Wild Justice

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Fanfiction
Title: Wild Justice
Author(s): MJ Lee
Date(s): 2000
Length: 28,033 words
Genre: slash fanfiction
Fandom: The X-Files
External Links: Wild Justice (Necessary Whispers)
Wild Justice (WWOMB)
Wild Justice (RatB)
Wild Justice (TER/MA)
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Wild Justice is a Mulder/Krycek story by MJ Lee. The story comes with a huge rape warning and it has a sequel called Divine Retribution.

Summary: Mulder makes a deal with the devil and lives to regret it.

From the author's notes:

This is my first slashfic. I know most people start off with something a little gentler and lighter. But this story actually grew out of thoughts I had while reading a lot of M/K slash. While there are plenty of fics out there that portray a less than nice Krycek, there are few fics where Mulder is the not-nice part. There are, of course some shining exceptions, like Sylvia's brilliant and haunting 'Betrayal,' but generally, if anyone is not-nice, it's Krycek. Now, I'm a very Krycek-centric reader and writer - heck, I still write it, Krycek/Mulder <g> and I started to wonder what would happen if you twisted the perspective a little and Mulder made a deal with our cigarette-smoking friend, to get his hands on Krycek....

The second thread in this story came about because I have always assumed that Krycek did kill Bill Mulder, and I wondered what would make Mulder accept the killing.

The third point was that Scully is too often portrayed in slash as a vengeful cold bitch and Mulder has to protect Krycek from her. Scully has no reason to hate Krycek, not as Mulder did, so I wanted to portray a slightly more sympathetic Scully.

I know that not everyone will agree with the ending, but after reading rapefics, something struck me as rather odd. Too many of them, no matter who raped who, ended up with the rapist and the rapee picking out curtain patterns. I wanted an ending where Mulder had to face what he had done and live with the consequences.

The story won the 2000 Lisa e Krysa Awards in the categories "Best Angst" and "Best Dark".

Recs and Reviews

Mulder/Krycek. Mulder explores his dark side when he's given a gift by the name of Alex Krycek. Very dark and chilling, MJ paints a provocative portrait of a not-so-nice Mulder that took my breath away.[1]

If you were in a fandom at the dawn of the Internet, you found fics on USENET or through curated websites that archived authors’ works for them.

And the thing is… no one really wrote summaries for their stories in those days. And tags as a concept didn’t exist.

But sometimes there was a story that stuck with you. And it’s now 15 years later and you can still remember the plot, but with no title and no author, how would you ever find it?

Well, kids.

There have been only a few such fics for me from my old fandoms. [...] [O]ne I remembered from back when was from X-Files fandom and was a Mulder/Krycek fic which was very dark and made Mulder into a bad guy. Not a Bad Guy. But it was taking the true things about his character and following them down a dark path.

I knew what happened in the story. And google as I might, there was no combination of trying to explain the plot or a scene that was giving me anything. So I found one of the old X-Files fic archives and I did the only thing you could do.

I started reading everything from author A on down the alphabet.

And let me tell you, I waded through a lot of bad fic. And MAN ALIVE was first person a popular thing back then! Nearly every fic I opened was in FP! I mean, what? What were we thinking?

But the point is… I found it!

Wild Justice by MJ Lee

This story gets every rape and abuse trigger warning there is. Seriously. The author set out with a specific intent. 1) She was tired of every fic having Krycek as an authentically bad person. If there was an abuser, it was him. Not only was that tired, that wasn’t exactly true of his character. He was enigmatic at best. 2) Practically every rapefic had them picking out curtains by the end. And she thought that needed to stop. That that’s not how it would go and that instead actions should have consequences.

Some things you can’t make better. That was the point. Once broken, they are broken permanently.

So those two things, having the Good Guy, the hero, go dark and ensuring that bad actions have real consequences made the story stand out for me and stick with me, what, 15 years later? And the background given to Krycek in the story is his canon background as far as I’m concerned.

The sequel…. don’t read the sequel. Some fics are well enough on their own. The sequel kind of goes off the rails into some weird claustrophobic soap opera, thing, when part of what gives the original its impact is the bleakness of the ending.[2]

"I know that not everyone will agree with the ending, but after reading rapefics, something struck me as rather odd. Too many of them, no matter who raped who, ended up with the rapist and the rapee picking out curtain patterns." --MJ Lee R: I wanted an ending where Mulder had to face what he had done and live with the consequences.' I TOTALLY agree with the author on this. The story had me literally on the edge of my seat. Mulder/Krycek *****+ Sequel: Divine Retribution *****+ (FAV)[3]

I spent two days hunting this down, it`s one of those fics that just burrows into your brain. Apparently it`s name hasn`t been sticking for me. I actually went to MJ Lee`s site not expecting to find it. Hell I clicked on the title and starting reading before I realised I was right and had finally re-found it. Anyway, Mulder wants Krycek, asks for Krycek, gets Krycek. Sadly he`s a bit upset with Krycek so some things get done. More Krycekcentric fic really. Slightly different take on what it takes to make a rat and what would make a rat care. Not big on the romance though.[4]

References

  1. ^ Rushlight. Rushlight's Recs: The X-Files. (Accessed 01 June 2013)
  2. ^ magess. Fic Archeology, 07 February 2015. (Accessed 08 February 2015)
  3. ^ Slash Recs of ScarletFBL: X-Files Recs. (Accessed 02 April 2015)
  4. ^ LilyCharlotte. The Blanketfort's Fic Rec Page: X-Files. (Accessed 02 April 2015)