TITLE: Bentropy Three
NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: mik_dok@yahoo.com
CATEGORY: M/K
RATING: NC-17. M/K/? This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. So, if you don't like that type of thing - STOP NOW! Forewarned is forearmed. Proceed with caution. Of course if you have four arms you can throw caution to the wind, or perhaps lend one to Krycek.
SUMMARY: Entropy - chaos. Bent - not straight. 'nuff said.
ARCHIVE: Only with my permission.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist...
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: This is after everything, the season in the shower notwithstanding.
KEYWORDS: story slash angst Mulder Krycek NC-17
DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Alex Krycek, and all other X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from their use...unless you count cheap thrills. Other characters belong to me...or someone else but they left them at my house so I'm playing with them.
If you like this, there's more at https://www.squidge.org/3wstop
If you didn't like it, come see me, anyway. Pet the dog.
Bentropy Three
by Mik
"No."
What the hell is a pink Corona, anyway? And why doesn't anyone believe me when I say I don't want one? I settled back in the booth and fixed my sights on the front door again. I wasn't sure if Peyton was going to show up. I wasn't sure if I wanted him to. I wasn't sure what was going on in my head, but I had a pretty good idea what was going on in my pants. I wanted to get laid. I wanted the intensity of the sex I had with Al - Krycek. I wanted all the good feelings back, carefully sifted so there wasn't one speck of the angst that we went through.
The bottle was delivered, rivulets of water running down the long neck, reminding me of cum sliding down a cock... oh, shit, I needed it bad. I grabbed the bottle, thrust money at the kid in the glasses, and swallowed thirstily. I couldn't remember a time since adolescence that sex had preoccupied all levels of my consciousness with such force, unless it was those few months with Krycek.
You're thinking too much, Mulder, I told myself, wiping beer from my lips with the back of my hand. The motion caught the eye of some guy gyrating on the dance floor. He cocked a brow at me, questioningly. I was starting to learn the rules and that was a game I didn't want to play. Not yet. Maybe, later, if I got desperate.
I sent another look toward the door. I wasn't all that sure if I wanted to play with Peyton, either. What I needed was hard and fast and down and dirty, and Peyton just seemed too uncertain about himself and his needs. At the risk of being corny and sentimental, the guy was a virgin. He needed someone who could walk him through the process gently. I wasn't sure I had the patience for that. But yet, I still wanted to see him. I wanted to talk to him, look at him, dance with him. I guess I wanted to make him the embodiment of all of the good qualities I'd seen in Krycek once. I wanted another Skippy.
Another hour. Another beer. Another twenty impatient glances toward my watch. I was just thinking about getting up and going over to his place when an incredibly tall and incredibly young person slid into the booth. "Get stood up?" His voice was so deep it had to be coming from the basement.
"No." I gave him a quick look. Leather wannabe, but too young and fresh to carry it off. Where and when did I become the expert? And yet, I knew I was right. This one thought he was a tough guy, but I could probably make him cry in five minutes without even touching him. He wasn't what I wanted, either. "Just choosy."
The boy jerked back like a wet cat. Called me a name. The kind we used to use in middle school, when we thought swearing made us hot. I laughed. I couldn't help it. "Do you steal your mother's cigarettes and your daddy's whiskey, too?"
He blushed. Something sparkled dangerously in his eyes. I sent a glance sideways to my watch. Tears in thirty seconds. "Don't take it personally, kid," I said as gently as I could. "I'm just in the mood for something else tonight."
He stood and reached for my beer. Eyes locked on mine, his tongue flicked around the mouth of the bottle. Then he tipped his head back and the beer and the neck of the bottle disappeared toward the back of his throat. I have to admit it was an impressive performance, in fact, parts of me were very impressed, but not quite enough to make me muscle him back to the men's room for an encore.
He set the empty bottle on the table and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "Think about it," he said from the bottom of his shoes.
"Oh, I will," I admitted with an incredulous chuckle. "Now, go play." I was just raising my hand to get the bartender's attention when I saw him. He was at the alcove, hovering, looking a little bit afraid, and looking for me. I stood up. I wanted to march over and sweep him up in my arms, I was just so damned glad to see him. Instead, I made myself lean against the back of the booth until his eyes arced my way, and then offered him an encouraging smile.
Having learnt my lesson that morning, I didn't try to kiss him. I just held out a hand as he approached, and he took it with a firm grip and held on until he was settled in the booth. "I'm glad you came," I said, waving toward the bar. "Can I get you a coke?"
He shook his head. "I'll have a beer. I almost didn't come."
Well, that didn't surprise me, but the twinge of pain it caused did. "You didn't? Why?" I held up my empty soldier and two fingers when I caught the bartender's eye. "Because of this morning? Hey, look, I'm sorry about that. I -"
"Yeah, because of that," he broke in. "Because I liked it, and it scared me."
I settled down opposite him. "I know that feeling," I confessed with a rueful laugh.
He doubted me. I could see it in the way he screwed up his mouth. "Were you scared the first time?" he asked, in a voice that seemed like a whisper even though I could hear it over the band.
"You could say that." I looked up when the waiter brought two bottles. I put money down on the tray and waited for us to be alone again. "You could say I still am." I decided to show my entire hand. "Alex was the only guy I was ever with. And I've only been with one woman since. I'm not exactly practiced in the art of seduction."
He reached for his bottle just as I grabbed it and twisted off the cap. He took it from my hand, and considered the label. "You're doing fine," he admitted quietly.
And that had a greater impact on me than the deep-throat trick I'd just witnessed. "So ... is that why you came tonight?"
"No...I..." he looked up as the band switched to a slow song. "I wanted to dance."
I smiled and stood again. "With me?" I held out my hand.
He moved toward me with a little more certainty this time, molding himself against me without pressing or rubbing or inviting me to do either. He let me take his hand, and he rested his head against my shoulder. The song was slow enough that we didn't really need to do anything but sway lazily, and lose ourselves in the tune. It wasn't a romantic song. Actually it was sort of mournful, but I wouldn't let myself think about loss. Just this once I was going to let what I had be enough.
But when he tucked his head under my chin, and I felt his lips brush along my throat, I wanted more. Lots more. I wanted naked flesh, and the wet sounds of sex, and the taste of his lips and his cum and falling asleep just this way.
I let my tongue trail around his ear lightly, and whispered, "Is the coffee still better at your place?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then he sighed, "Way better."
We left.
*******************************************
His bedroom was an obstacle course of books, discarded clothes, and a couple of orphaned computer monitors. His bed was just a mass of rumpled blankets and sheets. I didn't care. In fact, I felt right at home.
We were locked in a battle to see who could remove the most clothing from the other first and still maintain mouth-to-mouth contact. We were stumbling and laughing and sucking one another's lips in hunger. Tumbling onto the bed, he ended up beneath me, eyes wide, body trembling, and I ground against him, letting him feel what he was doing to me.
When our kiss broke, he gripped my shoulders and moaned, "Jon."
I nearly corrected him then. I wanted to hear him say my name, I wanted to hear it from a lover's lips again. Even that night with Scully...she called me Mulder. But I didn't want to break the moment trying to explain. So I just kissed him again. "It's going to be okay, Peyton."
He was still trembling. "I'm not sure -"
I brushed his hair back from his face. It even felt like Krycek's hair. I had to swallow back a little pain. "It's going to be okay," I repeated. "We're not going any farther than you want to go." I rolled onto my side, and pulled him against me. "It's okay. I promise."
He ducked his head against my chest. "Okay."
For a while we stayed like that, our legs tangled up over the edge of the bed, his face pressed against my chest, my cock against his hip. I couldn't feel any sign of arousal from him, so I just rubbed his shoulder and side and held him until he could stop trembling. My gut was twisted into a huge knot of multi-colored emotions. There was a thick chord of need, wound up with longing for something that I'd lost eight years ago. Then there was something else, something new, and nice and unfamiliar. I liked this guy. I wanted him, yes, but more importantly, I wanted to take care of him, not rush him, scare him or hurt him. In him I could pour out all the affection and nurturing I had wanted to lavish on Krycek once, and later on, for Scully. Krycek considered it a threat, and Scully only thought it was a joke. This guy...this sweet, unaffected guy...he craved it.
We must have slept. I must have done at least. I became drowsily aware of very soft kisses against my chest. Not even kisses, really, just parted lips brushing and pressing around my nipple and up toward my collarbone. I tipped my head down and he lifted his. Our eyes met, those dark, dark eyes ... I kissed him again.
From that moment, he was in control. He pushed me flat on my back, and began exploring my body with his fingers and his tongue. I felt as if I was a data program and he was going to process me. From my hairline downward, he sniffed, he examined, he tasted. I forced myself to lie still and let him find his own way even though every touch went right to my balls.
Eventually, he found his way to my balls. He slid to the floor between my legs, and looked, caressed, and examined. This was a guy who'd spent a lot of time perfecting the art of masturbation because he handled me like a pro. I was the one trembling at that point. It was all I could do to keep from throwing him backward on the floor and drilling him - or worse, telling him I loved him.
He sniffed all around the head of my cock and eventually took a tentative taste of the copiously leaking slit. The taste seemed to surprise him, and he backed away from it and returned to my balls. His tongue worked around and over them, slowly at first and then with greater and greater enthusiasm.
With one hand he began to fist my cock, slow and firm, and based on the sound and motion between my legs, was working his own cock as well. The mental image of him kneeling there, sucking on my thigh and jerking us off was like a match to the dry kindling of my libido and I was rolling, arching, moaning, sweating and begging under his hands.
My response seemed to have a similar effect on him, because he redoubled his efforts for both of us, making small sucking and whimpering sounds, his nose buried between my legs as he stroked us in unison. The sounds were making me so damned hot. Brought back memories of a sweating, thrashing body beneath me, pleading for mercy, for release, for..."Ahhhhh, shittttttt, Alex!"
The silence was like death. I was cold and ashamed, cum still spurting over his hand, even as his grip faded. He was still between my legs, only the harshness of his breathing giving him away. I shut my eyes tight and opened them again. "Ohh, geesh, Peyton." I tried to sit up.
He settled back on his ass, just out of my reach. "It's...it's okay." He was staring at his cum covered hand, his cock bobbing between his legs.
I knelt shakily beside him. "Here, let me -"
"No, it's okay." He scooted away.
I rested my head against the bed. I was still in that shooting-rockets-from-your-ass state of post coital vulnerability, and while I loved the physical sensation, I was hating the emotional upheaval. There was something singularly unsatisfying about hurting someone else even while that someone was satisfying you. And I missed Krycek. In short, I felt like shit.
After a moment, I heard him get up and shut the bathroom door. Once alone, I turned, back against the bed, head in my hands, and let the tears come.
He had the decency to wait until the sobs had subsided a little before he came back out. Much to my surprise and shame, he came right back to me, and knelt next to me. He put a hand on my shoulder. "How sure are you that he's dead?"
I blinked at him. "Peyton...I saw...I watched..." I rubbed my eyes and groped around for my abandoned tee shirt. "I'm sure." I scrubbed my face with the shirt and then rubbed over my belly and thigh.
He went to a dresser and pulled out a drawer. "No, you're not. You thought you were." He came back with the scarlet and gold crest of the USC Trojans on a pullover. "But then that woman told you she'd seen him and now you're doubting again."
"Hey, you computer geek, me psychologist." I took the pullover and pulled it...over.
"I thought you were a cop?"
I nodded and wadded up my tee shirt, looking around for a trash bin. "I was...I was a forensic psychologist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
He reached for the shirt. "You mean like a profiler?"
I made a face. Television had made the job a lot more mystical than it really was. "Something like that."
"Wow." He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked down at me. "You and me ... we kind of do the same thing. You figure out why people commit crimes, I figure out why they commit consumerism."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. "Yeah. You're right."
"Did he have an email account?"
"Oh, he had a hundred of them," I said grimly. Then I looked up at him. "Why?"
He shrugged, trying to look casual, but there was a gleam in his eye. "We might be able to disprove your theory ... or hers." He jumped up from the bed and started pulling on his clothes.
"My theory has official documents and a dozen witnesses," I protested. "My theory is accepted as fact by the United States government." Wow, there's a first. That alone ought to make me doubt what I say. "Okay." I stood up and reached for my own clothes. "What do we do?"
*******************************************
The coffee was still good. And so was he. Hunched over his laptop, he was entering every email address I could think of, some of them very old, and some of them created just in the last year. "Even if he'd gone underground in the metaphorical versus literal sense, wouldn't he be using new email now?" I asked, trying not to get too close but at the same time watch over his shoulder.
"If he was smart," Peyton agreed, scribbling numbers on the back of what looked like an unopened electric bill.
"Oh, he was smart."
"Hmm ... we'll see. Look. Look at this string." He gestured with the tip of his pen. "This is an ISP identifier. And it's not one of a block the way say...AOL works. AOL uses a block of ISP addresses and they rotate, so your number isn't always the same. But this isn't a sequential number, looks like it was run through a 'spider web' program."
I shook my head.
He smiled patiently. "Spider webs are programs that are meant for security, for hiding. Anyone running his ISP access through one is hiding. So...what is this guy hiding?" He highlighted the string and pasted it into his browser. "Well, that one's dead. But here's another."
I settled back on the sofa and watched his hand make the mouse whirl in circles. I didn't understand a word he was saying, but he made great coffee and he was nice to dance with.
He must have felt my contemplation because he tossed a smile over his shoulder. I think he might have been distracted for a moment, because his smile and his glance lingered. I thought he was going to lean back against me, but then his machine beeped, speaking to him in a language only he understood, and he turned his attention away from me. "Slots?"
"Hmm?" I had to rouse myself from a momentary well of disappointment to fix on his question. "Slots?"
"Did he ever use 'slots' as an email nickname?" He was looking at the screen intently.
"No. Doesn't sound like him. Makes no sense." Slots. Silly name for someone. What could it mean? Slot cars? Slot machines. Coin slots. Tab A into slot B...wait a minute. I sat up. Slot machines. Also known as one-armed bandits. I felt a chill steal up my neck. "Yeah. It could be." I'll be damned.
He tapped on the keyboard lightly. "Well, Slots is still active. Did a lot of surfing last month. Hmm...Orbitz, Travelcity. He was pricing airline tickets."
I shifted closer for a better look at the screen. "Yeah? Can you find out where?"
"Not with this," he said, shaking his head. He looked up and considered the monitors blinking away across the room. "But...maybe..." He got up and pulled a six inch thick printout from under one of the monitors.
"Do we have to look through that item by item?" I asked him, more than a little anxiously.
"No. The numbers are fairly sequential by date." He flipped it open about two thirds of the way in, glanced at the laptop screen and flipped pages. "Should be about here."
I put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in. "What are we looking for?"
His finger raced down the page. "For that ISP number to show up here. If we find it, we can use the trail to recapture or at least recreate any unencrypted screens he looked at in his search for airline tickets." He flipped a page. "I know it's a long shot, but -"
"There." I stabbed the middle of the page.
He squinted at the number under my finger and then at the screen. "How did you do that?"
"Eidetic memory," I answered uncomfortably. "What does that tell us?"
"Let's see." He typed a seemingly meaningless string of numbers and letters into his browser. Then another string. Then another. A page popped up. JetBlue Airways. He turned to look at me. Our faces were so close. He swallowed. "Sound familiar?"
I was looking at him, not the screen. "No."
He twisted away from me. "It's a fairly new carrier out of New York, but it flies into Long Beach. Not too far from here. And..." he clicked 'home', "...it's now flying out of Washington's Dulles."
I looked at the screen. "So a month ago, this 'slots' unsub was investigating flights from DC to LA."
"Unsub?"
"Unknown subject." I remained fixed on the screen. "I can't believe he was in DC all that time."
"Hiding in plain sight?" Peyton suggested. "Why not? Everyone thought he was dead."
I flicked him a glance. "You're pretty damned smart for a geekboy."
He blushed. It was just a physiological response, blood rushing to the surface ... but hell, it was cute. He hunched away from me, and worked the keyboard again but I could tell my praise made him self-conscious.
I decided to make him more than self-conscious. I leaned in a little and brushed my lips against his ear. "Peyton," I whispered, meaningfully.
"I'll j - just look to see if he's still..." a shudder rippled through him, "...active."
"Peyton," I whispered again, and put my free hand on his thigh.
"In a minute we can have a com...complete rundown of his...um..." He shut his eyes for a moment and opened them. "Complete. We need to get a complete..."
I started sucking under his ear.
"A complete rundown of his surfing patterns in...ohhhh."
"Hmm?" Somehow I managed to put my coffee down without spilling it and slid my hand over his chest. He smelled good, a little sweat, but mostly just arousal. "Like that?"
His body arched against my hand. "I...Jon...ohh, oh yeah."
I pressed him back against the sofa, sucking and stroking and rubbing. For a moment his hands flopped around in his lap, but then he got clever and wrapped them around me, holding on tight.
I moved in for a kiss, pushing him backward, working a leg over him as if I was climbing aboard a motorcycle, engine revving. I'm not sure why I was so damned turned on. He'd cranked me dry less than two hours ago, but there was something...okay, a lot of things...guilt, the way he looked, biting down on his tongue as he banged away on his computer, the fact that he was trying to help me, the fact that he was helping me, the way he looked when he blushed, and yeah, sick as it is, the inescapable fact that he did remind me of Krycek in all the good ways.
When my hand got to his sweats and started pushing them down, he squirmed under me. "Jon."
"Hush," I told him, biting, not lightly, on the chin.
His little yelp reminded me that he wasn't Krycek, and I kissed his chin almost reverently. "It will be okay." My hand found his cock and while it wasn't raging, it was waking up. I straddled him, my weight on my knees and one hand, while I kissed all over his face and pulled on his cock. "That's good, isn't it?" I panted into his ear.
"Oh...gggggood," he moaned.
I thought for a moment that I was going to do it, go all the way, sodomize him, pop his cherry, fuck him. But his eyes were clenched tight and his body was still shaking even though I could tell he was trying not to. I pulled my jeans open and rested against him tentatively. "Relax, Peyton," I whispered and kissed him again. "It's going to be good."
"Jon," he moaned again.
"Shhh..." I pressed myself alongside him and rocked a little.
He liked that. His body arched up again.
"That's it." I rubbed back, locking my thighs tight around his hips and thrusting hard along his flesh. "Oh, yeah, Peyton. That's it."
It was it. It was slow and intense and left us both holding our breath for a dizzying descent into oblivion, signposted along the way by cries, moans, our names, maybe our mother's names ... I don't know. All I know is that I opened my eyes and he was crying in my arms, clinging to me. I knew why he was crying. I'd cried those tears myself. I shifted to press my cheek to his, and held him close.
*******************************************
We slept that way. I don't know how long. I just know we both woke with a start and it was daylight and we were both stiff and sticky and glued belly to belly. We laughed a little at each other as we tried to separate without too many follicular casualties.
He looked up at me as I eased off him. "Wow," he murmured softly.
Best compliment I'd ever had for my sexual prowess. I wanted to have it engraved on a plaque and hung over my bed. "Good, huh?"
"Better than - oh, shit! Is that the right time?" He pushed away from me. "I'm late!"
So much for pillow talk. Five minutes later he was out of the shower, an oxford shirt draped over his shoulders, dragging a comb through his wet hair. He threw a kiss somewhere near my cheek as he shoved me out the door. "I'll call you if I get any results," he told me, shoving a key in his lock.
"You don't have my -"
"I'll...I'll...I'll see you at the club tonight." And he ran in one direction, tucking his shirt into his belt ... and I walked in the other, scratching my head. In fact, I walked all the way back to my hotel, thinking over the night, what I'd learned, what I'd done, what I'd felt. I thought about the possibility that Krycek was not only alive, but had, for a while at least, been here in Los Angeles. I thought about the way Peyton smelled. And the way he looked when he came. And I thought about taking a hot shower and planning to make him come again.
But first, I thought about catching some sleep.
I pushed my door open, yawning broadly, and froze.
There he was.
Sitting on my bed.
Not Krycek.
Walter S. Skinner. My former boss.
- END Three -