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.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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