Spalniy vagon by Glacis. Rated NC17 for graphic depictions of adult
themes and language. No copyright infringement intended to CC
productions / 1013 / Fox / anyone else.
definition : sleeper : n. (1) one that sleeps. (2) One that
achieves unexpected recognition or success. (3) An unsuspected
espionage agent in deep cover within enemy territory that is activated
after a period of dormancy. spal'-niy va-gon' : sleeper (Russian translation).
He'd been twisted in so many knots over the last year he was having
a hard time remembering his own name, not to mention his most
dearly held beliefs. And with a name like Fox, unforgettable as that was,
it was doubly indicative of the truly shitty year 1997 had been.
Well, with a few bright highlights. Scully went into remission.
Cancerman died.
Maybe.
Special Agent Mulder, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Paranormal Activities
(X Files) division, took careful aim with his thirty sixth rubber band that evening and scored a direct hit on the fore
landing light of the flying saucer hovering mid-air over his oft-abused
motto, I Want To Believe. The poster was getting a bit ratty around the
edges, but it still gave him a little shiver whenever he looked at it.
Because with all the crap life (and the US Government, not to
mention various and sundry alien entities no one else would admit to)
kept throwing at him, he did want to believe. So much it hurt.
But then, he was used to the pain. Lost his sister,
and his childhood with her. Lost his father, and
his entire view of the structure of the world around him was wrenched out
of focus. His mother would barely even look at him, much less speak with
him, and god only knew what she'd come out with if she ever did open up to
him. He wasn't all that sure he wanted to know some truths. Even if he had to hear them.
He could feel his thoughts dragging him down, winding him up
tighter and tighter. His eyes felt like sandpaper, his thoughts were
chasing themselves in useless loops over and around the same set of
interlaced conspiracies, and he was feeling like a kitten tied in yarn
right before being tossed in the deep end of the swimming pool. The incongruous thought that he was starving popped
out of that mental image somehow, and his hand was halfway to the phone to
call for pizza when he remembered that he was still at work. And getting
Little Caesar through the metal detectors was a real bitch.
Fingers still lightly resting on the plastic handset, he was
startled half out of his seat by the ringing of the phone bell. He
snatched the receiver up and pressed it to his ear automatically.
"Mulder!" He hadn't meant to sound so enthusiastic, but hey, he'd
been surprised. The voice tentatively questioning in his ear caused him
to fall heavily back into his chair.
"Uhm, Agent Fox Mulder?" It sounded
like he wasn't sure he had the right number. Through the numbness hiding
the growing red haze of his thoughts, Mulder was quite sure he did.
"What the fuck do you want, Krycek? And
where the hell are you? Last I checked you were wandering around the
Siberian forest with your Red Army buddies!"
There was dead silence on the other end of the line. Then a
throat was cleared, and the voice sounded again, even more tentatively.
"I don't know if this is the right number--"
"Don't be such a prick, Krycek. I'm not
in the mood to play your stupid mind games!" The growl was even more
pronounced now, as Mulder clenched his jaw to keep from screaming into the
phone.
"Who's Krycek?" A
damned good actor, apparently. He sounded honestly puzzled.
It was Mulder's turn to stare at the wall in
disbelief. What did he think he was pulling now? "What are you up to,
Alex?" He consciously softened his voice, inviting confidence, trying
to mask the feral desire to rip the other man's head from his shoulders.
"Well, that's closer, anyway." The voice lightened somewhat,
but it still sounded uncertain and wary. "My name's Alec Neekto. I'm a computer programmer."
Mulder made a strangled noise, and the other man took it
for encouragement, not rampant disbelief at Krycek's
incredible balls.
"There have been some … strange things happening recently. An
e-mail buddy of mine recommended I call you, and told me to tell you
that Tindall sent me. Uhm,
I mean, the Tin Man."
Mulder closed his eyes, his fingers clenching around the handset. Tindall was a hacker he'd met several months before through
the Lone Gunmen. Tin man was both paranoid and very shy, but had been
extremely helpful with hacking into the Defense Department's biological
weapons R&D database. Just the mention of that particular name over
an open line into FBI headquarters made Mulder's
skin crawl. Before Krycek, or whoever the hell he was calling himself, could say
another word, he broke in.
"Meet me. Diner at Walnut and
He didn't think about what would happen if the man showed up.
He didn't think it would ever happen. Ratboy? In a public, well
lit place? Where he could be seen, taken in, no handy bolt holes to
lunge into? Nah. Never happen.
Exactly thirty minutes from the time he hung up the phone, Krycek walked in the door of Hazelnut's. Mulder nearly
dropped his coffee. The traitorous bastard stood in the doorway for a few
moments, back-lit, a clear target. Half of Mulder's
brain couldn't believe Krycek was being so
damned stupid … or suicidal. The other half was too busy sighing wistfully
at the sight to care. He'd known the younger man was good looking when
they were partnered, but subsequent betrayals had tarnished that
knowledge. After not seeing him for months, and as ragged as he had looked
the last time Mulder had seen him, looking at him now was almost like
looking at a different person.
His suit fit, for starters. Tailored fine dark wool,
cobalt blue threads weaving through the charcoal cloth, picking up lights
in Krycek's eyes. The matching tie and
creamy linen shirt showed off his coloring beautifully. Mulder bit his
tongue. It had been a very long time since a man had affected him
like this. The first time he'd seen Krycek he'd
thought he was beautiful, and known he was off limits. But
this Krycek … alike and yet different. His
hair was longer, just brushing his collar, with a hint of wave to it. His
face was fine-boned, slender, slight shadows under his eyes, but without
the lines of stress and fatigue that had been so prevalent last
time they'd met. Clean, close shaven, hands well cared
for and fidgeting slightly. Poised on the balls
of his feet, but not as if to fight. More as if
to flee.
When he made no move to come forward, Mulder half-lifted a menu
card and waved it at him. A look of transparent relief came over his
face, and Mulder found himself shaking his head in disbelief. Whatever
the hell had happened to Krycek to clean him up
had also taken every last atom of his survival instincts away from him. Or
at least so it appeared. He stopped at the edge of the table and looked
down at Mulder, half relieved, half fearful.
"Agent Mulder?" His voice was the same, only the slight hesitation wavering below
the words was unusual. Mulder kept the tip of his tongue between his teeth
and nodded toward the opposite bench in the small booth. Krycek glanced around once, then
sank onto the hard plastic cushion. "I wasn't quite sure where this
place was, but I looked it up. I have a Thomas Guide and it really comes
in handy sometimes. Much better than the Rand McNally.
I don't really get out and about all that much. Too busy with work and my
computer, I guess. Why did you hang up like that?"
The abrupt question on the end of the soft ramblings caught Mulder
by surprise -- again. He carefully unclenched his teeth, rolled
his tongue in his mouth to stop the initial, instinctive response to Krycek's attempt at a verbal thrust, and took a deep
breath.
"Drop the act, Krycek. You're not fooling
anybody and you're sure as hell not impressing
me." Tired eyes met his with convincing incomprehension. Then they
closed, briefly, and Mulder was caught by the length and silkiness of the
dark lashes. Shit. He had it bad, and it wasn't going to go away
easily this time. His resistance was too low. Listening with one ear to
the quiet litany of lies issuing from his companion, Mulder ran a mental
checklist of all the reasons why he should hate Alex Krycek.
Most of them began and ended with betrayal. Balanced against this truly
impressive list was the undeniable fact that he'd wanted him for what felt
like forever, and he was worn a little too thin around the edges to hide
that desire successfully. Even from himself. He tuned back in just as Krycek was
leaning forward and patting his knuckle with one gentle index finger.
"Are you listening to me at all?" A hint of anger and
frustration was pushing aside the hesitation. Mulder thought about it for
a split second then reeled the whole pack of bologna back at him.
"Your name is Alec Neekto, age thirty
four, computer programmer working on defense contracts for a private
software development company out of
Krycek stared at him. It
was a masterful performance, although the gaping jaw was probably
overkill. Unable to resist the temptation, he put one finger under that
square jaw and snapped it shut. Krycek blushed.
Mulder's own jaw dropped.
He didn't know Krycek knew how to blush.
The now painfully red young man opposite him slowly slumped into
his seat, brought his elbows up to the table and dropped his face into
his hands. "You don't believe me either. You think I'm this Crutcheck person."
Before Mulder could correct his pronunciation, he scrabbled wildly
in his pocket. Mulder tensed, expecting a gun. The thin square of
worn black leather Krycek pulled out wasn't
nearly as threatening, and he relaxed. Fractionally.
It didn't do to get too relaxed in Krycek's company.
"Here!" A
He looked up coolly into the rapidly heating glare Krycek
was giving him. "So? Good forgeries. Do you give
recommendations?"
An inarticulate exclamation answered his facetious question as Krycek gathered the cards up and stuffed them back
into his wallet. "What do you want from me?" he finally hissed,
his voice cracking on the last word. He blushed again, and Mulder could
see that he was shaking.
A niggling doubt caught at the back of his mind. This man wearing Krycek's face had all the self-protective instincts of a
newborn infant. His documents were good -- damned good. But then
again, Krycek was an accomplished liar, and had
fooled too many people in the past, Mulder included, for him to swallow
this too easily. He gathered up his coat, tossed a couple dollars on the
tabletop for the untouched coffee, and stood quickly. Krycek
stared up at him, looking for all the world like
a spaniel about to be abandoned.
"C'mon," Mulder invited, one hard hand around the other man's
biceps giving him no opportunity to refuse the invitation. "Let's go
home."
Krycek didn't make a
sound as the two men hustled to Mulder's car.
Mulder checked every direction, and didn't see anyone watching.
They settled in, and as soon as the seat belt clicked shut over
his passenger he headed toward the address from the license. Checking
the mirrors often and doubling back three times, he ensured that
they weren't followed. Two blocks from the apartment complex, Krycek ventured a question.
"Mr. Mulder?" Mulder snorted in disbelief at the act but
nodded anyway. "How do you know where I live?"
Mulder stared at him, then looked back at the
road just in time to stop at a red light without rear-ending a Lexus
idling importantly in front of them. He swallowed twice, considered and
discarded several scathing replies, and answered simply, "Your
license." If Krycek wanted to play dimwits,
he was more than happy to play along.
Amazingly, Krycek chuckled. "Oh. Of course. How stupid of me."
Mulder agreed, silently, then wondered what was going on in the
other man's head, trying to triple think his way around what had proven
in the past to be a truly Machiavellian mind. Krycek
let himself out of the car and led the way to his apartment door. As they
stepped off the elevator into the hallway, he gave a small cry and started
forward at a near-run. Mulder instinctively grabbed him and pulled him
back against the wall, holding him still by the simple expedient of
covering him with his body.
"Where the hell are you going?" he whispered fiercely into the
ear next to his mouth.
"They-" the indignant bellow was swiftly quieted by Mulder's hand over his mouth. His lips continued to
move, and Mulder's body reacted to the feeling
of those lip fluttering against his palm, that strong body moving under
his. Angry at his Pavlovian response to Krycek's nearness, he slapped the back of the other
man's head against the wall, lightly enough not to knock him out but
heavily enough to stop all motion. A muffled squeak of protest and pain
withered under his glare.
"Quietly, damnit. They may still be there. Are you carrying?" At the look of
dumb ignorance meeting his own, he lost what little patience he had left.
"A *gun*, fuckhead, are you carrying your
gun?"
The ignorance gave way to horror, and Krycek
shook his head as hard as he could beneath the hand holding his lower
face. Mulder sighed and let him go, slowly. "I am an idiot."
"Why?" Krycek asked shakily, then
reached up and fingered the back of his skull. "That hurt."
There was a definite whine in his voice. "Why'd you have to-"
His voice cut off and his eyes widened as Mulder pulled his own Glock from its holster and motioned Krycek
to get behind him. Swallowing heavily, Krycek
shut up and plastered himself against the wall, staring with fascination
at Mulder's weapon. Mulder stared back at him
for a moment, wondering just how far Krycek
was willing to go with this fantasy and if he was willing to get both
of them killed to save his cover. Then he took a gamble, turned his
back on the other man, and crept into the opened door of the apartment.
The place had been completely torn apart. A stifled, distressed
gurgle from behind him at the door frame assured him that Krycek had seen the damage as well. Before Mulder
could stop him, Krycek headed into the bedroom,
muttering curses under his breath. Mulder hurried to follow, trying to
look all directions at once to make sure the intruders truly were gone.
Before he got past the doorway into the back room, there was a scuffling
noise and a cut-off yell. Mulder instinctively brought his weapon up, as a
large body crashed past him and out the door. He took off at a dead run,
trying to catch the suspect.
He lost him on the stairwell. By the time he got to the lobby
the door was swinging slowly shut, and there was no sign of the intruder.
Mulder spit out a curse, holstered his gun, and climbed back up
the stairs.
Krycek was lying in a
heap next to the bed, a dazed look on his face and a trickle of blood
running from the corner of his mouth. From the looks of him, the intruder
had clocked him across the jaw then ran for it. And Krycek
hadn't put up even a semblance of a fight. Mulder went into the kitchen,
jury-rigged an ice pack out of a dish towel and the last ice cubes in the
freezer, and rejoined Krycek in the bedroom. By
this time the other man had managed to pull himself up onto the side of
the bed. He was staring at the wreckage in a daze. Mulder handed him the
ice, then guided his limp hand up to the side of his jaw, already
swelling. Krycek looked at him, not saying a word,
confusion and shock in every line of his body.
Mulder pulled out his cell phone and hit the first fast dial button.
Time to call in the big guns. "Hello,
Scully? I need help."
Mulder had been his usual informative self, which meant that by the time
Scully pulled up in front of his apartment she knew the usual zip nada. His
life wasn't immediately in danger, something big was happening that could be
anything from government conspiracies to alien landings, and he was out of his
depth. It had boiled down to 'meet me at my apartment, Scully, I need you.'
Maybe it was time she took Kreske up on his
e-mail invitation to spend a weekend in
But right now, Mulder needed her. So she packed up her little black
doctor's bag, her extra clip and her slogging through the mud shoes and went.
As soon as she walked through the door she dropped the bag, tensed in
the shoes and pulled her gun.
"Federal agent, freeze! Put your hands where I can see them, Krycek!"
This did not get the reaction she was expecting. The shaky, pale young
double agent in the Saville Row suit promptly whacked
himself in the eye with what looked to be an attempt at an ice bag while trying
to throw his hands in the air. Then he grunted in pain, reached up to grab at
his now-sore eye, whacked his bruised, swollen jaw, and yelped, "Ow! Owowowowowow!" Then he fell to the floor, curled up in a ball,
threw both hands over his head, and whined, yes, it was definitely a whine,
"Help me, Mulder! Don't let her kill me! God, lady, don't shoot! I'm not Crutchiwhosit, honest to god, help me out here,
Mulder!"
Scully lowered her weapon until it was resting, barrel still pointing at
the quivering mass of humanity balled up on the floor, and stared at him.
Behind her, Mulder sighed.
"I don't think we're in
She tossed a glare back over her shoulder. He shrugged, then handed her
a wallet. She looked at the offering, looked back at the man making no attempt
to move from his fetal position at her feet, and holstered her weapon.
"This had better be good," she said calmly as she pulled a
driver's license and various other identification cards out. Mulder shrugged,
edged past her and gently patted Krycek's head. The
whining slowed to an occasional whimper.
Scully looked through the papers, looked back at Mulder crouched down
next to Krycek's doppelganger, and finally stared
into wet green eyes staring accusingly up at her.
"Alec? Neekto?" she asked
skeptically.
He tried to nod, was immediately reminded that his jaw was twice its
normal size, and sniffed, long and loud. "Yeah, I AM." He did
his very best attempt at belligerent. He looked about four years old to Scully.
She looked at Mulder.
"Explain." So he did, or at least he tried to. By the time he
finished, she was more than half tempted to believe they'd both lost their
marbles. As she opened her mouth to share this belief with the men, all hell
broke loose.
Four men wearing black camouflage and full face masks streamed through
the door. Scully didn't have time to draw her gun before the first one took her
out with a swift sideways blow to the head. Groggy, but not completely unconscious,
she saw Mulder fighting two of the men desperately. Reaching for her gun, she
was shocked to see the previously piteously whining Krycek
lookalike lash out with hands and feet, taking two of
the attackers down.
She called a warning, but as her mouth closed around the words three
more of the commandos came through the doorway. Forcing herself up from the
wall, ignoring the fierce pain in her head, she took one down with a kick to
the stomach and dropped another with a chop to the throat. Then Mulder was
flying past her, dragging Krycek alongside and
scooping her wrist up into his grasp as he went past. From along the corridor
they could hear more boots clattering up the stairs.
They went down the back way, along the fire escape.
No one had the breath to say much until they got several blocks away.
Then Mulder led them to a small, out of the way diner in a quiet residential
block. Scully was reaching for her cell phone when her partner's hand on hers
stopped her.
"I'm calling for back-up, Mulder," she said determinedly. He
shook his head.
"Can't do that, Scully."
"Why not?" It was an odd duet coming from both Scully and Krycek.
He looked at both of them before addressing her.
"Look at him." He gestured to Krycek.
"What'll happen if we take him into custody? Which we'd
have to do if we call in anyone official on this."
"Why?" The lookalike asked
plaintively. The partners ignored him.
"And that would be a bad thing?" She wasn't so sure.
"No, not if you want him to end up like Cardinale,
or any one of the others the Consortium doesn't want to talk."
"Consortium? Cardinals? What the hell are you talking
about?" The increasingly agitated voice was still just background noise to
them.
"You have a point. So what do you propose we do about it?"
Krycek, or whoever he
was, made an abortive attempt to rise. Mulder threw one leg over his thighs
under the table and anchored him to the seat. He subsided, ungracefully, giving
little twists and shoves to show that he was not intimidated.
"Find out what's behind the story," Mulder managed to say,
containing Krycek's straining body with some effort.
She looked at the two of them calculatingly.
"Where'd you learn to fight like that?" She rounded on Krycek. He jumped, and Mulder tightened his hold. Then he
made a sinuous little sideways shift, and Mulder reacted with a strangled noise
and what looked suspiciously like the beginnings of a blush. Scully ignored the
by-play and fixed bright accusing eyes on the ringer.
"Aikido," he ground out huskily. "Studied
it for years." He and Mulder appeared to be nearly sitting in one
another's laps. Scully shook her head, partly to show that she didn't buy the
story, partly to clear it. She really had to get out more. She was starting to
feel like the audience at a peep show.
"What about your apartment, Mulder?" Turning to her partner,
she was surprised at the intensity of the stare he was giving Krycek. Maybe he's looking for plastic surgery scars,
she thought, then repeated the question. The second time, he responded.
"It's happened before. By the time we get back it'll be cleaned up.
But they might come back. They seemed pretty intent on taking Krycek-"
"Neekto." Truculently, if a little stifled.
"-here," Mulder continued, ignoring him. "Might
be a good idea if we went someplace quiet. Got a friend in
"Think he'd mind?" she asked with a touch of sarcasm. "He
might not be too happy if the goons in black find you there and decide to
redecorate."
He shrugged. "He'll be okay with it. He's in
She smiled unwillingly. "That's mature, Mulder, mess it up and
blame it on the kids." He smiled back at her, unrepentant.
Krycek, or Neekto, squirmed.
A nice, quiet two story house on a nice quiet
street in a nice quiet neighborhood. Perfect
camouflage for debriefing a government witnesses with no stress, no pressure.
And in this case, no luck. Krycek
was determined that he was Neekto. He showed no signs
of any combat training other than the Aikido he already admitted to, and seemed
to be extremely uncomfortable with guns. His conversation centered around computers, obscure British police dramas from the
early eighties, and instrumental music. Probing questions and slyly laid
conversational traps exposed not a damned thing that wasn't completely in
character for Alec Neekto. There wasn't a glimpse of Krycek. Mulder didn't have the slightest urge to slug him.
After three days of Scully ferreting around at headquarters and Mulder
ferreting around in Krycek/Neekto's mind, the agent
was ready to give it up and just call the guy Al. At least both alter egos had
that in common.
After three nights with the man, Mulder was looking for a convent
to join.
Or better yet, a monastery.
The story was iron clad, the cover was the most
perfect he'd ever seen. An afternoon spent bonding with the Lone Gunmen had
proven that his computer ability, at least, was genuine. And after nine meals
with him, and three long nights laying in the living room listening to him
breathe, Mulder was losing track of his priorities.
He'd long been aware that gender was a non-issue in his lovers. He was
drawn toward people who intrigued him, and who would hurt him given half a
chance. Fully aware of his own obsessive tendencies and his attraction toward
anything and anyone that could prove hazardous to his health, his desire for Krycek had been just one more urge sublimated into his
search for the truth through his work. That sublimation had been eased and
encouraged by the double agent's subsequent betrayals.
Now, that search, and his investigative instincts,
were concentrating on the same subject as his libido. It was stretching
him to his limits.
The morning of the fourth day, it snapped.
It shouldn't have taken him by surprise. Any talking Alec had done for
the last few days that didn't involve hacking code had been about men. Musicians, actors, characters in television shows … all
guys. And he'd felt the other man watching him, gauging his reaction. Codes and
subcodes, all very familiar to Mulder, even if it had
been a long time since he'd been a codetalker in this particular substrata of society. Matched with the
brushing hands, the 'accidental' bumps between their shoulders when they walked
or their thighs when they sat, the staring and the lingering eye contact, and
he was left in no doubt whatsoever that the want was returned.
He just didn't trust him.
And his body didn't seem to give a damn.
Three year old buried urges about the man who might or might not be
scamming him were joined with new needs for the man he was getting to know, and
when Alec leaned toward him over the file they were studying and kissed the
side of his mouth, he turned his head.
Toward the touch, not away.
Alec moaned, shifted closer. Canted his head sideways.
Techtron's financial
records for software development division for the last two years hit the floor
with a dull thud. Neither man noticed, except to wriggle closer to one another,
with the paper impediment removed.
It had been awhile, but the movements came back. It was a lot like
riding a bike. Of course, an eidetic memory helped, and he had done quite a bit
of studying along with his field research. He knew where the sensitive nerves
were, and the likely response if he bit lightly just over the jugular, sucked
gently on the Adam's apple, tugged at an earlobe. His hands roamed over the
crisp linen shirt, sought out buttons, thanked Whomever
that Alec wasn't given to undershirts as he dove his fingertips into the light
fur on the warm chest.
As his own hands were exploring, so Alec's were roving over his own
body, shifting off his shirt, tugging at his belt, sliding along his zipper.
Mulder wasn't really aware of moving, too caught up in the taste of the skin
under his mouth, but he helped as best he could without losing contact with his
target. He had forgotten just how good this was, heated hands sweeping over his
back, along his ass, strong legs winding through his, forcing his thighs apart.
Alec drew his head back, thrust one hand through Mulder's
hair, and pulled their faces together. As Mulder covered Alec's open mouth with
his own, taking it in a wet, deep kiss, they slid off
the side of the sofa and ended up in a heap on the floor. He would have laughed
at the ungraceful slide, but before he could get the breath, Alec's hand closed
around his erection, and his attention narrowed to those thin bands of steel
around him. He arched into the hold, losing Alec's kiss as his head fell back. Mulder's fingers dug into the carpet as Alec slid down his
body, never ceasing the squeezing caress of his fist, until he could take Mulder's cock in his mouth.
At the first full touch of hot wet warmth over the head of his cock,
Mulder tried to scream. Then fist and mouth began to work in tandem, and he
opened his eyes to concentrate on the sight of that face, the face of his
enemy, the face of his betrayer. Lips distended, cheek hollowing and filling,
eyes closed, lashes brushing flushed cheeks, a lock of dark hair falling over
his sweating forehead. The tips of the lock of hair caught in the lashes of his
left eye. There was a mixture of pre-ejaculate and saliva coating his lips and
smearing down on to his chin. Mulder could feel the movements of his throat
against the head of his cock, as the long, slender fingers rolled his balls
from side to side within the sac.
He had never seen anything so erotic in his life. And he'd seen a lot of
erotica.
As much as his mind was telling him this was Neekto,
his body was screaming that it was Krycek. The past
and the present pulled together as he felt his climax gathering in his gut, and
exploded into a mind-numbing fuzzy red haze as he came. Every muscle in his
body clenched, he could swear even his hair was standing up straight, and his fingers
and toes curled. Then he collapsed.
Sweaty, hot hands pushed urgently at his thighs, and he obligingly moved
them the few inches his lover demanded. Then those hands were shoving at the
outside of his hips, and he felt the slick thrust of Alec's cock sliding at the
apex, splitting his spent balls, rubbing at the sensitive skin of his perineum.
The sensation was actually painful after his full-throttle climax, but before
he could gather himself enough to decide if the pain was a bad or a good thing,
the heaving body atop his stilled. Alec thrust twice, then
shuddered, leaning in over Mulder's torso and burying
his face in the curve of his shoulder. Mulder lifted weighted arms up and
around the shaking back, cuddling him close, soothing him. Turning his head
slightly he dropped a feather kiss on the thin skin behind Alec's ear. Alec
sighed, burrowed closer, and panted, trying to get his breath back.
By the time they were both calm enough to get untangled from one
another, Mulder had a crick in his neck and what felt like a permanent
indentation from the folder crumpled at the small of his back (now undoubtedly
covered with semen, and he was not about to try to explain that to
Scully). Alec finally got enough strength back to shift himself up to his knees.
They stared at one another for a long moment, Mulder splayed spread-eagle with
his legs lying alongside Alec's knees, arms relaxed at his sides, Alec kneeling
over him. Mulder suddenly grinned up at his uncertain lover.
"Will you still respect me in the morning?" Alec looked at him
like he'd lost his mind, then snorted with laughter.
"It still is morning, or hadn't you noticed?" He shoved
himself to his feet and extended a hand to help Mulder up. Mulder took it, but
didn't drop it when he was standing. Instead, he twined their fingers closer
together, leaned forward and lightly kissed Alec, licking at the last few drops
of his own spendings.
"We are out of our fucking minds." Before Alec could answer, a
shrill ringing from somewhere in the mound of clothes caused Mulder to drop his
hand and start digging through the material. Alec watched him, mouth opening
then closing several times as if he wanted to say something but didn't quite
know what it was. Mulder could sympathize.
Finally locating his cell phone, he brought it up to his ear.
"Mulder."
"Are you all right?" Why did she always ask that? After all,
he had managed to answer it. He stifled the question and nodded once,
forgetting as usual that she couldn't see him.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Scully. What have you found?"
"Well, he's not who he said he was." Mulder's
eyes closed in pain. Shit. This was exactly what he had expected. "But it
doesn't look like he's who we thought he was, either." His eyes popped
back open and he stared over at Alec, who was watching him with open concern.
"Care to elucidate on that one?"
"He is a programmer, but for the DoD, not Techtron. His
records go back only eleven years, then they're sealed and it would take Frohicke to pull them out, and land us all in prison. And
get this, Mulder -- he has language capabilities listed. English is not his
first language. Russian is."
Mulder swallowed heavily. "Can you get away?"
"In about a half hour. Watch your back, Mulder." His lips tightened at the concern in her
voice, and the reasons behind it.
"I will, Scully. You too -- they know we have him, and by now
they'll undoubtedly be bringing in the big guns to find him."
He listened for her agreement, then slowly
closed the phone. Taking a deep breath, he began to dress, tossing Alec his
clothes as he came across them. Alec tried to ask him several times what Scully
had said, but Mulder shook his head, cutting him off each time. When they were
both fully dressed and Mulder had brought out cans of orange juice for both of
them, they settled back on the couch. Alec stared at Mulder. Mulder stared at
the mess of come and paperwork on the carpet. He nudged it with one toe.
"Who are you?" he finally asked very quietly. Alec made an
impatient noise, and Mulder simply looked at him. The other man swallowed, took
a gulp of juice, and licked his lips.
"Everything I've told you is true, but it's not all there is."
"Is it ever?" Mulder interjected cynically. Alec looked at him
miserably, and Mulder nodded for him to continue. "Go ahead, spill
it."
Alec squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, gathering his thoughts, then did just that. "I come from a small town just
outside of
Mulder stared hard at him for a moment, then
shook his head. "You actually expect this to make sense? You really are
naïve." He got up slowly from the couch, gathered the ruined papers from
the floor, and headed for the door. "Come on. We have some digging to
do."
Behind his back, Mulder heard a soft whisper, "But do you believe
me?" He stopped, looked at the sticky papers in his hand, and leaned
against the door jamb, still keeping his back to his erstwhile lover.
"I want to." Then he settled down at the table and pulled his
briefcase toward him. "Sit down and dig."
Alec sat down and began digging.
Forty five minutes later and no clues the wiser, Scully interrupted
their search with take-out Chinese boxes and suspicious glares. Mulder
shrugged, gave her an apologetic look, and told her what Alec had told him.
Alec kept his head down and munched fried rice.
"I thought you were the one who didn't believe in
coincidences?" she challenged Mulder. Surely he couldn't actually buy
this, she thought with total disbelief. He actually appeared to be considering
it.
He poked at a stray shrimp and wagged a chopstick in her general
direction. "I don't. And I'm not saying that there isn't a conspiracy
going on here -- Alec wouldn't be targeted if there wasn't."
She noted his use of the alternate first name and sighed internally. He was
buying it. Not that it should surprise her, after all. It was a weird mystery,
and Mulder lived for them. She watched him swallow the shrimp and waited
patiently for his justifications.
"I'm just saying I don't think he is part of it. He's
looking more and more like a victim, Scully."
"But why? We still
haven't clarified that!"
He tapped a printout with one finger. Alec craned his neck to see what
he was pointing out.
"The data compressor? What's the big deal with that? It's not even part of the more highly
classified stuff." He cocked his head to the side, and just for a moment,
took Mulder's breath away. He was a dead ringer for Krycek.
Scully noticed Mulder's choke and asked
quickly, "Are you okay?" At his nod, she backed up Alec's question.
"What link do you think you've found?"
"It's not the compression program itself," he managed, his
voice smoothing out as he worked the knot out of his throat. "It's the
funding. It looks familiar -- too familiar. There was a similar funding
structure behind the farms where the … children were found."
She heard the carefully unstated 'clones' and shot a glance at Alec. He
appeared confused.
"What's wrong with the funding? Not that I'm a genius with grants,
but it looked pretty straightforward to me."
"It is, on the surface." Mulder warmed to his topic. "But
scratch that surface and you find a network of companies with untraceable
holdings. I recognize some of the names. Scully and I have run across them
before. They're fronts for a Consortium of what can at best be called
businessmen and at worst monsters, who for some time used a man who is your
doppelganger for some of their dirtiest work." He shoved the chopstick
into the box and pushed back from the table, slumping in his chair and looking
very tired. "I think they didn't take into account your presence in the
project, Alec. And I think someone panicked, and decided to get rid of you.
Perhaps someone at Techtron recognized, or thought
he recognized you, and is trying to take you out on the off chance that you are
Krycek."
Scully pushed around a grain of rice and looked back and forth between
the two men. Mulder was stretching on this one. From the … odd feeling she was
getting between the two of them, she'd be willing to bet something was going
on. She just wasn't sure what. And she wasn't completely sure she wanted to
know. Neekto, or whoever the hell he was, had gotten
under Mulder's skin. Badly.
Before she could expand on the thought, Mulder was sitting straight up,
then diving sideways, knocking Neekto out of his
chair and screaming for her to get down. She hit the deck sideways, feeling the
chair skid away from her, and heard the whine of small arms fire over her head.
Risking a look as she scuttled for cover, she saw that the bullets had buried
themselves in the back of Neekto's chair. Right at heart-level.
She pulled her Sig Sauer out and flicked off
the safety, bringing it around on the intruder. For an instant she froze, her
weapon trained on a slender, pale man with dark hair, hugging the wall and
aiming past her.
Krycek.
She screamed warning and fired directly after, instinctively protecting
their charge. Krycek ducked through the side hall
into the sitting room, then got off a few more shots
around the door jamb. He was using a Magnum, large caliber, and they were
sitting ducks. Mulder was trying to get a clear shot when Alec's nerve gave,
and he ran. Shouting something about 'fucking guns' and 'nyet'
and 'pachyemoo', he hit the door running. Mulder
yelled 'Shit!', gave Scully a 'get the hell out of
here' hand signal, and followed.
Scully was right behind him.
Once in the front drive, Mulder caught up with Alec, wrestling him
behind a hedge and trying to shake some sense into him. Scully skidded around
the side of the hedge, waved off the gun Mulder pointed at her, and cocked her
head in a silent question. Mulder shook his own head in a negative reply, and
she nodded. He had his hands full. She'd go see about taking down Krycek. He'd join her as soon as he got Alec calm, quiet
and hidden.
That answered one thing. Unless he was twins, he sure as hell wasn't Krycek.
It was a game of cat and mouse throughout the house. She was nearly to
the end of the clip when he finally made a mistake, and she nailed him for it.
It was a clean shot through the shoulder, taking him down but not killing him.
She was a professional, after all, and as much as she would have liked some
vengeance for the part the man had played in her abduction and the death of her
sister, she wanted to see justice done even more badly.
Coming up cautiously alongside the still body, she gave him a visual once-over.
He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, several days beard growth
shadowing his face. There was a lot of blood pooling under his torso, and it
was still flowing fast. Keeping her pistol ready, she leaned down with one hand
to his throat, finding a fast, weak pulse.
She turned her head, calling strongly, "Mulder!" Then there
was a flash of movement and her vision exploded into a million tiny white spots
that slowly faded away into black.
Mulder had to practically sit on Alec to get him to listen. The younger
man was terrified, shaking like a leaf and having difficulty stringing words
together. Eventually he managed to apologize, barely.
"Bad memories. Sorry. Scully?" It was hard to understand
coming from stiff lips over a clenched jaw, but it was enough.
"You stay here." Alec shook his head wildly. Mulder growled
softly under his breath. He didn't have time for this. "YES!" he
commanded in a whispered scream. "I have to go back up my partner! Move
and I'll shoot you myself!"
This appeared to settle the argument. Before he could pull away, Alec
reached over and kissed him, once, drawing back immediately.
"Watch yourself." The shaking had finally passed. Now he
simply looked dazed, and scared even more for Mulder
than for himself. Mulder grinned quickly at him.
"Always." He ignored the quiet "why don't I believe that?" behind him
and made his way into the house. Three feet inside the front door he heard
Scully call out that she had the rat bastard.
"Scully? Where are you?" When she didn't answer, he felt a
sick churning in his stomach. This was not a good sign. Tearing through
the rest of the house as quickly as he could without leaving himself open to
getting his head blown off, he finally located her. She was lying in a puddle
of blood in the back bedroom. "Oh, Jesus, Scully," he whispered, then put out a hand to feel her pulse. It was strong and
steady. He closed his eyes for a heart beat with the relief then looked her
over thoroughly. It looked like the blood wasn't hers.
"Is she okay?"
Mulder had spun and cocked his weapon at Alec before he even realized he
was moving. Jerking the barrel toward the ceiling, he hissed, "Don't you ever
fucking listen?" Uncocking the Glock he turned back to his partner. She was just coming
around. As she started to shake the muzziness out of
her head, they all heard the same thing.
Footsteps, heading toward them from the front of
the house.
Mulder made a split second decision. Grabbing Scully's gun, he pressed
it into her hand. Cupping her chin, he saw the pain and the lingering dizziness
from the blow, but he also saw enough awareness to be able to defend herself.
"Stay with her." This time Alec wouldn't disobey. Mulder was
ice cold, and there was no doubt that he would shoot Alec if Scully was
left alone.
Alec came forward, crouching next to Scully and steadying her. "Go
to it, Mulder. We're okay." It was said with more bravado than certainty,
but with Scully's ginger nod backing it up, Mulder went to hunt Krycek.
Peering around corners, hearing his heart beat in his ears,
concentrating on the stealthy sounds that would give his prey away hopefully
before he gave himself away, Mulder stalked Krycek from room to room. From the back den to the center
hall, up the stairs, ducking at a draft of air, squinting into late afternoon
sunlight glinting in through the three narrow windows along the side wall of
the stairway, by the time Mulder cornered Krycek he
was jumpier than he could quite control. Adrenaline, the copper bite of fear on
the back of his tongue, the iron tension in his flexed arms as he held his gun
ready all combined to make time run slower, draw out the chase. He heard the
light slap of tread skipping back down the stairs, toward his wounded partner
and their charge, and threw himself onto the upper landing, bringing his gun to
bear on a black leather clad back heading halfway down the stairwell.
"Krycek! Stop!" He didn't really expect the
bastard to do it. A twisting turn, one gloved hand flung out against the
banister for balance, the other leveling a fucking huge gun directly at Mulder's head. He didn't consciously make the decision to
squeeze the trigger. But he felt the kick of the recoil, felt the jerk of the Glock against his palm. Watched the
impact of the two slugs as they buried themselves, one mid-abdomen, one
directly in the center of his chest.
Mulder stared at the crumpled, unmoving body, shaking slightly,
and slowly lowered his gun. His knee hurt where he'd landed on it. He could
smell the blood and the cordite from the fired rounds. The smell caught at the
back of his throat and nearly made him gag. With a rush of sound and sight,
reality slammed back into real time around him, and he heard a voice screaming
his name.
"Mulder! We need help!"
Alec. Scully. Shit.
He paused just long enough to verify that Krycek
was, indeed, dead, then vaulted down the rest of the steps and swung into the
side room, Glock up and ready.
The room was empty.
Swinging in a tight circle, he caught sight of Alec peering out at him
from around the side of a heavy desk. Skittering around the side, he saw that
the other man had bundled Scully up and tucked her behind the solid drawers,
trying to barricade them as much as possible from any incoming threat. She was
groggy, obviously concussed, and Mulder gave Alec full marks for getting her to
a safe spot.
Guessed the guy wasn't completely useless in a dangerous situation.
Keeping a look-out for any other threats, Mulder demanded, "What
happened?"
Alec swallowed twice before he could say anything. "Scully started
to get really dizzy, so I helped her move over by the desk so she could lean on
it. Then I heard somebody coming in the front, so I grabbed her and got her
around back of the desk so they wouldn't see us. She fainted, I think, her head
must be killing her. I looked out and saw a couple guys in black, like the ones
that hit my apartment. Then I heard gunshots, and they took off. I yelled for
you as soon as they were out of sight."
A muffled groan from Scully took their attention. She looked a little
better, but still dazed and pale. Mulder took out his cell phone and hit the
third fast dial button. Two reroutings through the
switchboard he had Director Skinner on the line. The explanation was terse and
to the point, and eleven minutes later an ambulance, forensics team, back up
and the AD were all on the way. Mulder's ears were
burning, but that was nothing new. With Alec's help, Mulder gently transferred
Scully to the couch to await the ambulance.
"Stop fussing, Mulder, I'm fine," she grumbled, her standard
response to any sort of injury that wasn't immediately life threatening.
"Of course you are, Scully," he responded automatically with
his standard response to hers, and they shared a small, conspiratorial grin.
Then she winced as the movement set off the pain in her head, and he patted her
shoulder. "The cavalry will be here in a minute, Scully. I need to check
the body." They both knew that Mulder had to get there first if there was
anything to salvage that they didn't want disappearing into a black hole
somewhere. "Will you be okay?"
She shooed him away. "I'll be fine, Mulder, really."
He smiled down at her, then glanced over at
Alec. The young man had been very quiet while everything was going down, and
now looked rather pale himself. Mulder had a jarring moment when Krycek's feral snarl overlay the calm features, then shook himself out of it.
Krycek was dead. Scully
was injured, Alec was traumatized, he was damned
tired. Time to get this cleaned up and go forward.
Holding his hand out to Alec, Mulder pulled him toward the door.
"Watch the door for me?" he invited. Alec nodded, and followed him
into the hall. There was a tiny quiver running through the other man's slender
frame, and Mulder pulled him into the shadow of the entryway, out of sight of
Scully. "Are you okay?"
Alec stared at him for a long moment, then
slowly burrowed into his arms. Burying his face in Mulder's
shoulder, he said softly, "I hate guns. The old ways of government didn't
leave my country without a fight. My brother and my father were both killed in
the years leading up to secession. I was just a teenager when my brother was
killed. I found him, in his car, the side of his head
was missing." A sharp shudder went through him, and Mulder tightened his
hold. "I was eleven." He took a deep breath and pulled away from
Mulder. His face was drawn with remembered pain, and his eyes were very old.
"I truly hate guns."
Mulder nodded, then lifted one hand to touch
his cheek. "It's okay, Alec. I'm sorry. Just …
stay here, and show the paramedics where to find Scully when they get here, all
right? And when you see a balding guy with glasses who looks like he's chewing
glass … warn me so I can hide."
The attempt at humor lightened the atmosphere somewhat, and Alec smiled
slightly before pushing Mulder toward the stairs. "Sentry on duty,"
he called quietly. Mulder threw a grin over his shoulder then turned to face
the corpse.
Except there wasn't one.
"FUCK." He closed his eyes, pounded his fist
against the banister in frustration, and threw a command over his shoulder.
"Stay here, I'm going to go find him. He can't be very far away!" He
pounded up the stairs, doing a thorough reconnaissance of all the rooms,
knowing it was hopeless. Sometime while he was seeing to Scully a clean up had
taken place, and he hadn't even known it. Damning himself for missing his
opportunities once again, he made certain he checked every single room.
As he had expected, the rat had been spirited away.
At the foot of the stairs, glancing to the side to make sure Scully's
eyes were closed and to the front to ensure back up had not yet arrived, then a
final time at Mulder's disappearing back, Alec
stretched his right foot forward. Using the edge of his shoe, he scrubbed the
small green stain into the carpet. There was the brief flare of carpet fibers
vaporizing at contact with the toxic substance, then nothing but a hole in the
material to ever show what had once been there. Slowly climbing the stairs,
listening as Mulder went through the rooms, he did the same with the entire
trail of droplets leading from the front door to the pool of red blood slowly
seeping into the carpeting on the steps. When all evidence of alien presence
had been eradicated, he returned to the foot of the stairs and resumed his
watch for the ambulance.
The next hour was extremely unpleasant for all involved. Scully was
lucky. She had a concussion and got to escape to the hospital. Mulder had to
stand still for the full Skinner Rips Your Head Off and Hands It To You treatment. Alec was the only real surprise. He
actually tried to stand up for Mulder to Skinner.
That lasted almost thirty seconds before Skinner blasted him into
near-catatonia. Mulder unobtrusively tucked Alec back behind him and braced
himself for the rest of the reaming. When the boss had run out of steam,
another useless APB was put out on Krycek. Skinner
took Neekto off to a safe house, and Mulder didn't see
him for several weeks.
There were occasional briefings, and Mulder kept tabs on him as best he
could from a distance, but eventually things settled down to what passed for
normal with the X Files. Eventually the report came through that no further
threat had been determined against Alec Neekto, and
he had returned to his life. There was no further contact.
Scully returned to work, sound and skeptical as always. Mulder obsessed,
chewed seeds, threw paper basketballs, and tried to forget Alec.
Of course it didn't work.
Nearly seven months after watching Alec walk away flanked by FBI bodyguards, Mulder stepped from the elevator to find him
waiting patiently beside his apartment door. He stopped and stared, unable to
think of a thing to say. Alec grinned at him.
"Needko. Alec. Free man. Wanna
party?"
The hesitation was gone, and the husky tone Mulder remembered so well
from the one and only time he'd had this man was back in full force. He dug
into his coat pocket, fumbled out his door key and handed it silently to Alec.
"yeah." The satisfied whisper cut
through both of them.
It hadn't been difficult at all. Ghosts are hard to call, harder still
to contain, almost impossible to fight, and easy to banish if they never
existed.
He looked at the tired, rumpled, gorgeous agent in front of him and took
the keys. And the trust. The desire,
and the belief.
The bed was a mess, but it was even messier by the time they finished.
He'd undressed Mulder with care and attention that was wasted on the inferno of
need that distracted the man. They had kissed until their lips were swollen and
sore, touched until they could map one another blindfolded, know one another
from the scent of skin alone.
They hadn't warned him about this. This heady rush of losing himself,
the pure power of knowing the man moaning beneath him was his. They
probably hadn’t known it themselves, dry bones of old
withered flesh that they were. Not for them the solidity of flesh, the grasp of
needful muscles, the press of hungry hands. Not for them, the wet slap of moist
sweating skin, the arching back, the tensed thighs, the finally yielding channel.
And most certainly not for them, the greedy clench of muscle
draining him, the convulsion of heat sparking his own, the splash of fire
against his stomach, dripping onto his groin, searing him.
Only for him. Never for them.
As Mulder gradually relaxed into sleep and he gently pulled until they
were separated again, he settled his lover deeper into the tossed linens and
smiled down at his peaceful face. Then he laughed, silently, bitterly, at his
own imaginings.
Of course it was for them.
Waiting patiently until he was certain that Mulder was deeply asleep,
Alex padded barefooted and naked into the bathroom. Shutting the door and
turning on the light, he stared into the mirror for a very long time. Then he
reached behind the toilet tank and brought out a small dull gray metal case.
Listening to make sure that Mulder still slept, he clicked the case open and
took out a syringe and an ampoule of green liquid. With no expression on his
face, he loaded the cartridge. Staring at the line of his arm as he lined the
needle up, he sank it fully into the small knot at the base of his skull and
depressed the plunger steadily until the syringe was completely empty.
Withdrawing it carefully, he replaced it in the case and hid it back behind the
tank. Reaching back with one finger, he probed the nape of his neck, satisfied
when the fingertip came back dry.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes as the fluid sped along his
nervous system, easing out the kinks and soothing the tingling nerve endings.
When the flush finally stopped itching under his skin, he opened his eyes again
and cocked his head, appraising himself in the mirror. His right hand came up
to lightly finger his left biceps, fingers trailing gently over a nearly
invisible scar circling his upper arm.
Turning from the mirror, he shut off the light, gave his eyes time to
adjust to the darkness, and slipped soundlessly into the living room. Mulder
shifted in his sleep, but didn't waken.
Rummaging quickly in his jacket pocket, he extracted a hair-thin filament
and wound it in place along the upper edge of the shelves above the fish tank,
careful not to disturb the dust accumulated there. Extending the end of the
strand to the corner of the electrical outlet directly underneath it, he
pressed firmly. It disappeared into the dried paint, just another hairline
crack amongst many. Returning to the shelf, he angled it to get the best field
of vision for the video feed it would provide and stepped back to check his
work.
Perfect. Mulder would never know it was there.
Digging a half-full baggy of chocolate candies out of his other pocket
and prepared to use a midnight case of the munchies as an alibi if need be, he
slipped back into the bedroom. Mulder still hadn't stirred. He set the bag on
the bedside table, slipped between the sheets and curled his body along Mulder's left side. Attracted to the heat, Mulder shifted
in his sleep and threw an arm over his bedmate.
Krycek smiled down at the
head nestled into his chest, running his fingers gently through the soft brown hair.
He had his second chance, in his own twisted way, and now that the sleeper was
awake, he was going to enjoy every second of this particular dream.
Until they took it all away.
Again.
*f*i*n*