Title: The Best Christmas Gift
Pairing: Fox Mulder/Alex Krycek
Tags: Romance, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, light Dom/sub
Summary: Scully had been asking Mulder to come to her Christmas party for weeks, and to bring along his 'significant other' so everyone could finally meet him. Mulder warned her that this would be a very bad idea, because Mulder's boyfriend was none other than Alex Krychek. In Mulder's defense, he had been right. Well, mostly right.
BETA: TheSupernova
"Scully, I'm telling you, you don't want me to invite my 'significant other' to the Christmas party," Mulder said over the phone. He was pacing his apartment.
"I just invited the three stooges—"
"The lone gunman, you mean," Mulder clarified.
"And our friends." Scully finished. "It's a potluck at my house. Low key, music and whoever gets the remote for the TV gets to tune it to their station of choice."
Mulder sighed. "I'm telling you, it's really, really not a good idea."
"You've been dating this person for over a year. All we know is that he's your boyfriend; we don't even know his name. Some of us are doubting you even have a significant other."
"Ugh." Mulder finally gave in, mostly because Scully had been on his case about it for the last three weeks. "Fine, okay. I'll bring him, but don't blame me if it all goes to hell, alright?"
There was a moment of silence.
"He can't possibly be as bad as you're making him out to be," Scully said.
"Oh you'll find out," Mulder answered. "Just remember, anything that happens after I arrive, know that there is an 'I told you so' coming."
Mulder parked the car along the curb in front of Scully's house. He turned the car off, taking the key from the ignition. He turned to his boyfriend, Alex krycek, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Mulder asked. "I can't promise you they'll behave. Hell, I can't even promise there won't be actual punches involved and things flying around the room, mainly in your direction. You're not the most popular guy, you know."
Alex stretched out his back, undoing his seat belt. He smiled. "Hey, I got my right arm cut off with a saw blade in the middle of some godforsaken forest in the middle of the night. I think I can handle dodging a lamp shade or two."
"Oh really?" Mulder said, leaning in towards Alex. "And what if they pull a knife or a gun on you, what will you do then?"
"Then?" Alex met Mulder halfway, lips only inches apart. "Then I'll ask my boyfriend to protect me, because you," Alex kissed Mulder, "have the gun."
Alex stopped wearing the prosthetic arm months ago, at Mulder's behest. Part of this stemmed from the headache Mulder got when Alex insisted on complaining about wearing it, but mostly because Mulder found Alex appealingly sexy without it. Mulder preferred Alex as was; he didn't want fake limbs getting in the way.
Mulder had been tempted to say that not wearing the fake arm to the party had the added benefit off disarming their friends' anger towards Alex, since it made him look (slightly) less threatening. However, Mulder knew better then to make arm jokes right before a party where he had told Alex to be on his 'best behavior'.
As they walked up to the front door, Alex hesitated.
"I'm not really sure this is a good idea, Mulder." Alex said, looking between his boyfriend and the door. "Did you tell them who I am?"
"Not yet, but I did warn Scully this was a bad idea, " Mulder responded, "but it had to happen sometime, right? You didn't want to me a secret forever, did you?"
It had been Alex's request to keep their relationship a secret.
"Well, no, I didn't." Alex sighed. After looking nervously between the door and Mulder one last time, he slipped his hand into Mulder's and immediately relaxed upon feeling Mulder's reassuring grip.
"Now or never," Mulder said, pulling Alex with him gently.
"Is it too late to take 'never'?"
Mulder laughed. Right before he was about to knock, he took the time to give Alex one more kiss before introducing his enemy-turned-friend-turned-boyfriend to the unsuspecting masses of people they called friends. He had a brief moment to wonder whether any of them still considered krycek an enemy, but Mulder shrugged it off. It wasn't as if Alex was out to murder them. Not anymore, at least.
Taking a deep breath, Mulder lifted hand and knocked on the door.
To Mulder's defense, he had warned Scully this would be a bad idea. Turns out one of their friends, something-Smith, had had a run-in with Alex about ten years ago and vowed to one day get his revenge. Mulder was a little foggy on the details of that incident, but the current impasse ended up with Alex 'accidently' (meaning that Smith claimed it was an accident even though it was clearly a lie) falling down the first flight of stairs and slashing his arm on a small nail that had been sticking up out of the floorboards. To Smith's credit, the last part had been an accident.
Mulder, coming to Alex's rescue, ended up engaging with Smith in an actual brawl upstairs, where by two lamps, one clock and a potted plant were knocked to the floor. The lamps had shattered, the clock was okay, and the small plant just lost some dirt, but otherwise appeared okay in its small, now-sideways but undamaged pot.
Scully gave them both a stern warning to play nice 'or else' and neither of them liked the 'or else' part. Women were scary when angered, and Scully was no exception. Smith left the party soon after.
After Mulder managed to drag Alex into the downstairs bathroom…
"You sure you don't want to leave?" Mulder asked Alex, as he finished bandaging the wound just above the stump of Alex's right arm. "We still don't know how the others are going to react as the night goes on."
"No, I don't," he said. "It'll feel like running away. I'm not going to run."
Mulder pulled Alex towards him, kissing him. "Then let's get out there and show them you're not a psychotic, double-crossing assassin anymore."
"Mmm," Alex grinned, "you know me too well."
Mulder gently squeezed the bulge in front of Alex's pants, making the man yelp in surprise.
"I know you very well," Mulder said with a smirk."I think you deserve a reward for not being baited into a fight by Mr. Smith."
Mulder sunk to his knees. "You'll keep quiet if you don't want everyone else to hear you."
Alex nodded, and covered his mouth with his fist, just in case.
By the end of the night, Alex had managed to win over some of the more skeptical believers (though the Lone Gunman still kept their distance). Alex was a decent conversationalist and slipped into the different conversations easily enough. There was an expected element of tension in the air, but it wasn't too bad, overall. It seemed everyone was on their best behavior tonight.
"I told you so," Mulder told Scully, watching as she placed dirty dishes in the dishwasher. All the guests had left, except for Mulder and Alex, whom was currently in the bathroom.
"Yes I know," Scully said. "You were right. But," she turned around, pointing a dirty spatula at him, "it also turned out okay in the end, right?"
"Yeah, yeah," Mulder conceded. He looked back towards the hallway, checking to see if the bathroom door was still closed; it was. "I'm surprised you're taking this so well."
"What, you mean about you and Alex?" Scully asked, turning back to the dishwasher. "I was surprised, but if you trust him enough to be dating him for this long, then that's good enough for me."
And that was one of the reasons why Mulder loved having her as a partner.
"Shit!" Alex's voice resounded down the hallway, following a loud crashing sound.
"Alex!" Mulder shouted, rushing down the hallway to the bathroom. Scully quickly followed on his heels. Upon finding the door unlocked, he barged in, finding his boyfriend collapsed on the floor.
"Alex, hey," Mulder knelt down beside Alex, helping him up. "What happened?"
Alex laughed. "Would you believe I tripped, bumped into the counter and accidently knocked the hand mirror onto the floor?" He looked up at Scully, who was standing at the door. "Sorry, Scully. I'll pay for it."
"It's okay, don't worry about it." She looked over at Mulder. "You, however, can help me pick out two new lamps for my upstairs bedroom and buy me new hand mirror."
"What? That other guy started it—"
Scully just raised her eyebrow.
"Okay, fine." Mulder said, giving in. "I'm free this weekend. That okay with you?"
"Perfect," Scully said. "I know the perfect place to go shopping, too."
Alex grinned, leaning into Mulder's arms. "I hope you have fun this weekend."
"What, you're abandoning me now?" Mulder said, pretending to sound hurt. "How could you?"
Scully knelt down next to Mulder, pulling out a first aid kit from under the sink.
"Alright Alex," Scully said, digging through the box for the tweezers. "Let's get those glass shards out of your hand and the floor cleaned up before anyone else gets hurt."
"I think I behaved well during the party," Alex said to Mulder from the passenger seat.
Alex had been discharged from the emergency room, with a re-bandaged arm and hand, and some medication to help protect against infections. Mulder pulled up to a red light, and looked over at Alex.
"I'm very proud of you," Mulder said, "I think you've earned an extra surprise tonight, in addition to the gifts I bought for you."
"Oh?" Alex asked hopefully.
Mulder grinned. He reached into the glove box, pulling out thick, leather collar. It only took a few seconds for Mulder to fix it snuggly around Alex's neck. He brushed his thumb across Alex's lips, pushing it past them, and smiling when Alex took it into his mouth to suck on it.
"I've got some new toys and they need breaking in." Mulder said, closing the glove compartment as he sat back into the driver's seat. "I hope you didn't plan on getting any sleep tonight."
Alex couldn't stop smiling. "Never crossed my mind."