From: DxSCULLYxx Date: 19 Jul 1998 13:10:12 GMT Subject: *NEW* "Smoke" by Dx Title: Smoke Author: Dx Rating: Eh... G? Woah... that's frightening ;-) Category: VA Summary: A story from Alex Krycek's childhood. Distribution: Anywhere it's welcome. Please let me know first, tho? Disclaimer: The story is mine. Alex isn't mine. I'd gladly trade. Feedback: I crave it. And, right now, I'm having enough trouble giving up cigarettes, alcohol, just about everything I ever enjoyed... Help me feed one of my only remaining addictions? Please? Love and Thanx: To Alicia for making this fit for human consumption and to Te for her much appreciated advice. Big sloppy kisses to you both. *~*~*~*~*~*~* Smoke by Dx -- DxSCULLYxx@aol.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Why, bleeding is breathing, You're hiding underneath the smoke in the room. Try, bleeding is believing, I used to. "Smoke"--Natalie Imbruglia *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* It hadn't sounded like it should. It should have been like the spluttering clamor in the westerns. Or the cannon-like bellow of a pistol in one of those black and white gangster films. But it wasn't. It was like... a single drumbeat. The striking of a key on an old, tuneless piano. The sound itself was but a short, sharp blare. One dissonant note. But it echoed. Oh, how it echoed. Like the call of a lost spelunker in a cave. It was reflected, bounced, repeated again, and again, and again.... And still, still it continued. As if the noise had entered his mind, and become trapped. As if it were being held captive. As if it couldn't find a way out. But he couldn't get hold of it to make it stop, either. Alex had known his world was about to go up in smoke when he saw what his father held in his hand. "Papa, mama says it's time for lunch. Papa?" He remembered the day he had first seen the weapon. Alex had been with his father in his study. The heady aroma of old, well-polished leather filled his nostrils where he stood before the desk chair. Brown-gray smoke from the cigar in the man's hand swirled in the air before him as his father took the box from the bottom drawer and placed it on the mahogany writing desk. The box was constructed from glistening, varnished, honey- hued wood. Glassy to the touch, like ice, only warm. "Promise me, Alyosha," his father said in his thick, Slavic accent, "you will never tell a soul about this. Never. Not even mama. And if ever there comes a time when you think it right--if ever you feel that your mother or you are in danger--you must use it. Just like I show you." The boy looked up at his father through thick, dark lashes. Green eyes inquiring, fearful, but always trusting. A child's mind never thinks to question its idol. The tiny bronze-colored key was slotted into the lock and turned. The lid was lifted, and there it was. The color of charcoal. The barrel long and elegant, the butt thick and clumsy. Alex thought it beautiful. His father wouldn't let him touch it. He wouldn't let him hold it, twirl it on his finger like the men in the movies did. He wouldn't let him feel its weight, its power, its magic in his hands. He just held it in his own palm, showing the boy how it should be handled. He broke it open, spinning the revolving cylinder, demonstrating where the bullets went, showing how the hammer was cocked, how the trigger was pulled, that the barrel should always face away from his body.... And then he locked it away again. Alex had watched his father's frown melt into a distant expression in the flickering light from the fire. Wrinkles relaxing into easy grooves of shadow, dark moustache glowing like molasses in the gentle illumination. He'd asked his father if he was feeling well. "Da, Alyosha." The man chuckled softly, a rusty sound made deep in his chest, and he caught his son's head in his hand. He stroked the soft, dark waves; drew the boy closer as he bent down to kiss his forehead. "Get to bed, synok," he told him, and Alex left without another word. But, vaguely, he knew something was amiss. And then, months later //Papa, mama says it's time for lunch.// he hadn't felt surprise when he had seen the weapon held to his father's temple, the trigger cradled in the crook of his finger, tears the color of molten gold in the firelight. //Papa?// He had only felt pain. A pain he didn't understand. His father sobbed, whispered an apology in his mother tongue and pulled his finger back. Alexander Ilyich Krycek had seen his father's suicide. And, somehow, he had felt his father's agony; known his father's despair. But unfortunately, he would never understand his father's reason. And reason was what he needed to resuscitate his wounded heart. His father had made him promise to protect himself with that gun. His father had killed himself with that gun. Had his father been protecting them? Was *that* how he was supposed to protect his mother and himself? // ...if ever there comes a time when you think it right-- if ever you feel that your mother or you are in danger-- you must use it. Just like I show you.// Alex heard the words in his head but he couldn't grasp their meaning. He didn't understand. He couldn't understand. Outside, the wind whipped at the piles of leaves Alex and his father had so painstakingly raked up only days before. Pregnant rain clouds hung heavy and low in the sky, obscuring the mid-afternoon sun. Inside, the glow of the bulbs in the lamps merely accentuated the lack of natural illumination. Men in smart, dark suits and women in black hats swept gently through the room. Hushed voices sounded like the soughing of the storm gathering outside, the tinkle of cups against saucers like the pit-pat of the first rain against the window panes. Alex was left sitting alone on the hard kitchen chair in the corner, listening to the subdued, awkward conversations. Meaningless chatter. He watched as people approached his mother, speaking, taking her hand. Every time she would smile sadly, nod and dab at the corners of her eyes with a white linen handkerchief edged in black embroidery. Her portrayal of the tragic widow was so convincing. Alex began to wonder if he were invisible. People walked past him, ignored him, barely seemed to notice the quiet child sitting by the steamed-up window. Periodically, Alex would feel panicked, afraid; as if he no longer existed. As if the people in the room, the world, had abandoned him. As his papa had. But then he would hear his name muttered in conversation, or a sandwich would be thrust into his small hand, and he would be reminded of his existence. He was still there; he was where he had always been. Only he wasn't complete anymore. Something was missing. For what seemed like hours, he was left there. He sat, and he swung his legs to keep his buttocks from going numb. He was wearing shorts. It wasn't the weather for shorts. The chill had made his knees ache and his skin sting as he stood with the congregation in the graveyard. He had told his mother that it was too cold for shorts. She hadn't listened. He'd told her that the wind was painful, that his legs were freezing, that it hurt so, so much. She'd told him to hush. Alex sat on that chair and watched his black leather shoes, socks, pale legs become a blur in a flood of tears. He cried for his father. He cried for his loss. He cried because he couldn't do anything else. Eventually, when he no longer cared for the world around him; when he found that the sounds became silence, no matter how loud; when he found that light became darkness, even when he opened his eyes; when he found that, indeed, he was alone, no matter how many people surrounded him-- he fell asleep. And dreamt of the pull of a trigger, the smell of gunpowder, the spark and the smoke. A slow circle of thick, gray smoke. Growing, swallowing his father, him, his world, the spray of red. Droplets of blood spread like the petals of open flowers on the white notepaper on his father's desk. Liquid poppies scattered the hardwood floor. Rivulets of blood trickled down, down, dripping from his father's body, dripping from the smoke. The smoke was bleeding. He tried to stop it, to cup it in his hands, but he couldn't; it just kept dripping, drifting... He awoke to a hand on his shoulder. And he looked up into his mother's face. A face of stone. No emotion. No love. No papa. He heard the sound of the gunshot again, and watched the smoke curl into a filigree cloak around his mother. The fog hid her, and she concealed herself in it, in a mist of indefinable, superficial emotions. And the smoke was like her, in many ways; always a strange, vague presence, but insubstantial and when he tried to reach out for it, it... it dissolved in his hand. "Up, Alexander," was all she said, dragging the boy to his feet. And the smoke slipped through Alex's fingers once again. -End- ~Dx *~*~*~*~*~*~* Silence is a stone in my mouth. *~*~*~*~*~*~* Reality is for people who can't face drugs. *~*~*~*~*~*~*