of death.

He'd tried to rationalize it every way he could think to. In true profiler 
fashion, he tried to find the right motive to match the behavior - put the 
two together, and voil=E0, it would all make sense again. The only problem w
as, 
every motive that seemed possible didn't make sense, didn't fit. The only on
e 
that did fit he fought with himself not to consider. For once in his life, h
e 
wasn't sure if he really wanted to know the truth.

He had to, though. And he knew there was only one way to get it.



Two blocks away he cut the lights. He parked one block away and closed the 
door with all the stealth he could muster in his haste. His heart pounded an
d 
sweat beaded on his forehead in the pre-dawn cold. He wasn't sure if that wa
s 
more from excitement or dread. As he walked, muffling the click of his 
wingtips on the still concrete, he began to feel like some stalker from one 
of his cases. Or maybe a shadowy informant offering friendship and aid from 
the most unlikely source...

*Don't go there.*

What would someone profiling him think? He would examine his behavior down t
o 
the minutest detail, shaping the evidence like a sculptor into some 
recognizable pattern that would reveal the underlying impulses driving it. 
What would his meticulous footsteps say? His purposeful stride, contrasting 
with the shaking of his hands? How would an outsider read his thoughts at 
this very moment? His quest for the truth seemed to offer itself up 
obviously, but what did he hope to find?

He didn't like where this was going. Good thing he was already there.

He pounded on the door three times, harder perhaps than was necessary but 
unable to resist the aggressiveness of the action. It made him feel more 
confident, more in control of himself. The last thing he wanted now was to 
show his hand before his opponent did.

There was no answer for too long. The light was on, he knew someone was home
. 
He tried again, even harder, more insistent.

"Dammit, open the door or I do it for you," he half-growled, trying not to 
shout and wake the neighbors. This would be interesting to have to explain. 
"And then *you* find yourself staring down the wrong end of *my* gun this 
time."

There was something that might have been a chuckle in another life from 
behind the door, and the latch clicked open almost delicately. The door 
opened.

"You didn't come here to kill me. I know why you're here, and you won't get 
what you want by killing me, so you're not going to do it."

"Save the speeches, Krycek," he said, resisting the urge to shove him agains
t 
a wall and beat the answers out of him. He needed to stay rational, to not 
allow his feelings get in the way of his purpose as he too often did. "I jus
t 
want the truth."

Krycek sighed. "Classic Mulder. What else is new?"

This time Mulder advanced on him. "You think this is some big joke?"

"No, I was serious," Krycek shot back. "What have you been doing for the pas
t 
week? Profiling me, I'll bet. Taking me apart and trying to figure out how t
o 
put the pieces together to make the big picture, the truth you're always so 
desperately seeking. Only you can't make the truth be what you want it to be
 
and so you come looking for an excuse."

Mulder was silent, holding his shock at this unwelcome exposure on the insid
e.

"Well, you're not getting an excuse from me."

"How about the truth, then?"

Krycek moved closer, each step painful. "I don't think you want the truth at
 
all. You want a lie that's convenient to believe, that suits your 
preconceived notions of how things should be."

Unable to contain his frustration, Mulder grabbed Krycek by the collar of hi
s 
leather jacket (*didn't he ever take the damned thing off?*) and pushed him 
forcefully onto the sofa. He pulled his gun from his own jacket and pointed 
it straight at Krycek's head. For a moment they locked gazes, facing each 
other down, and Mulder was struck by Krycek's eyes. They were not the same 
ones that had burned holes through his a week ago, that had burned with the 
flame of resistance, of rebellion. Their green was deeper, the irises 
blacker, if that was possible. These were not the eyes that had once made hi
m 
trust.

Then those eyes broke away from his and he followed them down to the coffee 
table, struck dumb by the sight of a gun there. How had he missed it? He 
hadn't even been looking when he barged in unarmed! Yet, when Krycek picked 
it up slowly, as though exerting a great effort under its weight, Mulder 
lowered his own gun. He didn't quite know why, but the analyzing of behavior
 
seemed to matter less. As if some unfathomable part of himself was telling 
him to trust once more.

"No," said Mulder softly. "I want the truth."

Krycek stared at the gun for a long moment, transfixed, before he spoke.

"You want the truth, Mulder?" he asked, a lifetime of tiredness in his voice
. 
"How's this for truth? I know every thought that's gone through your head 
since I last saw you. You've been going through every reason you can possibl
y 
think of for what I did, and the one that keeps coming back to you is the on
e 
you don't want to believe could be true. That I - that I'm not your enemy." 
He paused, laughed softly. "You've been to Wiekamp Air Force Base, you've 
seen that everything I told you is true. Yet you still force yourself to 
believe that my - *kiss*," he nearly choked on the word, "was a lie. And 
you're here to keep believing that."

Mulder slowly sat down and set his gun on the table.

"No. No, I believe you."

Krycek laughed. "Why should you? Why should anyone believe a word I say? My 
whole life is a lie! FBI-conspiracy-errand-boy. Fucking pawn in their game, 
playing fetch while you're off fighting your noble crusade." He laughed 
again, more bitterly. "You want to know the funny part? I'm not even good at
 
it! I'm sent to kill, to do their dirty work - *twice* - and both times 
someone else has to do it for me."

Mulder was visibly shaken. Scully's sister ... *his father* ... grudges he'd
 
held against Krycek for so long, and for what - he hadn't killed either of 
them? He asked himself why he should trust him now, this...

*This what? Murderer? Liar?*

Mulder remember his words of a week ago. *Because you stick a gun in my face
 
I'm supposed to believe you're my friend?* Now, Krycek sticking a gun in his
 
own face was another matter entirely. And Mulder wanted to believe.

"They send me to spy on you, and I just-" Krycek cut himself off, unwilling 
to let himself finish the thought. He brought the gun up and let his chin 
rest on its barrel. "I end up everybody's fool. I try to play both sides and
 
end up on neither."

"I believe you're on my side."

"Why should you?"

"I don't know, because I don't think you're lying?" Mulder gently stretched 
out his hand. "Look, Krycek, just give me the gun and we can talk about this
."

"Don't placate me!" Krycek spat. "Don't fucking patronize me!"

"I'm not patronizing you, I'm just..."

"Well, I think you are!" Krycek's eyes flashed feral green, his first sign o
f 
life yet that night. "I've watched you pull your profiling shit before and I
 
know exactly what comes next every step of the way. And I'll be damned if I'=
m 
going to play along with it."

"No," said Mulder. "You don't know what's coming next."

Mulder's thoughts spun. Behaviors and motives and impulses and pieces of the
 
great puzzle swam in his head, picking up fragments of his truths in their 
undertow and pulling those apart too. They battered the shores of his brain,=
 
swallowing ideas as fast as he could form them. One thought alone stood. One
 
feeling of absolute surety, however illogical. However it went against his 
own profile.

He rose, crossed to the other side of the coffee table, and stood over Kryce
k 
for a moment. Krycek watched him with uncurious eyes, expecting almost 
anything, even death.

He wasn't expecting Mulder to sit down on the table, lean toward him, and 
gently brush Krycek's lips with his own.

When Mulder leaned back, he was amazed to see Krycek's eyes glaze over, and
a 
tear find its way down one sculpted cheek.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"You don't have to do this, Mulder," he said sadly. "I don't know why you're
 
not sitting here cheering for the chance to watch me die, but there are 
better ways to keep me alive. You don't have to do this to yourself."

Mulder shook his head. "You accused me of not wanting to see the truth, but 
you're the one who's insisting on believing a lie. I didn't come here to fin
d 
excuses. Like you said, I knew the truth before I got here. When you called 
me comrade last time I saw you, I began to understand that we were on the 
same side, fighting for the same thing. I came here to make sure of it, to 
understand things fully, and now I have no reason not to believe you."

"Is that true?" Krycek tried to shape his eyes back into the inscrutable 
masks that always served him so well. He could not, though, hide the 
desperate wanting that lingered there, threatening to betray him, to lay him
 
open to whatever pain could await. His finger tensed on the trigger.

"Come on, Alex. Truth is my job." With those words, something broke between 
them. A tangible charge dissolved into the air, and Krycek couldn't stop 
himself from smiling.

Mulder wrapped both hands around Krycek's one, and tentatively took the gun.=
 
Krycek let go without resistance, and Mulder placed it back on the table 
beside him. Then he kissed Krycek again, and Krycek returned it, impassioned
, 
starved. Combined lifetimes of loneliness and pain were washed away in the 
flood of released tension.

Eternities later, the kiss was broken. Krycek rested his head on Mulder's 
shoulder and asked, "How did you read me so well?"

"I'm a profiler," Mulder replied. "If the profile fits, I probably wrote it.=
"

Their laughter rang in the sunrise.


*~*~*The End*~*~*