From: ashensro@my-dejanews.com
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 04:02:18 GMT
Subject: NEW: States of Mind: Those Who Stay by A. Ensro (M/K)

Title: States of Mind: Those Who Stay
Author: Ashlea Ensro
Feedback: ::whining:: pleeeeeaaaaaaasssse?
morleyphile@yahoo.com
Rating: R for not-at-all graphic m/m interaction and
disturbing themes.
Category: VRA
Spoilers: Up to "One Son".
Keywords: M/K slash, post-colonization, implied
character death
Archive: yes, but let me know.
Disclaimer: I don't think they'd want to be owned
by me. Every time I get them together,
one of them dies. The States of Mind series was
created by Umberto Boccioni, and look
what happened to him.

Summary: Mulder's point-of-view.

Author's Note: You've heard of songfic; this is
paintingfic. Specifically, it is based on
Boccioni's "States of Mind" of 1911. There are
three paintings: "The Farewells", "Those
Who Go", and "Those Who Stay", representing the
artist's belief that the world was at a
crucial turning point, and humanity was to be given
the choice of plunging headfirst into
the future or to remain mired in the past. The
paintings are on my site at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dreamworld/
7599/states.html, if you'd like to see them.

Futurism was a mainly Italian movement around
the turn of the century. It was
characterized by a modified Cubist style meant to
depict motion and simultaneous points of
view - but more importantly, by a love for modern
technology and warfare, a pervasive
misogyny, fascist politics, and an urge to destroy
the past. (There'll be a test on this later.)

It should also be noted that the opinions of
Boccioni and the other futurists are not opinions
I share. :)

This is one of three stories; they can be read in any
order.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
States of Mind: Those Who Stay
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The end of the world is sudden, and it has the
worst timing imaginable.

There is no time to think it over. I slept with the
man who killed my father.

Then the world ended.

It's the story of my life.

Krycek makes an effort to stop me from finding out
who's on the other end of the phone,
but I swear I can just about see the smoke coming
through the receiver. I suppose I have no
right to be angry. Can I expect more than betrayal
from him?

The world ends, and in an hour we are standing in
the rain on the platform of a train
station, where Krycek is waiting for the colonists
to come and rescue him from the fate that
awaits the rest of humanity. I should hate him.

I should, but I don't. I can't find it in me to blame
him. After everything, I can no longer
summon rage. They will give him his arm back.
They will give him life. And what can I
give him?

Fight me, Krycek. Make me hate you. But if you
can't, then at least stop staring at me like
that.

He said he wanted to save the world.

Aren't we going to save the world?

"Would you like to die now or later?" he wants to
know.

Bastard.

So why can't I hate him?

I grab him, shove him against the wall, trying to
recall the animosity that once drove me,
drove us. I form a mental list of sins - Scully, my
father - but nothing seems to work
anymore.

Scully. She's probably still at home, asleep. It is
the middle of the night, and she wouldn't
know, and I haven't called her.

"Does it make you happy?"

At first I think he means me pushing him against
the wall. It should make me happy; killing
him, even more so. All I can think about is how
cold I am, and that Scully's going to die.

To die, I realize, does it make me happy to die?

"To have been right, all this time."

Krycek, you son-of-a-bitch, things could have
been different. If he had told me, we might
have stopped this thing, stopped them. We might
have saved lives. Or at the very least, we
might have been on the same side.

"Come with me," he whispers.

And I would, I almost would, I would kiss five
billion lives goodbye if only to feel his lips
on mine again. But there is Scully, and one of
those five billion has a face, and that is
enough to die for.

I'm sorry, Krycek. I shouldn't be, but I am.

I am filled with the sudden urge to keep him here,
this irrational urge that does not want to
die alone. He killed my father, and I should hate
him. He killed my father, but he breathes
for both of us now, the substance of his body in
my arms all that sustains me in the driving
rain.

And he has to go, he has to live, while I remain
here to face what comes. He made his
decision, and I made mine.

But if he would only stay a little longer...

I can hear the bees, flying in on the storm. How
wrong, how very wrong was my vision of
the Angel of Death. Its cry is not the triumph of the
heavens, but a monotonous hum that
rises like a slow tide.

Instead of blows, we trade commands; go, stay.

"Stop me."

I will not. Once, I would have killed him. Now,
life is all to which I can condemn him.

I can see the ship, and it should be a sort of
validation. Instead, it is the final grain of sand
falling into the base of the hourglass and tearing
him from my arms.

I turn away as he starts to run, and I do not see the
ship take him. I stare out at the shapes
in the sky, wonder which are bees and which are
raindrops. In the light cast by the
departing craft, my shadow stretches forever into
the distance.

And with nothing else that remains to be done, I go
to meet it.