JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries Crossover 1a/9 by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) 9/96 Synopsis: A architect visiting Washington DC is mistaken for Special Agent Fox Mulder and kidnapped by a couple of very nasty characters with revenge on their minds. Warning: This story is rated NC-17 for adult material, violence, weird sex and really bad sex, rather gross anatomical descriptions and general all around not niceness. There is also nobility, determination, a rat, stupidity, luck, both good and bad, and an unexpected and not entirely welcome visitor. Disclaimer: These characters of Mulder, Scully and Skinner belong to the X-Files, Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen Productions and are used here with respect and with no expectation of making any money. The character of Jake (the last name I made up as none is given), is the property of Red Shoes Diaries and Zalman King productions and is similarly borrowed. Author's Notes: This is not a pleasant story. It started with the premise of what would happen if Jake visited Washington and was mistaken for Mulder. The rest evolved from there. If you know what Red Shoes Diaries (RSD) is and you aren't allowed to watch it because you're too young, then you shouldn't be reading this story either. If you don't know who Jake is or RSD and you are older than seventeen then read below. There is, by the way, only the briefest mention of the actual Red Shoes Diaries in this story. It is a story about Jake and Mulder - how they are different and how they are the same. There also some X-Files stuff going on and lots of Washington travelogue stuff. I did actually walk the distance between the National Building Museum, which is an actual place as described, and the FBI building. The 'seedy' parts of town I've driven through on spring evenings. The 'freeway' as described did actually exist in the place mentioned for many years though it may have been finished. Don't ask me, I don't drive in DC. If God had wanted you to drive in DC, he never would have invented subways. Oh, and excuse me for D.C. bashing but I live in the Washington suburbs and it's rather a regional pasttime for us. Who is Jake? A friend of mine I mentioned this story to actually asked me who Jake was. So I guess I'd better explain. If you already know, you don't need to read this. Red Shoes Diaries was a pilot for a series made probably about a year before X-Files came out. David Duchovny was hired to play the male lead - Jake - who builds sky scrapers. Jake is a driving and successful architect and a sexy, sensitive lover. He has decorated a warehouse as his studio/eclectic apartment. It is equipped with a Victorian bathroom complete with claw-footed tub and stained glass windows and a complete 1/10 scale city scape which he lights up to show how his buildings will affect the skyline at sunrise. There's a basketball hoop in the studio. On the series premier of RSD Jake is comfortably in love with a beautiful but not completely altogether woman named Alex who realizes that, though she loves Jake and that he is as good to her as any man could be, he just knows too much about her. She longs to have some secrets, to maintain some mystery. To make a long story short she has an affair with a hunk of a construction worker who induces her to buy expensive high-heeled red pumps which she wears to their little rendezvous'. What Alex finds is that she cannot break off from this purely animalistic relationship even after she accepts Jake's proposal. Unable to justify the two halves of her life, Alex slits her wrists. Jake finds her floating in the Victorian bathtub. He is devastated. While cleaning out her clothes he finds her red bound diary which describes her affair in excruciating detail. Jake sinks into a deep depression. This betrayal is even worse than her suicide. Unable to understand how she could have done this to him, he places an ad in several newspapers asking for lovers with similar experiences of love and betrayal to write to 'Red Shoes' with their stories. This is the background for the series Red Shoes Diaries. Every episode begins with Jake opening his mail and ending with his making some comment. I have not seen very many of the actual 'Diaries' other than the ones which were put out on video (there were at least four with three episodes each) but Jake's character is never developed in any detail except in the pilot and one story called - appropriately enough, 'Jake's Story' - in which we find out that Jake has finally gone back to work but a year has passed since Alex's death and he still has no desire to 'go out'. This is an excellent story which I would recommend to any adult. I will summarize, however, that Jake is left at the end of this brief affair in worse shape than when he started. And so here this unsuspecting architect is in DC and now he has to deal with Fox Mulder's problems too. Poor Jake. JAKE'S LUCK By Susan Esty (AKA Windsinger) 9/96 Warning: PG-17 Chapter 1 Footsteps echoed, rising to hang in the air of the huge hall. A small, round fountain splashed soothingly in the center of the hall which, though nearly the size of a football field, had a beauty in balance and form and symmetry which made an impression beyond it's sheer size. Beneath the cathedral-like ceiling, two stories of office windows behind Roman arches look down from high up on the clear story level. Marble squares in the colors of earth and rock were set in intricate patterns in the floor. Columns of golden-veined stone, eight feet in diameter, some of the largest interior columns in the world, marched elegantly row by elegant row along two sides of the fabulous room. Hazel Harwood stared to the right, to the left, up at the ceiling more than six stories above her and then down at the marble squares at her feet. And to think this had nearly been lost. Neglected for many decades, left to rot, the building had been saved only at the last minute from the wrecker's ball. What a shame it would have been if that had been lost. "Miss Harwood?" A man with sparse, grey hair and a thick beard asked. "Yes?" "Senator Cranshaw asked for me to show you around. You're his...?" "Cousin. I'm an art history professor at Ohio State. Sorry if I'm a little breathless. I can scarcely believe this. I've been to Washington half a dozen times and I never even knew it existed. This is fantastic." "Yes, the National Building Museum is an unappreciated treasure. You don't find it on most of the tours. The neighborhood has fallen on some hard times but it's coming back." They walked across the large open room to stand between two of the columns just to get a feel for the mass. Everyone did that. Their footsteps echoed staccato-like, softly mingling with the gentle splash from the central fountain. "It's a little awe-inspiring." The museum director smiled proudly. "You should hear the acoustics when it's empty." The trim, middle-aged woman for the first time concentrated on the exhibit booths. Two or three dozen of them were scattered about the floor at the other end of the room in an artistic sort of disordered harmony. "What - ?" "That? A temporary exhibit on the architecture and engineering of the modern city. It's affiliated with an architectural conference just closing at the DC Convention Center. Over the last week we had some of the country's leading young architects showing off their works in progress here." Hazel Harwood smiled. "In the field of art history, most of the artists we study are dead." "Oh, far from that here. They're beginning to pack up today, but one or two might be available to talk to you." "I think I'd like that. Maybe a budding Frank Lloyd Wright?" The older man gestured for her to precede him and began wending his way through the displays. "I think there is an incredibly talented young man who is still here. He's from Portland. Ah, yes, here he is." A slender, dark-haired man wearing a crisp, boldly striped shirt and suspenders with his comfortably cut European trousers was just rolling a blue print. All of the tools of his trade were scattered about on his drafting table in various stages of being packed. "Mr. Simmons, Ms. Harwood." Ms. Harwood extended her hand and smiled broadly. Oh, if only she were twenty years younger. Hours later with the sun set long before, a tall figure moved with an unhurried, rather forlorn grace down the wet, glistening steps of the Building Museum. His hands were deep in the pockets of his flowing black coat, his collar was pulled up around his ears against the chill, March drizzle. The street he crossed was deserted. The downtown section of Washington was often that way once the office workers had all departed for their safe bedrooms in the suburbs. Two shadows watched his passage from the darkness. The smaller one made a gesture and the two moved forward much like jackals closing in silently for the kill. ******** FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder rolled over on his couch. The ancient leather creaked. Squinting, his eyes flickered over the digital read out on his VCR. Three-sixteen. Something had disturbed his sleep and not dreams, not this time. He had actually been sleeping well lately. If not another nightmare then what? His living room was lit by the soft blue glow from the television which at the moment was showing only the-station- is-off-the-air snow. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. He listened. At the moment the only sound was the television's soft hiss. No, that wasn't true there was another sound. A scratching, metallic sound. Someone was at his door trying to open it with a key but not hurrying. They were even fumbling a little. There had been no knock. One click on the controller and the television went black. As his hand reached under the cushion near his head for the gun he kept there, Mulder's brain raced back over he and Scully's most current cases. Had he irritated any of his regular stable of enemies enough recently to explain this very early social call? Nothing particular came to mind. Nothing more than usual anyway. There was no whir from an electronic lock 'picker', the intruder was clearly using a key. >From where? That was easy. There were copies in the rental office and, of course, the resident manager had his. In the microsecond that it took for all this to go through his mind, Mulder hoped the little old man had not come to any harm just because his tenant in apartment 42 happened to have pissed off more people in Washington than the combined efforts of the Democrats and the Republicans. The door opened, light from the hallway spilling in as Mulder trained his gun on the silhouette in the doorway, its identity barely registering on his mind before his visitor did something totally unexpected. The figure flipped on the switch next to the door turning on the main apartment lights. Mulder flinched, momentarily blinded, yet at the same time he leapt from the couch into a protective crouch, gun raised. There was frantic rustle, a shine of metal and a small woman raised a gun which was a partner to his. "Mulder!" "Scully? What the... " Both guns came down, safeties clicking automatically into place. "You just about scared me to death! I could have shot you." Stunned, Dana asked, "Mulder, what are you doing here?" "Last time I looked I live here. Why?" Mulder looked down at his wrinkled T-shirt and skimpy, faded jogging shorts. "If you had knocked first I could have worn something a little more appropriate." Dana Scully totally ignored the comment, not even a rolling of her lovely eyes, an omission which by itself got her partner's attention. She was more than pale, she was a rather noteworthy shade of ghostly grey. "I didn't knock, Mulder, because I didn't expect you to be here." "That's interesting. Where was I supposed to be?" Dana opened a manila folder she carried, pulled out a photograph and handed it to him. It was the picture of a man lying on his side either unconscious or dead. He was pretty thoroughly beaten. Mulder estimated the age to be about thirty if not younger, dark hair, lean, broad-shouldered and probably tall from the length of his torso. His hands were bound behind his back. His button down shirt hung open from his broad shoulders and through the rents in the T-shirt beneath abrasions and a great purpling bruise could be seen. Under normal circumstances the man would have been clean-shaven but at the time the picture was taken the face was heavily shadowed with at least two days growth of beard. The one eye which was visible was swollen and dark. From the cut on the forehead a trickle of blood stood out of the fair skin. And then there were more bruises. "All right. Some poor bastard's gotten himself beat up. That's no reason I can think of for sneaking into my apartment at three in the morning. Is this a case for us?" For about the tenth time since their meeting, Mulder noticed that his calm, collected partner was far from calm and collected. The hand that had extended the picture had trembled. Her hair was unaccustomedly mussed and her eyes, red-rimmed. Her voice when she finally spoke was not that of the cool, professional Agent Scully he had come to expect. "Skinner called me down to the office tonight at eleven. A street person delivered an envelope to one of the night guards." Dana gave a little shrug but she was so tight the gesture was more of a jerk. "The woman's been cleared. She was given a 'five' for her trouble but can't remember much about who gave it to her. Inside was a ransom note to the FBI and the picture." Mulder's expression continued rather blank. "Mulder," Dana said her voice showing the strain of a hellish few hours, "the ransom note was for you!" Mulder looked down again at the picture after a moment absently placing a hand to his chest. "But, Scully, it's not me. I mean, it's obviously not me. Why didn't you call?" Blue eyes burned. "I tried your cellular and got no answer -" "It's in the shop." "- and then I dialed here." Dana walked over and with two fingers pulled a damp sweat shirt from the top of his answering machine. The red light blinked. Dana was not smiling. Mulder felt his face reddening. "Sorry. I took a late run, longer than usual, and just as I came in I realized that there was this Vincent Price movie on I wanted to catch..." His voice faded out. "Well, you could have tried to call more than once." "I had every reason to believe you'd been kidnapped. I was imagining all sorts of horrible things. I didn't really expect you to have dumped your sweaty clothes on top of the damn answering machine!" Her relief had switched into anger. Anger for his having frightened her. Mulder understood. He would have reacted in the same way if their places had been reversed. Hell, he HAD reacted in the same way. Mulder went back to studying the picture more closely this time. "I don't understand how you and Skinner... I mean, this doesn't even look like me." "Believe me, Mulder, when you're beat up that looks like you." Mulder pointed to the slacks, then the shirt. "But look at his clothes. That's a haute couture cut. Much as I like them, if I have to spend a wad on clothes, I'll spend my hard earned pay on whatever the well-dressed but nondescript FBI agent is wearing this year. I've got enough problems without trying to make a fashion statement." Dana looked at the picture again finding it difficult to take her eyes from the swollen jaw, the beaten but familiar face. Familiar? Dana forced herself to concentrate on the subject's clothes. True enough. The incongruity had struck her as well. Especially the dramatically striped shirt. "I noticed that, but I thought you had just gone GQ on me off hours." Mulder sighed. "Since when do I have off hours?" Dana nodded. It's true, she should have been more suspicious. Mulder told her everything. Everything. If he had bought such an outfit she would have been the first one he'd have shown it off to. Between home phones, office phones, cellular phones, e-mail and voice mail, sometimes she thought they were joined by a permanent communications link. Except at important times, like tonight. Dana sighed. "All right, it's not you. But then who is it?" End of chapter 1a From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:43:49 1996 I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at (Windsinger@aol.com). __________ / __ __ \ ( (__) (__) ) --------[[[---------]]]----------------------------------------- -------- JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 1b/9 by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but there are some very nice parts in here, too. For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 1b ******** For his own protection Scully and Director Skinner decided that Fox Mulder had to really disappear, even from the other FBI agents on the case, and for her part Dana decided that he had to disappear to somewhere where she could keep an eye on him. That night Dana smuggled Mulder into the Bureau in the back seat of her car which the focus of all this attention found vastly amusing. Mulder flashed her a smile before pulling the blanket over his head four blocks from their destination but the smile never reached his eyes. Solemnly, Dana turned back to concentrate on her driving reassured that her partner was not taking the situation lightly. Mulder spent his hours pacing the tiny walkway between his cot and the wall which was all the space he had in the utility closet in the basement which he now called home. Claustrophobic as it was, worse was the helplessness of being forced to do nothing and worse still the plain, old-fashioned loneliness for Scully. Most of the time she was off leading the investigation. She was after all the obvious choice. Ostensibly, she was looking for her partner. Skinner was playing this very carefully. Only her few select lieutenants knew that the man they where looking for was not Fox Mulder. The more people who knew the truth, the greater the chance that someone might slip and make a joke that might be overheard by the wrong people. The kidnappers could find out. "Well, excuse me, SIR!" Mulder thundered on night two when Skinner came down to visit -- to check on the prisoner was probably closer to the truth, "but I'll quit being a pain-in- the-ass when you give me something to do on this case!" Skinner was standing by the door, his expression disgustingly sincere. It was the kind of expression Mulder hated because it was the one Skinner wore when he was dead certain he was right. "You know what we know, Agent Mulder. Which isn't, I admit, a hell of a lot. If you can pull anything out of your hat to add to this, I'll be more than happy to take a look at it. Do you think we don't want to solve this thing? I'd pay the damn ransom out of my own pocket if I could but these people don't even really want to bargain. I've had teams posted to a dozen locations for meetings but the kidnappers have never shown up. I don't think it's primarily the money they're after at least not yet. What they are doing is having a good time trying to make us sweat." "I'd say they were doing a pretty good job of it," Mulder replied in a surly tone. "If you have any better ideas, Agent Mulder, just let me know. Until then like the rest of us, you'll just have to be patient." Mulder threw himself down in the cot. "You thought I was crazy before. Leave me down here a few more days and I'll be certifiable." Skinner ran his hand over the end rail of the narrow bed. The tone of his voice was as sympathetic as his expression had been and just as intractable. "I thought you liked the basement." "Not for forty-eight hours straight while some guy wearing my face is getting himself transformed into hamburger on my chit." "You know you can't show yourself. If the kidnappers come to realize that they've made an error, they'll be around to make a try for their original target and they won't be so subtle or so gentle next time. Even worse, they'll most likely kill their 'mistake' without a second thought." Mulder's face darkened. He knew this all too well. Dana had certainly drilled it into him often enough in the last two days. It was the only thing that held him here. Later that evening Dana arrived, hot, tired and with another envelope. Mulder felt his hands begin to sweat as he stared down at a new photograph. His double was not faring well. The bruises were multi-colored now. The cuts untended. The good cut of the clothes now indistinguishable. And they had sent Agent Scully a special present. "Oh, my God!" she had whispered, opening the tiny box. Inside was a small slice of pale skin and flesh which it took even Dana a few minutes to identify. "What is it?" Mulder snapped. He was becoming more and more irritable as the hours passed. The hand that held the little box trembled a little and those red lips began to look even redder as she paled. "I don't think I should tell you. Besides, I'd only be guessing..." "Scully..." Mulder hissed between clenched teeth. She shuddered and headed for the door, box in hand. "I'm going to have it analyzed." "Scully..." Dana looked back. That was her partner standing there, her friend, stress etched in his face, grief in his posture. "This loss won't be debilitating. It's not anything the poor man can't live without, but he might have gone into shock... And to think as civilized people we do this to our children." Mulder's hazel eyes were pleading. "Foreskin," she admitted with reluctance. Before she vanished out the door, she added, "At least now I know that there's at least one way in which I can tell you apart." "Not any more," Mulder said into the empty room. ******** The lab results took another day to come in. The ransom demands from the kidnappers were becoming nasty. Mulder wasn't sleeping any more. Dana scanned the test results. "I was right about the tissue, Mulder." She let the sympathy show through her eyes. "Sorry. You can take some comfort in that he's not your clone and not some long lost brother. Not even a cousin. Tissue typing shows that though he comes from the same Northern European- Jewish stock as you, there's no clear relation. Just a coincidence." "JUST a coincidence," Mulder muttered, desolately dropping onto the little cot for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. "You're wrong, Scully. This poor bastard and I do share something. More than our fair share of bad luck. So he looks like me on a bad day. Other than that what do we know? That his family wasn't Orthodox." Dana looked up from the report. "That occurred to me, too. Otherwise, he wouldn't have had anything to - ah - remove." Mulder lurched to his feet and began to pace. "Scully, I can't just sit here. We have an innocent bystander who's been kidnapped because he's unfortunate enough to look like me -" "'Unfortunate' is a matter of opinion," passed unbidden through Dana's mind. "More men should be so unfortunate." Grimly, she acknowledged a touch of Mulder's gallows's humor in the thought. She missed his jokes. There had been none for days. To keep from staring inanely at the same four walls hour after hour, Mulder began analyzing other case reports. He knew he wasn't making much progress but he had to have something to occupy his mind. As the hours and days passed, there were no new leads. Not one. If he really had been kidnapped he would be dead meat. The FBI had a no ransom policy. Early in the morning on the fifth day Dana burst through the storage room door, to catch her partner doing push ups in the tiny spot of floor beside his cot. He was still unshaved and had the tousled appearance of one who has not slept well, if at all. Mulder had only to look at her face. Finally, something. "What?" he asked rising rapidly to his feet, his face slightly damp with sweat. Dana sat on the end of his cot and spread out the contents of the file she was carrying. "We know who they've taken. Jacob Simmons. 'Jake' to his friends and colleagues. From Portland, Oregon. He came to Washington ten days ago to attend an architectural conference at the Convention Center. As part of that convention he had an exhibit on display at the National Building Museum. He had a Thursday night flight but never came into work yesterday which was Monday. His business partner didn't give it a thought when he took Friday off but began worrying when he didn't show up for work this morning. We know Mr. Simmons checked out of the Washington Hilton Thursday morning as planned. He had his luggage sent directly to the airport." Mulder worried his lower lip. "Don't tell me. His luggage is still there." "How did you guess? After checking out of his hotel, he returned to the Building Museum to finish packing up his exhibit. Late Thursday afternoon was the last time he was seen. His partner also checked his residence, the teenager who is looking after his dog and the diner around the corner where he takes most of his meals and picks up his mail. Jake Simmons never made his flight. He never came home." Mulder's expression blanked out for a moment as he accessed a map of Washington in his head. "How far is the Building Museum from the Convention Center, Scully? Four blocks?" "Five," Dana responded. She should know. It was part of her power walking circuit when their case load allowed time for that kind of exercise. Not all that far from FBI headquarters." "He probably walked that route at least twice daily during the convention. I know I'd never pay Washington cab prices for that kind of distance. That's probably where he was seen." "It is a transitional area," Dana agreed. "Safe enough in the daytime but after dark when the vast majority of the Washington business and government types scamper home to their safe suburbs, it's not a particularly good area to be found in alone. He may not have left the Building Museum until after seven. His flight was not until nine. The sun would have set and it was raining that night. Dark enough." Mulder looked down at the other materials on his bed. There was a slick company prospectus. The man was an architect Dana said? From the look of it a good one. Built sky scrapers. Very well heeled. The brochure showed a man who looked younger than his years, confident, cool, professional, almost smug, with eyes full of intelligence and life. A man with the world at his feet. How could Scully possibly think that I look like that? Mulder shook his head. "The kidnappers have made a really BAD mistake. They should be trying to get money from this guy's family or his company. Either has got to pay better than the FBI." Becoming interested in a different photograph Dana was staring at, Mulder reached for it. She released it reluctantly. "Why did it take four days for someone to realize this guy was missing?" Mulder asked. Only after he had spoken did he actually look at the picture. It was same man, the same face, and, yet, not the same. A dark shirt. A dark coat. Eyes downcast, and pain, oceans of pain. The smugness, the confidence, the life was gone. This face Mulder saw in the mirror all too often. Even though the second picture was in Mulder's hands Dana could still see it just by looking at Mulder's face at that moment. He saw it too, now. The similarity was agonizing. "That one was taken at his fiancee's funeral two years ago. She committed suicide. His partner says he took a deep slide. Very despondent. Clinically depressed. If Jake had disappeared like this last year, Paul, his business partner, tells me that he would have expected suicide before anything else. He didn't come back to work full time until a year after the suicide, but when he did he worked hard. Very high quality work, too, or so the organizer's of the Conference tell me, though his partner says he's still not socializing to his knowledge. Oh, there was a brief affair but that ended rather disastrously and he refuses to talk about it. When he isn't at home and his partner needs to locate him, Jake can usually be found walking by the docks near his home with his dog." Mulder swallowed. No girl for this man then, either. No girlfriend, no mention of parents, certainly no wife, no children. If he was found too late, maybe that was just as well. Mulder began to move. The chase had begun. Energy flooded his body. He talked, talked faster, as he gathered his gun, his second gun, his coat. "Let's go. I need to see the hotel, the museum, the Convention Center, walk the route. Did he have any acquaintances in the area he may have contacted?" Dana stood in the middle of the room, a fortress. "Stop, Mulder." He struggled into his coat. "What 'stop'?" "Just what I said. You're still out of this. Skinner says so and, more importantly, 'I' say so." Mulder halted, cold flowing in, strangling. "Scully, you know..." Dana closed her eyes then slowly reopened them. "I know what this means to you, Mulder. But, please..." Her eyes were pleading. "Don't do this to me, not again," then she turned on her heel and left closing the door with finality behind her. Mulder just stood and listened to the rapid sound of her rapid footsteps on the stairs. End of Chapter 1 From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:45:02 1996 I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at (Windsinger@aol.com). __________ / __ __ \ ( (__) (__) ) --------[[[---------]]]----------------------------------------- -------- JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 2/9 by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but there are some very nice parts in here, too. For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 2 Elbows on knees, Mulder stared at the black and while linoleum squares on the floor at his feet. How could Scully say not go? She knew he couldn't just sit here. She knew what it would do to him if he was forced to stand aside and the man died. Died in his place. Especially now, now that the victim was more than a face, had a name, talent, a history, a life. If she really wanted him to stay put, they would have to handcuff him to this bed, better yet, put him down in one of those holding cells in the annex.. Nothing short of physical restraint would stop him. Swearing he left his monk's cell and headed for the other end of the basement and the X-Files office. There he collected the extra ammunition clips from his stash in the little box behind the skull on the bottom shelf of the bookcase - never knew when you were going to need some fast. He was moving out, moving fast before someone came down to stop him. Certainly Scully knew by now that telling him not to do something was like waving a red flag. Mulder stopped dead still, his hand on the knob of the door. But she did know. She knew more than anyone. Just as she knew he would jump on that train, run alone after that killer, tear off to Alaska without a word, slip through the fence at Ellens, meet Deep Throat and Mr. X anywhere and everywhere. She knew he would not stay put during this. She had laid down the letter of the law as Skinner had instructed. She knew her irascible partner would understand just as he knew that she knew that he would go. And both were well aware that he could be walking into Death's waiting arms. And yet she had walked out, leaving him free, because she knew he had no choice. Mulder rested his forehead against the door, feeling the blood surging in his head. There it was again, filling him up like sparkling wine in crystal. Her love. Their love. Not romantic. Unconventional to say the least. Never spoken of, hardly a touch out of place, but there nevertheless. Absolute and complete. Waiting for the right time to be brought into the light. Now the right time may never come. Mulder turned and looked at this room. It held her presence. Held the memories of all they had shared. More than any other place their bed of exploration. He may never come back. What could he leave her? Something. Some message, as understated as the relationship that they shared. Twenty seconds later he was gone, the room unchanged except that the framed picture of a dark-haired girl had been moved from his desk to hers. ******** The sun was actually warm. The slight breeze wound around under the steam vent and came up under his long wide coat making his first trip into the open air in days a pleasure. A pleasure, that is, if it weren't for the smell. Mulder propped his beard- scratchy chin up on his hand and nibbled a little more from the thick stubby end of the carrot. Leisurely he scratched his ass. Right in public. And liked it. When a passing businessman on his lunch break threatened to look towards the grimy street person hunkered down beside the Civil War Statue, Mulder added a visible tremor, a few jerks as if he were being tortured by unseen demons. Just for effect, of course. At least this time. How far the great had fallen. Mulder had never gone in for under cover work. This time was no exception. He always felt ridiculous dressing up. Half the time he even felt ridiculous just putting on a tie for work. But the situation this time cried out for a disguise. After all he had not only the kidnappers to hide from but Scully and, if the activity here near the Building Museum was any indication, at least half the local FBI force. Even Sherlock Holmes wore disguises from time to time. Mulder cringed, blinking through his one eye, trying to send that particular memory elsewhere. Considering the unpleasant memories of Phoebe such thoughts stirred up, he had best table further comparisons to Sherlock Holmes for a later time. Like sometime a week after forever. Mulder stared down the street. From his perch on the only steam grate within visual range of the main door to the Building Museum he had watched a steady stream of FBI and D.C. police wander in and out since noon. A pair he vaguely recognized as being assigned to the Philadelphia office were looking up and down the street. They went all the way to Philadelphia for manpower and just about everyone but Scully and Skinner thought they were actually searching for the FBI's bad boy? Mulder should have felt wanted but didn't. He wished the circumstances didn't warrant this. The sun lost its pleasant warmth. His throat tightened until he felt he was going to choke and he wasn't even wearing the hated tie. Where was Jake? What was the poor man feeling? He had practically no one. A stranger in a strange, impersonal city. A completely incomprehensible kidnapping, beatings, torture, and for no discernible reason. He must feel like he had fallen into the fifth ring of hell, abandoned and hopeless. Mulder knew all about hell, abandonment and hopelessness, too. This was why he was here. Mutt and Jeff from Philadelphia were wandering closer looking for exactly what Mulder was looking for - someone who had no business on this street, one of the kidnappers come to gloat as the mighty FBI chased their tails with no leads. What would this pair of unimaginative, by-the-book agents see when they saw him? Just another street person? The homeless were a nearly invisible population in Washington. Like ghosts they were everywhere you looked but no one ever admitted to ever seeing one. Ghosts? What ghosts? Homeless? What homeless? Naw... With forced calm Mulder brought the carrot up to this mouth. Not nearly as good as sunflower seeds but less obvious, at least to Scully, and she was bound to be along sooner or later. Besides, he needed something to do with his hands or he'd go mad. The pair of agents were coming closer, trying to appear casual and unofficial as they questioned a bag lady, a street vendor. Did they have any idea of how miserably they were failing? Mulder could almost hear the mouths snapping shut all around him. Mulder raised his nose a little into the air at the same time pulling down the brim of his shapeless hat. Method acting. A middle-aged man, Vietnam vet era, with a non-too-tight grip on reality, badly in need of either his meds, a fix or a drink. Just another former inmate of St. Elizabeth's who should never have been released. He wore an ancient rain coat sizes too big for him over even older fatigues and large, heavy-rimmed glasses with a grey patch over one eye. Remember, you're homeless and you like it, he told himself. Just try not to wrinkle your nose against the acrid scent of ammonia and decaying garbage. No self-respecting street person would never let on even if he did find his surroundings and his own body odor rather revolting. Mulder sighed which reminded him not to breathe through his nose on this case. He certainly found his surrounding and his own body odor disgusting. Foul would be a more accurate description. An acquaintance doing undercover work for the DEA, who in Mulder's opinion was FAR crazier than Fox Mulder would ever be, had fixed him up with all the trimmings. Odors included. Ammonia, cheap wine, the dripping from the inside of the undercover officer's long neglected garbage can and a little doggie doo-doo just to top things off. Mulder shifted feeling the stiff old cloth rasp against his skin. He was absolutely coming to hate this idea. Scully wouldn't sit beside him for a week. 'Eau du Skunk' would begin to seem like French perfume if he spent much more time in the sun. One of the Bureau's innumerable blue cars pulled up in front of the Building Museum. The two from Philadelphia turned in that direction like a synchronized swimming team leaving the remainder of the street unscrutinized, including Mulder's steam grate. They had clearly been expecting somebody. Movement about the car. As the passenger emerged, a small woman's red glossy head just barely showed from above the blue car's roof. A casual turn. Ice blue eyes raked the street even as, with back straight, she climbed the marble steps into the museum. She knew he was there somewhere. Probably did not even need to go back to the office to know that he would do something like this. Probably was putting off checking just so she didn't have to report to Skinner that he was gone. She wouldn't look too closely, but she couldn't help looking at least a little. Be careful. He could hear the words even from fifty yards, even over the traffic and noise from the passenger jet cruising in towards National Airport. He could hear the words even though her lips had never moved and their eyes had never met. Mulder felt for a moment the chill from a passing cloud even though the sky was a rare, for Washington, robin's egg blue. Even at the FBI he felt at times like the odd man out, but he could not be much further from being on the outside looking in as he was now. He did not like the feeling. As the agents all moved inside the stately building, the heavy bronze doors shut leaving him alone, separate. Scully, this was really a lousy idea. Mulder forced himself to lean back and casually cracked his back. No more moping, he told himself. He had a job to do. Carrot in his mouth like a cigar, he used the heavy cane he had brought to rise stiffly to his feet as if just to stretch his legs. But in truth his eyes were roving. His uncovered eye touched on each of the characters lingering along the street, taking two-dimensional snap shots. He had no doubt that just as he was here, so were the kidnappers. They would have their gloat. They would have had the Bureau staked out so would know exactly when the investigation moved to the museum. Scully? Yes, they would watch her, too, but only watch. They would not move on her, of this Mulder felt confident. They had stuck their head out far enough taking one federal agent and were getting nothing but delays and rhetoric for their efforts. They wouldn't dare try for two. Besides her hollow eyes and the tired way she moved were probably making their day. Mulder shuddered. This is the way it would be if he really was the one who was missing. This is the way she would look and act and move. That was a creepy sensation, even more so because he knew Dana was not acting. In her mind these people were perfectly capable of doing to Mulder exactly what they had already done to Jake Simmons, and, given the opportunity, they would. She refused to give them that opportunity. A delivery boy caught Mulder's eye, but more for the pizza and subs he carried than any suspicious activity on the boy's part. Mulder's stomach growled emptily. Down, boy! Remember, the pinched look will be more in keeping with your role than if a homeless vet were to be seen ordering a pizza to be delivered to his heating grate. A courier in day-glow orange and green sped by on his bicycle, completely ignoring the traffic lights. Mulder had seen him before but he moved too fast to be a serious suspect. A 'banker' for the street vendors made his rounds, picking up receipts from the steam carts selling hot dogs and the Iranian selling Washington DC and Redskins T-shirts. This was too close to the wrong part of town to let too much cash just sit around. The bag lady settled back in the shadow of her chosen spot beside the subway entrance and seemed to be interested in resuming her snooze now that the duo from Philadelphia had gone off to hear Agent Scully's pep talk. Leaning heavily upon his cane, Mulder was just stepping off the curb which rimmed the steam grate when he saw the traffic control engineer again, or at least what he had taken at first to be a traffic control engineer - white, nondescript coveralls, a painter's cap pulled down over his eyes, and a tool belt, but no truck that Mulder could see. The man was middle-aged, stood about five and a half feet tall, and sported light brown hair with a splash of grey at the temples and a wiry build. For the fifth time that day the man had pulled the panel off the switch box of one of the two traffic lights but though he seemed to fiddle with this and that, the rhythm of the lights never changed. Running the previous views of the man over in his mind Mulder realized that the engineer had always positioned himself so that he would be facing the entrance to the Building Museum as he worked. Supposedly worked. As if bored with the lack of law enforcement going in their useless little circles, the engineer quickly finished his 'work' and began leaving the area at a rapid pace. Too fast for any salaried District worker. Mulder stared around in exasperation. Damn, just when you needed a cop there was never one around. He should tell Scully, but there was no time or he would lose his suspect. He'd let her know later. Later? Yeah, right. I'll be careful, Scully, Mulder swore as the half-blind vet hobbled on his one 'stiff' leg after a man in white coveralls, a spot now a block in the distance. ******** Four blocks from the museum the neighborhood took a turn for the seedy. Not the sort of neighborhood the tourists took pictures of when they came to Washington. As the blocks passed under Mulder's feet he realized it was not even the sort of neighborhood tourists would dare to be caught dead in during the day, much less at night. Teenagers cutting class if not the whole school day, street vendors selling Korean counterfeits of name brands, the out of work or unmotivated clogged the sidewalks. Mulder shuffled along, frustrated that in this crowd he was not able to make any kind of time. It was nearly impossible to keep the speck of white coveralls in view until he conjured up a scene from one of his more recent nightmares. After that a few explosive expletives and a fierce waving of his free arm as if warding off the voracious attack of nearly microscopic, phosphorescent, moisture-sucking bugs and he made more rapid progress through the crowds. The closeness of the buildings and the crowds suddenly vanished. Mulder lifted his head squinting into the sun. He knew this area. A two block square had been leveled years ago to make way for a new office complex which would have gone a long way into revitalizing the area. But then came the office glut and this part of town didn't look like such a good candidate for urban renewal any longer and so it sat. An open smear of broken concrete and weeds. Around it were other buildings barely saved from a similar fate. Up the steps of one of these buildings, a huge yellow-brick apartment building, the man in the white coveralls trotted to vanish through the front door. From the missing and cracked windows and the number of broken door and window frames where boards blocking use of the building had been repeatedly torn down, it was obvious that the structure had been condemned multiple times. Phone. To give himself a moment to try to locate a phone, Mulder paused at the corner of the block as if trying to shake a cramp from his stiff leg. There were people going in and out of the building, people of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors, the same types he had seen on the street before, but there was no phone to be seen nor any business open which might have one. This had been a rotten time for his cellular to be in the shop, but Mulder doubted that he would have brought it anyway. Wouldn't have gone with his image and it would have been just his luck to leave the thing on and have it beep at a critical moment. Into the lion's den then if the inhabitants seemed remotely friendly. Friendly would not explain these people. None looked his way. Not surprising. The desperately poor were private people. Paranoid but private, most not looking for a fight. Look like you knew where you were going and it could get you far. Appear to be too interested in business not your own, however, and you're asking for serious trouble. Mulder limped towards the stairs which led up to the front door. His hand was on the knob when a voice, rough, good-natured and male, called out from behind him, "Ask for Mabel." Mulder forced himself to turn slowly. The man who had spoken was a stocky black man with greying hair. He also wore the remnants of fatigues. Another vet by the way his body moved in little shell-shocked jerks. "Ask for Mabel. She don't make too much noise. Know what I mean?" Mulder had no trouble responding with a grim smile of understanding confident that the mouth appliance his undercover friend had given him would hide the almost perfect teeth his parents had worked so hard to pay for. The difficult part was keeping it from being a broader grin of relief. A long time before, perhaps as late as the turn of the century, the building had been upper scale. There was a wide lobby, yellow with age and brown with dirt like the brick outside. There was old linoleum in green and white squares, at least in the places where you could see it through the incredibly rancid trash. Mulder's nose twitched. He'd be surprised if the place had even a single working toilet. In addition to the building manager's counter and office straight ahead, both of which had long ago been smashed into almost unrecognizable pieces, four corridors branched off, each closed off by its own door though the doors were not in good shape and barely hung on their hinges. There was a corridor to the far right, the far left, and one on each side of what had been the manager's desk. Mulder heard footsteps behind and knew he couldn't be found just standing here indecisive and, therefore, suspicious. He had to at least look like he was hunting for something. Stairs to the third floor? Good enough. What he found more quickly to his right were two ancient caged elevators, no long functional, but they were in a recess just before the door to the right corridor and provided a much needed alcove of deep shadows. Luck was with him. The door to the corridor near the elevators was ajar, just enough to give Mulder a view. Two men came out of an apartment and one was the man in the white coveralls.. The other was of lumberjack dimensions who towered over his slighter companion. By his leg the new man casually held a sawed off shotgun. At the moment two small children were playing tag in the hallway. Clearly, they did not find the presence of the gun exceptional. Their game took them back into the apartment they had left but its door remained open. "Pete, we should be talking about this inside," the big man was saying. "No way. The stench is making me sick," came out a Texas drawl. "I can't stay in there. It reminds me too much of Marion. What did Jackson keep down there anyway? Hog smell better." "Well, excuuuse me, Miss Prissy. And does this mean that you won't be goin' downstairs again at all? Not even to put ol' Jim Bowie to use?" There came the sound of a knife being drawn out smooth from a sheath. Nausea rose in Mulder's throat as he pressed closer to the comfort of the wall and its shadow. If these two were talking about what Mulder thought they were talking about then he and Scully knew all too well what the Bowie knife had last been used on. "I haven't forgotten," the Texan replied slowly over the sound of metal drawn against cloth. "Patience. Macon will have his revenge. You city people are always in such a hurry. I'd have thought The Blockhouse would have taught you that. Besides, keepin' 'em danglin', keepin' 'em fearin' that each mornin' could be the one, makes it all the sweeter for us and all the more hell for Pretty Boy downstairs. And hell is exactly where I want to keep him. Which comes back to my point. I don't like to be distracted when I work. I'd hate to gag on the stink. Who knows what I'd cut off. Guess I couldn't talk you into cleanin' the place up for me?" "Jeeze, Pete! What have you been shooting up? You don't pay me enough for that. Nobody pays me enough for that. Just thinking about it puts me on the edge of losin' my breakfast, lunch, and everything I've eaten in the past week." The Texan's voice rose in volume jeeringly. "Well, if you won't, Lawrence my dear, maybe one of the girls then. They'd love -" "No!" At least Mulder thought that was the word Lawrence used. It came out more like a snarl. "No, not them." Reluctantly, the big man's tone mellowed. "Besides, they're too expensive." At that moment an apartment door just on the other side of the partially open door to the corridor where Pete and Lawrence stood opened and an old man with runny eyes stumbled out. Mulder pressed tighter against the shadowed recess but the old man tottered on down the hall in the opposite direction passing the white-clothed Pete and the hulking Lawrence as he went. "Hey, Pops!" the big man called in an over-sweet, sing-song voice. "Want to make a pint? Just a few minutes of toil for hours of oblivion?" The old man muttered incoherently and produced a wet cough as he shook off the big hand on his arm and moved on. Pete blew his nose. Mulder knew it had to be Pete, the noise was a much lighter one than the ape Lawrence would have made. "You've got to be kiddin', right?" Pete asked incredulous. "What if he took the job? What if he said anything?" "Would anyone we found around here really care?" Lawrence asked. "They look out for their own skin. Besides the Fed hasn't talked for days. I must admit I expected a little more spirit." "Yeah, well, so did I. Maybe I don't remember him as well as I thought I did. Arrogant. That I remember. He'll beg yet. He'll drop that stupid story he's been trying to hand us and he'll beg." Mulder felt a sweat of anticipation break out on his brow and under his arms. He didn't know whose luck he was being given today but it certainly wasn't coming from his normal supplier. These guys were making things almost too easy. There was only one person they could be talking about and with if the gods continued to be so accommodating the big man was not only willing to take him right to their prisoner but would then let him out again. Out meant free to bring back help. The delay would be irksome but even Fox Mulder knew it would be irresponsible to attempt a frontal attack alone at this point. One man against two? With the element of surprise, not such terrible odds even if one of the two men he faced had shot gun and the other a knife, but the man Pete mentioned a third man - Macon - who could be anywhere. And then there were the children. Mulder could hear their thin voices through the open apartment door. They could come out into the corridor at any time as could any of the other resident of the building. Mulder frowned and reluctantly decided to listen to his gut for once and his gut told him there was too much at stake here. If it came to a shoot out, there were the innocent bystanders who might be hurt not no mention that there were probably more guns in this building than in the FBI itself. And if by some chance Mulder was forced to kill both of these two and Jake Simmons was not simply 'downstairs', the architect might never be found. There was also the possibility that Mulder could be killed himself or injured badly enough so that the truth about the two 'Fox Mulder's' would come out. Either way Jake would suffer. So play it safe for once, this was no time for heroics. By the book, Scully. Realizing how he was dressed and that he was totally alone, Mulder found it hard to suppress a self-depreciating smile. Well, as by the book as I'm likely to get on this case. Blowing a stream of air over the disgusting mouth piece Mulder reached deep into the inner pockets of his fatigues pulling out his Sig and his ID. From his left boot he extracted his little back up weapon. If he were accepted for the job, they would certainly search him first, so he had to look as harmless as a lamb or two lives could be forfeit. Searching, Mulder spied between the elevators an old glass- walled mail shoot from when the building had known far better days. It was filled almost to the top now with trash. Reluctantly, Mulder dropped the weapons and ID down behind the trash watching them slip out of sight. They would be as safe there as anywhere, for it was certain no mail carrier would be coming. There was no doubt in Mulder's mind that if he did not come back they would sit there until the wrecking balls came. Hunched over, gripping the cane, a crippled, one-eyed vet pushed more fully open the hallway door and shouldered his way through. Simultaneously, Pete and Lawrence glanced up. For the first time Mulder got a good look at the man Pete as he was standing under one of the few yellow bulbs. This then was the ring leader, the man who supposedly knew him well enough to recognize him on the street. Mulder got a shock. Even with the card catalog in his head he could not bring up a memory of this man. He had thought this enemy would be from one of his big cases back from his violent crimes days. A rapist, a drug dealer, a murderer - but nothing came to mind. There was, however, the other name mentioned by Pete. Macon. 'Macon would have his revenge'. Mulder's eidetic memory started work on the name only he doubted that there would be time to come up with anything soon enough to be of any use. "Hey, bud, you got business here?" Pete drawled suspiciously. In his broadest Maine accent Mulder muttered through the appliance in his mouth, "Looking for Mabel." Pete's mouth opened in a leer. "Ah. Third floor." Mulder turned vaguely from side to side as if trying to see if any of the doors nearby lead to a stairway. "Candie's better though," Pete offered. "That's of course just my opinion. Then ya have to be able to afford 'er." Mulder just let his head nod and made to move on but not quickly. Bum leg after all. "You know, buddy," Lawrence began his voice showing interest, "they're all pretty accommodating if you bring a bottle with you." Mulder turned his uncovered eye on Lawrence while maintaining his stoop and keeping his face in the shadow. Lawrence took a pint bottle from his pocket and waved it. "You got a bottle, Yank?" Mulder shrugged stiffly. "Want one? They'll give you an EXTRA good time if you bring a bottle." "Don't have one," Mulder replied, adding the slightest touch of longing to his voice. "I've got a little job that needs doing. Just a few minutes of your time and it's all yours." Lawrence swung the bottle till the clear liquid sloshed. Pete was frowning but didn't complain. He was, after all, going to get what he wanted out of this. End of Chapter 2 JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 3a/9 by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but there are some very nice parts in here, too. For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 3a Dana Scully sat at her desk, the framed photograph of Samantha upright and lonely in front of her. Mulder had left her - again - and he had not only left her but his most precious possession, the search for his sister. His legacy, his insurance, just in case he didn't come back. I should be used to this, Dana grumbled to herself. No, you never get used to watching those you love walk into danger. She had seen him on that street with that ridiculous carrot. He could fool the others but did he really think he could fool her? Just the way he moved his hand, stretched out a leg, turned his head. That was Mulder. She had known he would be there. She had known from the moment she had laid down the ground rules of no involvement earlier that morning - rules she had known he would never adhere to. The question was how long had he waited? By the complexity of his disguise not long. Ten minutes? Five? One of the hardest things she had ever done was straighten her back and walk up the steps into the museum leaving him alone on the street. Not for long though. She had kept the others waiting for their briefing long enough to whisper hastily to Edwards, her junior lieutenant. "I need two of your best surveillance men," she had told him to the young agent's surprise. After a second of hesitation Edwards had nodded. The word around the Bureau was that when it came to Agents Mulder and Scully, if you don't want to hear the answers, don't ask too many questions. "There's a vagrant outside across the street and to the left half a block," Scully informed him. "He's wearing a hat, has on an over-large tan raincoat and he's eating a carrot." Dana had to give the young man credit, he didn't crack even the hint of a smile. "I want him followed, followed like it was your brother's life you were protecting. But he can't know. Do we understand each other?" Edwards had. When the briefing ended, however, the young agent approached Agent Scully crestfallen. "I had someone out there within three minutes, but he must have gone. No one even remembers seeing a man like that. I sent out six of my people to comb the surrounding blocks and we couldn't find a thing." He must have read something in her face, Dana had not meant to show because he added solemnly, "I'm really sorry, Agent Scully." So where are you, Mulder? Dana asked the picture of the young Fox behind his sister, captured for all time within the frame. What have you found? There came a slight tap on the X-Files office door. It was Skinner, no surprise there. Dana didn't even sit up straight much less stand. She was too tired. "I take it he's gone." "What did you expect?" Dana asked with some bitterness. "We both knew he would. It was either that or lock him up." "You know I couldn't have just given him my blessing. Internal affairs would have had all three of us for lunch. That's not what he would have wanted." "So he's out there alone." There seemed no answer to that. Skinner cleared his throat, a little nervous gesture Dana would not have expected. "I saw your e-mail. Another message came from the kidnappers?" Dana picked up a poorly-penned note, now wrapped in plastic, and tossed it in Skinner's direction. She didn't even glance at it. The words had already imprinted themselves where she would never forget them. Skinner read silently: "There'll be one less stud at the old ranch come sun up. Sure you aren't ready to deal? If you change your mind you know how to contact me." Skinner felt certain body parts begin to squirm. Uneasily he shifted his shoulders. "I don't suppose the man is talking about a vasectomy." Dana's expression was like stone. "Nothing requiring quite so much finesse." Skinner winced. "Tomorrow!" Dana exclaimed with irritation. "This monster is going to mutilate a man at dawn tomorrow and the entire resources of the FBI can't do a thing to stop it!" "There's no indication in the note that they realize their mistake," Skinner said with some hope in his voice. "That may mean that Mulder is still free." "True, but you know how dangerous that is. When Mulder does blunder in they'll find out quickly that there are two and that they don't have the right one." Dana suddenly sat up, her face paling in alarm. "Unless -" "Unless what, Agent Scully?" Skinner asked not catching on. "Those glasses!" Furiously, Dana spread out Jake's file on her desk, frantically shuffling through the photos. "Mulder was wearing glasses when I saw him outside the Museum. I just remembered. Glasses with the left lens blanked out. Oh, shit!" Dana stared up at her superior, her hands empty. "They're not here." Walter Skinner knew the direction of her mind now mostly because he knew Mulder nearly as well as she did. "Some of the photos are missing, specifically the pictures of Jake the kidnappers sent showing his injuries." You fool, Mulder! Dana swore to herself. You noble fool! "He's doing exactly what either of us would do in his place if we could and he might even be able to pull it off." Bring him home, Mulder. Bring both of you home. ******** Lawrence led the way into the cellar. Pete had wanted no part of it. Mulder limped ahead of the big man who lumbered along in his plaid wool coat, his sawed-off shotgun aimed at the floor behind Mulder's back, loosely, but ready enough. Mulder added a wheeze, a slight cough. Lawrence's breathing was deep, raspy behind him. They descended old cement stairs that had long ago lost most of their grey-green paint. The passage before them stretched out long and narrow with a ceiling so low that both had to stoop. The walls dripped from the remnants of the cold spring rain. There was no light except that from a flash light Lawrence carried. Mulder felt naked, but not from the cellar's dampness. He did not like being down here without a weapon while a social deviant like Lawrence marched behind armed to his bad teeth. His decision to rid himself of his own guns and his ID had been a correct one, however. Lawrence had searched him well and even Pete who clearly didn't like to get his hands dirty had taken a half-hearted turn. Without a doubt the weapons would have been found and then Mulder would not be on his way now to ascertain how Jake Simmons was faring which at the moment was the task uppermost on his mind. As he continued limping stiffly down the passage, Mulder reached under his coat and absently rubbed the spot on his ass where Lawrence had the nerve to pinch him. Maybe it hadn't been an intentional pinch, Mulder certainly hoped not, not for Jake's sake or his own either, but the threat from this unforeseen direction bore watching. After more than a couple of long minutes the passage opened up onto a large room filled with huge ancient furnaces and boilers all dated no later than the turn of the century. The human stench that had been in the hall upstairs was stronger here. Lawrence went directly to the farthest furnace, the largest one, and used his foot to push down the rusty valve which opened the door through which coal had been shoveled nearly a century before. The ancient hinges groaned. The stench increased a hundred-fold. "In there," Lawrence commanded with a mirthless smile, gesturing with the muzzle of the gun. Not wanting to appear too eager Mulder bent down to peer into the black cavity. "What's in there?" Lawrence thrust a small, dented dust pan, a brush, a heavy plastic bag, a role of paper towels and a greasy spray bottle of '409' in the vet's direction. "You've been in the service. Latrine duty. Only you don't have to dig any holes. Just clean up in there the best you can and you'll get the bottle I showed you and an extra nice ride from the girls upstairs. Just don't disturb the tenant or you won't live to enjoy your reward. Is that clear enough for you?" Mulder took the supplies in the arm which didn't hold the cane. "Tenant? It's not a dog, I hope. Don't like dogs." "No, it ain't no dog. Just my, ah, cousin. He's a little crazy. You know crazy?" Mulder made it clear from his stance he knew what crazy was. "Really took off last week so we put him down here for his own protection. My aunt's coming in a few days to take him back to North Dakota where he can run around and be as crazy as he wants and no one will notice. There's so much empty space up there, they're all crazy." Lawrence's voice lowered. "So you don't listen to anything he says, you hear?" Mulder bobbed shoulders and head stiffly up and down and with exaggerated effort knelt down, pushed the cleaning supplies ahead of him through the opening, and then crawled after. It was as black as a tomb inside, it felt like a tomb, every breath echoing back hollowly from the blackened iron walls. Small, dark places, were not Mulder's favorite choice in accommodations. At the last minute Lawrence thrust in a flash light. "You've got ten minutes. Make it good." And the shrieking door slammed shut with a thunderous echo. End of chapter 3a From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:51:37 1996 I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at (Windsinger@aol.com). __________ / __ __ \ ( (__) (__) ) --------[[[---------]]]----------------------------------------- -------- JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 3b/9 by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but there are some very nice parts in here, too. For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 3b Immediately after the door closed, Mulder leaned back on his boot heels and began to scan the interior with the flash. It was a cube maybe six feet by eight but no more than five feet high. Larger than one would expect from just the fire box. This furnace must have been gutted at some time but still every surface was covered with an ancient black soot that was more of a crust now than dust. Across the floor ran rivulets of rusty water leaking from who-knows-where in the building above. A crematorium. Great. That would save those guys a lot of trouble if he was found out. At first Mulder felt a slight touch of consternation. The furnace shell was empty. Or so he thought upon first inspection. Then he made out the tiniest flash of paleness in the farthest corner where some pipes snaked down. It was the figure of a man crouched against the pipes, his back to the door, nearly invisible because of the tarry soot that was everything. This then was the black grim they had seen in the photographs, though this was far worse. As he crawled forward Mulder noted that the man was huddled into as small a target as possible, head down, one arm raised straight above his head. The reason for that was soon clear. On the wrist of that arm flashed bright, new metal. A handcuff. The other end was fastened to a pipes that ran horizonal across the wall on that side. Gently Mulder placed his hand on the man's shoulder. The shoulder, the entire body flinched violently. Something like a whimper escaped unseen lips. An thin echo moved up and up and up. Briefly Mulder projected the flash's beam onto the ceiling and made out a one foot square duct rising. Every sound they made would go up. If Lawrence was waiting, listening, in one of the rooms above all would be lost. All Mulder could hope for was that Lawrence was driven out by the smell as much as Pete had been. A tracing of the light on the floor of the furnace showed a small spot, obscenely close to where the man huddled, where the prisoner had put his waste and other similar heaps, older and drier, in other corners from earlier occupants. As the men had hinted, this place had been used as a prison for more than one poor soul. Mulder came as close as he dared to the prisoner and began to clean up the mess liberally using lots of towels, all of which went into the bag. "Jake, listen to me. I'm not one of them," Mulder whispered inches from the prisoner's ear in as clear of tones as the mouth appliance would allow. "I'm with the FBI. You've got to believe me, we don't have much time." There was a long moment of hesitation, then the broad back before him turned, slowly, in jerks, with pain and stiffness. One eye blinked in the unaccustomed light, the other, as the photos had shown, was nearly swollen shut. Mulder sensed fear in this man. That was the only word he could use to explain the emotion that hit him in the chest. He was reminded too vividly of pictures in his own medical records after some close encounters of the nasty kind. Unexpectedly, Mulder found himself experiencing a flash of embarrassment, then anger, at the remembered whimpering. Damn it to hell, Spook, this is NOT you! This is just another one of the millions you have pledged to protect, only this one just happens to have had the hideous misfortune to have been born with a physical similarity to yours truly. Mulder let out a long sigh. Physical similarity? And bears shit in the woods and not in old coal furnaces. The eye that stared back on him was narrowed in the light of the flash and distrustful. He had every right to be wary of the use of his own name. Lawrence and Pete couldn't have known it unless Jake, during the early hours of his torture, had shouted it out to them. Certainly, the two kidnappers had failed to believe him. Mulder shifted the flash to shine partially on his own face and began to remove the mouth appliance, then the glasses with its grey patch over the left lens, and then the hat. As each item was carefully removed and put to the side Jake's one staring eye opened wider and wider, particularly when the glasses came off. There was make up over the FBI agent's left eye, latex and purple and red and black make up to made Mulder's left eye appear to be nearly swollen shut. "Fox Mulder. As I said, FBI, and I believe you're in my place, Mr. Simmons." The ruined lips, cracked for want of moisture even more than in the photos, moved. Mulder pulled a flask out of his pocket. Not liquor, just water. Jake took the fluid into his mouth as if it were the first he had seen in days but he was smart and drank little, mostly rolling it around, savoring it. When he finally swallowed "Why?" came out in a forced whisper. "Why am I here or why are you here? It's pretty obvious now that we're face to face, isn't it? Pete and I have a history and he wants to change the ending, but he made a little mistake. Pretty understandable mistake under the circumstances." Mulder raised his head listening. No returning footsteps yet though he doubted he would be able to hear them. Reaching deep into a space in his coat where the lining was thickest he slipped out of some casing three small keys, his handcuff master set. He kept the one that fit and replaced the other two. In seconds he had Jake's cuff opened and was helping the man lower the blood- starved limb. The touch of that cold skin was creepy, in fact Mulder did not find the pallor of any of Jake's skin from what he could see under the soot and bruises very encouraging. "Hold on. I can't afford for you to pass out of me. Are they pretty prompt about coming back?" A slow nod, a weak voice. "When they say they will." "I'm only supposed to be the waste management engineer. Do they plan another visit besides coming back to get the janitor?" Jake's one good eye dropped down into his lap. "One of them, Pete, said he'd spent a summer castrating sheep and was eager to take up the trade again." Mulder felt his own insides flip over and, even in the eerie light from the flash, knew Jake could see it. "Not an experience I've been looking forward to," Jake commented dryly. Mulder stayed in his crouch, for several thumping heartbeats as if deciding something. "Can you walk, at least with a cane?" Jake stretched a leg, grimaced, then attempted a careful flex of his entire lean body. His breathe caught sharply. "If it means getting out of here, I can." Rapidly Mulder began peeling off his coat and the fatigues. Underneath was torn and dirty dress slacks and a stripped shirt in a similar state. As Jake watched wide-eyed Mulder picked up handfuls of soot chunks from the floor and, one eye on the architect, began to liberally smear more of the soot onto his clothes and skin just where Jake was the dirtiest. "Take off your shoes," Mulder ordered. When Jake did not move but only watched the agent take off his own boots, Mulder hissed impatiently. "Move. Quickly." Slowly, Jake began to comply, the fingers of his throbbing arm not manipulating the laces well. "We're not going anywhere, are we? At least not together." He gestured to the fake wound over Mulder's left eye, the clothes. "You planned this all along, to take my place." "There you're wrong," Mulder muttered slipping on the other man's shoes and not surprised to find they fit only a little snugly. "You've got my place. I just want it back." Mulder frowned. The architect was moving too slowly. "Look, finding you was just a possibility I had to be prepared for. Something Fate plays me some pretty odd hands. I've learned to go along for the ride." "You should have said 'No, thank you' this time." Shoes changed, Mulder had been studying Jake's face. Now he added a last bit of soot to his face, a large glob where Jake's mouth was bruised. "I needed a disguise anyway." Jake's attempt at dressing, which had been progressing slowly, stopped entirely. "That's because you're not only hiding from Pete, you're hiding from your own, aren't you? You're not even supposed to be here. At least someone at the FBI has two brain cells to rub together." "That's my partner," Mulder muttered grudgingly. "Well, I hope he knows where we are." "SHE doesn't. That's your job. Get out of here and bring the cavalry on the off chance that I'm not able to get out of here on my own. And I would appreciate it if you hurried." Grumbling, Jake struggled with the boots. Mulder had gotten them large to help but it was still taking the man too long. The architect had managed the fatigue pants but that seemed to have taken most of his strength. His breathing was not good. Mulder knelt and began helping with the boot laces. There was quiet for long moment and still no sound of Lawrence's return. "Are you married?" Jake asked softly. "No, you couldn't be or you wouldn't have dared try this dumb stunt. Girlfriend?" Mulder opened his mouth and then changed his mind because he found in his heart that he couldn't accurately answer the question. Scully... How does one explain both less and more at once. "Something like that. She'll murder me if I let myself get killed down here." Mulder had to push the boot on the architect's foot. As he did so he heard a groan and sharp movement as an arm moved to protect some injury in the area of his abdomen. "Sorry." Jake's voice was thin. "This is a stupid idea. I have no one. Leave me here and go back for the marines yourself. It will save your girlfriend from having to murder you." "No, way. Even if you weren't mistaken for me, I'd still have my oath to protect the public. There goes what's left of my reputation if I come back and find out they've maimed you or worse." A long, dirty hand came down on Mulder's wrist, stronger than Mulder would have expected and the voice was low but every word distinct. "You can't force me to go through with this insanity. You go. The only thing I ask is that you must promise that if you don't make it back in time and something has happened to me that you won't do anything rash. You have no idea what that does to those who are left." Mulder had hesitated for a moment the boot laces in his hands, remembering the suicide of this man's fiancee and tried to convey through the intensity of his gaze that he knew exactly what the architect was talking about. "YOU understand that I'd feel worse if something happened to you and I stood by and did nothing - not that it's going to come to that because you're not going to be in the line of fire much longer. But just to let you know, I have no intention of shuffling off this mortal coil any time soon. To paraphrase Robert Frost: I have promises I need to keep and miles to go before retirement." Boots on Jake now, Mulder stood as best as he could under the low ceiling and held out the long-sleeved fatigue shirt for the other man but Jake made no move to stand. "This is wrong. You have obligations? Well, I don't. The world can do without another building. Go back to your almost girlfriend, Agent Mulder, and find out what she wants and give it to her. Of course finding out what they want, that's the hard part." The one green eye Mulder saw staring at him was pinpoint, feverish and maybe just slightly delirious. Mulder began to have more than a few doubts about his own plan. "Why do women leave? Why do they wear your ring at night and then run off during the day to be with another man? I loved her, I was gentle. What did she want? I don't know. Passion? Danger?" Calmly, Mulder moved to stand near where the cuff link hung, the closed end still locked around the pipe, the open end that had been around Jake's wrist dangling free. Mulder nudged the other man firmly with his foot. When he had the architect's glazed attention Mulder snapped the open cuff around his own wrist. The sharp snap and the feel of the cold, confining metal on his skin forced a fist of nerves to close in the pit of his stomach. The desperate act did have its desired effect on Jake. The webs cleared from the architect's brain, solidifying his wandering mind into a single bolt of energy and outrage. "What in the hell did you do that for?" Jake demanded hoarsely. "To stop this argument!" Mulder responded in a harsh whisper. "There's no time for it. I'm staying and unless you want them to kill us both when they come back and find the Hardie twins going at each other, you'll put on that shirt and the coat and hat I came in with, take up your sack of offal, crawl out of here and head straight for the FBI." Jake hissed. Mulder wondered if he looked as totally disagreeable when he was royally pissed. Grimacing against the pain in his insides, Jake began reluctantly to button the shirt. "You at least have the key, I hope." "Where you'll never find it," Mulder glared. "Did anyone ever tell you that you were certifiably nuts?" Sitting on his haunches, back against the wall, the shackled hand dangling above his head - he could not quite get up the nerve to sit on the slimy floor - Mulder smiled a grim smile of triumph. "More often than you could possibly imagine." As Jake worked on getting the coat on, Mulder watched with some satisfaction. The man's hands were trembling in pain and exhaustion and probably a good dose of fear. In any case a good approximation of the DT's. He would fit in close enough with the immediate world outside. "Answer me one question before you go," Mulder asked. "That's a switch," Jake replied sourly. "I thought you were the one with the answers to everything." Mulder ignored the hurt and sarcastic bite in the other man's voice. "Did those two tell you why they're doing this? I don't recognize Pete who was the one who supposedly picked you out - I mean, ME out - as working for the FBI." Jake keep struggling with the coat. "He didn't expect me - YOU - to. He was in the courtroom the day you testified at his cousin's sentencing. You recommended that the man be sent to a federal penitentury. And that's where they sent him." Pieces of a puzzle began to fall into place. "Billy Macon. Now I remember. I was thinking of Macon as a first name. That was years ago, I was a fairly green analyst with Violent Crimes. >From my profile I was convinced that Billy Macon needed to be locked away somewhere very, very safe for a long time." "That's what Pete told me." "What he didn't tell you was that on my word alone Billy Macon never would have been sentenced to Marion Federal. Everyone else on the case seemed to want to give him another chance and send him to a state institution. They would have, too, if Billy hadn't leaped for my throat as I stepped down after giving my deposition and then tried to take out a piece of my face with a quarter-sized chunk of broken glass." Jake stopped fumbling with his buttons to stare to Mulder. The matter-of-fact way the agent spoke told the architect that, as much as they may look alike, they, in fact, lived and worked in two entirely different universes. Mulder pointed to a small scar under his jaw which Jake clearly didn't have. "It was very dramatic. He cut me once, just a little, but I bled like a stuck pig. The press made a big deal about it. It was Billy's attack that convinced everyone to lock him up and throw away the key. Still, there has to be something more. I can't believe all this is in retribution for that." "I'm sorry I can't remember more. I was busy having the shit beat out of me about that time." Jake's eyes went a little glazed, Mulder could see the memory of all he had been through the past few days trying to rise. This was not what the architect needed to be thinking about now. "Are you going to be able to make it?" Mulder asked more gently. "A little late to be asking that, isn't it?" Jake snapped returning to the shirt buttons. "I'll make it. If I have to crawl, I'll make it. Where am I going anyway?" Carefully, Mulder gave instructions. All the architect really needed to do was get out of the building and a safe distance away as quickly as possible just in case Pete and Lawrence had a sudden change of heart about witnesses. After that, Mulder showed Jake where his emergency twenty dollar bill was hidden in his coat, more than adequate for a cab ride to the FBI even at District cab prices. "Just ask for 'Skinner'." Coward, Mulder chided himself. Leaving it to Skinner to break the news to Scully about what a dumb stunt he'd pulled this time. Reluctantly committed, Jake listened, asked intelligent questions and generally showed he was still mostly all there in his head. His strength, however, was in question. He frowned when Mulder explained that the area of town he would find himself in was not so very good. "You're at 426 M. Street, N.W. Whatever you do, don't forget that. Even the cavalry needs a map." Jake had finally finished with the shirt and coat. Now he was fumbling with the glasses. Their one opaque lens would hide his swollen eye as it had Mulder's fake one. "Where is the FBI anyway?" "The Building Museum is at Fifth and F, NW. The monstrosity that Hoover built is at Tenth and Pennsylvania. Not so far." Bluntly, Jake pushed the hat down on his filthy hair and even managed to stuff the offending mouth piece over his teeth and not a second too soon. Both men jumped at the sound of scratching at the door. Lawrence had returned. Jake jerked desperately in the agent's direction, the rapid movement making the tiny room spin. Mulder had crumpled his long limbs into a close approximation of Jake's position when he had first seen him. At the last moment before turning his head away Mulder mouthed 'Good Luck'. Lawrence shouted for the cleaning crew to crawl on out. Grasping the cane and dragging the bag of filth behind him, Jake pain-stakingly complied. Because he had turned to the wall as Jake had been Mulder never knew that Lawrence looked in at the figure in the dark corner after Jake crawled out. Nor did Mulder see the light in the tiny dark eyes. He only knew that when Lawrence swung the screeching metal door shut that he was left in the dark in a tomb of utter silence. How long would it take the architect to contact someone? In distance even by foot the FBI was not so very far. Ten blocks, twelve. A fast twenty minute walk for a healthy man. However, Jake was far from healthy and a stranger in the city, directions or no. Mulder stopped a shuddering breath, refusing to think about what Pete could do with his sheep gelding knife while Jake stumbled his way along some of the shadier parts of Washington trying to find either a cab willing to pick him up, a working phone, a friendly face or the FBI itself. One thing Mulder was determined to do - rid himself of this damn handcuff. If Lawrence or Pete came back then at least he would have some freedom to defend himself. His hand felt the back wall. His mind pulled up the picture of the wall as it had appeared in the light of the flash the one-eyed vet had been allowed. Jake hadn't noticed where Mulder has stashed the key - a small break in the iron casing just at the ceiling joint, a space just large enough for a man's fingers. Mulder's probing hand found the cavity quickly. His fingers closed onto the welcome hardness of the key. With a cry Mulder's hand jerked away from the hole, cursing as the key went sailing off into the blackness to land - someplace - with a soft wet sound, certainly beyond reach, that was for damn sure. The sounds of little paws and a squeaking came to Mulder's ears as the rat that had bit him scurried away to another black corner where it would not be so rudely disturbed. In pure anger, Mulder dropped back into his crouch. His left arm which was suspended above his head throbbed already and promised to hurt a whole lot more in the next few hours. Mulder spent the next five minutes, cursing, forcing the bite from the razor-sharp little rodent fangs to bleed clean, and berating himself thoroughly for being such a stupid dumb- ass. The only consolation he could find in this totally fucked up situation was that he had just made Scully's week. She could now look forward to administering not only tetanus shots but the whole series of anti-rabies injections. Oh, joy. End of Chapter 3 From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:47:45 1996 I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at (Windsinger@aol.com). __________ / __ __ \ ( (__) (__) ) --------[[[---------]]]----------------------------------------- -------- JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 4a/9 by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but there are some very nice parts in here, too. For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 4a Jake swayed even though he gripped the yellow building's rusted railing with all his strength. Twilight had crept over the city while Mulder had been inside, but it had been a warm day for March, one of those harbingers of spring, and the sidewalks were still crowded with the prowling intercity dwellers. Set free by the warmth of the sun during the day, they had no desire now that night had fallen to return to their winter haunts. Jake had been liberated as well, but felt no joy at his release. Instead he found himself trembling uncontrollably, barely able to stand. Four days of utter silence, four days of pain and all-encompassing fear, four days of being beaten again and again and again with Pete screaming in his ears that he was not who he knew he was, four days of not even knowing why he was being tortured. None of that had prepared him for this, not for this seething mass of poor, mostly unwashed, definitely jostling humanity. The noise beat relentlessly into his skull. The blast from a dozen Boom boxes, the hard laughing, the jeering voices confused him, twisting his thoughts into unrecognizable shapes. He found the street jive which was raised to a painful volume all around him terrifying, intimidating. Though from a different culture, it was still too much like Pete and Lawrence's. He was an alien amidst this ocean of colors, wading through foreign seas where everyone knew their place but him. Despite the extra double layer of clothes the FBI agent had given him, he felt exposed and vulnerable. "Get away," Agent Mulder had told him looking dirty and a little desperate at the end. "When you get outside leave the area as fast as you can." But Mulder had forgotten the time. That at this just-after-dusk time it was not so easy just to get away. Jake grasped the handle of the cane, leaned on it frantically for balance and forced his trembling legs to descend the last steps. He raised his head, frantically searching for something, anything to guide him. Having one eye blocked was disrupting his perspective as well as his balance, yet between two building far to his right he saw the gleaming pinnacle of the Washington Monument more than a mile distant. That way. Civilization. How he had managed to stagger through the corridors of the basement and then up the narrow, steep stairs with Lawrence breathing like a bellows behind him, Jake would never totally remember. It was all part of a dark haze. He had forced his legs faster than they wanted to take him but then he had had the walls on either side of the passage to dig his fingertips into for balance. He had pulled himself up the stairway hand over hand using the bannister as much as he had used his feet. After extracting his 'janitor' from the innards of the furnace prison, Lawrence had been mercifully reticent asking only if his 'cousin' had spoken. Threat was veiled but clear enough if the answer had not been to his liking. Jake just shook his head. "Not surprised, he's really been out of it these last couple of days," Lawrence commented with false nonchalance as they began to climb the steep stairs, a task that had looked like Everest to Jake. "Maybe he needs a little company. Yeah, now that things smell a bit better down there maybe I'll just pay my 'cousin' a little visit later. Just to be neighborly." The sick sound of that statement had cut through Jake's exhaustion sparking a small surge of panicked energy. It reminded Jake too much of how Lawrence had looked at him, especially at the beginning before the pain of the beatings had blotted out all thought. Having conquered the last cellar step, Jake had only been able to stand, weaving and indecisive. Behind him Lawrence had laughed at the vet's disorientation, putting it down to the utterly disagreeable job he had just performed that would have scrambled anyone's brains. As the big man extended the bottle of vodka, Jake had at first just stood there, staring stupidly until he remembered what Mulder had told him about the expected payment for the job. Lawrence had laughed even louder as Jake dragged himself unsteadily towards the front door. "Hey, Sergeant! D'you forget your little planned visit to the ladies? Maybe you don't have the stomach for it any more, maybe you think they wouldn't be so friendly considering how much you stink!." And Lawrence had howled. That was before, this was now, out on the street and Jake was convinced that Lawrence was following. Jake could almost feel the con's hot breath on the back of his neck. Gracelessly, he turned stumbling backwards for a few steps anxiously searching the crowd, but Lawrence wasn't there. Only the echo of his laugh. Jake had forced his legs to carry him off the steps. He had crossed the street with the crowd too dazed to make sense of the cross walk icons and now the yellow building was a block behind him. Too close still. Off balance, still moving backwards he bumped into a group of teenage girls in tight skirts who were trying to act sophisticated beyond their years. Their laughter was shrill, the gold of their necklaces and huge dangling ear rings glowed in the night against their dark skins. They shrieked recoiling as the filthy street loon blundered into their midst. Their voices changed, disgust switching to anger, became harsh and snappish. He spun forward again away from their group trying to move more quickly, but they were going the same way as he and seeing his confusion continued to jeer, their mocking cat calls following him, driving him onward faster. Their ridicule, their insults fueled his disorientation. A darkness opened to his right. An alley. All Jake knew was that there were no people there. No lights. A place to hide. He slid into it along the wall of a building at its corner. The crowd of girls moved on, their last few taunts already beginning to fade as they bemoaned the loss of their game. Jake crawled along the wall, past dumpsters and pools of substances that smelled even worse than he, but moved on, escaping the people. Finally he sank to his knees in a pool of grey shadow, where the noises of the city and its people was but a distant throb. There he could listen to his heart pounding, there he could feel the heat from within burning his eyes, there he sought, mostly in vain, to pull together again the edges of his sanity. Like an old scratched LP only tiny chunks of his thoughts were clear and these repeated endlessly, visions of interminable blackness, a lonesome dripping, abandonment. No wonder none of this made sense. He had been delivered from hell but to what? To this eternal night, these wet echoes, this aloneness. From far down the alley came the sounds of laughing voices, young male voices. Horseplay, slaps, hoots, the tinkle of glass, their running, dancing footsteps all echoing as if inside a huge bell. Jake froze. They were coming nearer moving along the alley towards the party atmosphere on the farther street. A chilling sweat trickling down his back, Jake forced his legs to bear his weight and reeled in the direction of a blacker shadow but the cane slipped on the greasy, foul ground. He fell into a stack of rotting cardboard boxes left out too long in the rain. They had that smell. His fall made a sound was like thunder in the quiet street. "What we got here, man?" a young voice shouted with gleeful menace. The footsteps scampered, came even closer and Jake found himself suddenly blinking like a stunned animal in the glare of a pen light fixed at his eyes. The small beam flickered away to scan his clothes. The rain coat had fallen open revealing the camouflage fabric of shirt and slacks. "Look lads, we got ourselves a 'nam cat!" one of the group snickered. Slowly Jake's eyes were beginning to adjust. There were six of them, slender and strong as young trees with shining, feral eyes and skin that would have done a rainbow proud. "Hey, GI Joe, you got a joint?" "Yeah, you guys always got joints. Spent four years just sucking the air." One of them grabbed him held him up, not minding that standing straight Jake was taller than any of them. "Hey, bud, we're talkin' to you. We want to know if you got a stash of grass, ya know?" Jake's mind went blank. His lack of response irritated the punk who held him who hurled him backwards into the brick wall of the building. Pain exploded at the back of Jake's head. He didn't remember his legs giving out but they must have for the largest of the punks had to come forward and haul him upright again by his coat. "We asked you a question," the fuzz-faced street thug grunted. Jake only sank bonelessly to the ground, the world spinning, his stomach heaving on empty air as the teen abruptly released him just to watch him fall. In the darkness above where Jake knew the boy's faces must be, they were jeering, their laughter without mirth, but he could only focus unsteadily on the legs of their torn and well- worn jeans and that only from the knees down. "Well, we'll just have to take a look for ourselves, hey, guys?" Two must have stood look out. Four pairs of hands began swiftly and expertly to snatch at Jake's clothes turning out his pockets, searching even in the top of his socks. Immediately they found the Smirnoff's leading to whoops and cat calls of joy. Then they found the twenty dollar bill. Mulder's twenty. A blaze of comprehension streaked through Jake's besieged mind. All that he was honor bound to do suddenly returned with agonizing clarity just as the means to accomplish it slipped into another's pocket. Too slowly Jake made a grab for it but his reactions were far too slow, his strength like water. The boys laughed as they batted his hands away. "Not a bad haul from this little piggy," one of the boys said as they backed away from their downed victim, backed away but not far enough, still within kicking distance, and at least the feet of some moved restlessly. Too much energy, too little to do. "Oh, leave the drunk be," one of the elder boys said seeing no sport and off he swaggered but not before three of the younger ones lingered, seeing an opportunity for some practice, relishing the solid, thudding sound, the flinch and grunt from the man at their feet as a kick connected well. At least the teens wore athletic shoes and not Lawrence's boots and they didn't have his malice or experience at finding the most tender spots but did well enough. A sharp, booming snap burst into the near silence, the sound of a heavy stick bounding off the edge of a nearly empty dumpster. The group jumped and spun at once, crouching on their haunches like wolves. A harsh and ancient voice called out sharply, "Children, what DO you think yer doin' there?" There was a hasty scramble as young bodies stepped away from where their victim lay twitching and moaning softly as he curled around his injured stomach. The postures of his assailants relaxed, softened, never returning to the tenseness of their attack mode. The eldest stepped forward with a swagger. "Hey, Mama!" "Don't ya Mama, me. Yer own Mamas would be ashamed. What brave boys you are, six against one," the old woman's voice grated with sarcasm. "You've got what you want and had your fun now be off with you." With uneasy good humor they howled to each other across the alley, added a few more dents to a few more trash cans, and tossed their long locks disdainfully at the small, bent figure of the old woman who stood staring after them. But they left. At their leaving quiet descended upon the narrow, dark alley like a cloak. A warm cloak of blessed silence. Jake was aware of little of it, only that he hurt, that more was torn and bruised inside. As soon as the feet had stopped coming at him out of the dark, he had crawled off into the blackest shadow he could find. There he huddled, his aching back against the crumbling brick of one of the buildings. His arms clasped about his knees, he waited for the new pains to ebb. With dread he heard and tried to block out the sounds on the busy sidewalk a block away, all those people with their hard hands and cruel voices. A siren cried streets and streets away. He knew he was on the edge of delirium when he almost laughed at the sound. Even if he could find a cop, he couldn't picture himself going up to one, not looking like this. The very idea was ludicrous. Would they believe him? Would he if a bum on the street told him this story. Despair washed over him, drowning out the hysteria. What was he going to do? All the money he had was gone, Mulder's money, the money that would have paid for the taxi to take him out of here. He had lost even the bottle of liquor which was the only thing of value he had to barter with. His head fell forward unto his knees. And he hurt, he hurt so bad... It hurt to breathe, it hurt to think, at the moment it hurt to live. A voice spoke near him. Jake jerked, startled, which sent too many pains stabbing into that burning space just under his ribs and through his limbs. Eyes stared into his, ancient, dark eyes. There was an odor of mothballs and mildew strong enough to overpower even his own stink. A wrinkled hand wiped his tear- streaked face with a dirty scrap of what must have once been a woman's slip. Jake had not realized until that moment that he had been crying. "Hey, pretty boy," came the old voice. It was the voice he vaguely remembered from before, the voice that sent his tormentors away. She sat a little outside the densest shadow, just far enough so he could see that the voice came with a face as wrinkled as an old walnut. It shone benignly from beneath a ring of cloud-white hair. "Don't cry, don't cry. Can't be as bad as that." Jake opened his mouth but nothing came out. The old bag lady patted his shoulder and settled down next to him, hugging his side. "It'll be okay. It'll be fine. Mama Rosa is here, and she'll stay right here with you will you feel better." "I've got to..." "Shhhh... quiet... sleep...." A voice. Too weak certainly to be his. "No, I've got to go... help...." "Shhhh... Now you stay right here and keep Mama Rosa's old bones warm for a while, you hear?" Her arm was strong for such an old woman. Her strength insisted that he lie down with his head on her lap. "Can't..." he whispered. She stroked his matted hair. "Tired... so tired...." he muttered. He wanted to say other things, but what exactly was lost in his body's cries for rest. Besides he felt safe, for the first time in longer than he could remember. Safe. End of chapter 4a From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:49:23 1996 I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at (Windsinger@aol.com). __________ / __ __ \ ( (__) (__) ) --------[[[---------]]]----------------------------------------- -------- JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 4b/9 by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but there are some very nice parts in here, too. For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 4b ******** Mulder jerked awake from his half doze, something had touched his hair. Probably it had been just a stray breeze from down the narrow shaft above his head, but the ache in his finger brought up other possibilities all centered around images of red and hungry eyes. Taut he raised his head, alert and listening but heard no sound at all, much less the brush and scurry of small rodent feet. The hour must be very late for even the distant vibration from the street was gone as was the intermittent sound of dripping water which only seemed to begin after one of the toilets above was flushed. Time passed, stretched out like a physical thing, black and silent and interminable. Mulder waited, his left arm aching from its awkward position, his body shivering from the damp cold that radiated from the metal of the dead furnace's iron walls. Contemplation of the universe, his soul, the NBA stats, his chances of getting out of this alive, passed and were gone. Bored, Mulder allowed his head to drop slowly back against the wall at his back. His distaste for the rats was real but so was his exhaustion. There had been little sleep since Scully had appeared with that first photo of Jake and the strength sleep would give him he may need later. Under the circumstances he wasn't going to be able to take either Lawrence or Pete by surprise anyway. Mulder didn't know when consciousness slipped into dream. Sleep wove itself into his thoughts slowly like a gentle dancing breeze. A warm one. Blessed warmth. The discomfort in his arm and shoulder also seemed to drift away with the gentle breeze. It stirred his hair again but this time he did not wake, did not want to. This was better than his cold prison. A touch on his cheek, gentle, soft, hesitant... Mulder stiffened, waited. He could have sworn... Another touch, bolder, a finger, a woman's on his cheekbone trailing whisper light down his cheek and along his jaw. Mulder smiled ever so slightly in expectation. This had the makings of a good one. Certainly the previews were auspicious. He dared not move. It's all this talk about the threat to your maleness, his educated brain tried to tell him. Beat it! was Mulder's response. The last thing he wanted to do was psychoanalyze why this was happening now. After all, like a furtive wild animal which he wanted to lure closer to take the treat from his hand, he didn't want to scare it away. The breeze blew upon his face, stronger this time, with more presence, sending a pleasant tingle over his body. This was nice. Lips touched his gently smiling ones, warm and soft, dream- like. His heart picked up its rhythm. He felt warmer already. This was very nice. More than one finger brushed against his closed eyelids, smoothing his lashes as they lay upon his cheeks. The finger moved on tracing the curves in his lips and jawbone, eyebrows and cheeks. Two hands now, fingers combing through his hair, a breath upon his upturned face smelling of musk and flowers and woman. Kisses, soft as butterfly wings over his face, down over his chin, along his throat. Teeth pressed down daintily upon his ear lobe, tasting, first one than the other, unhurried. A stream of warm air brushed against his ear, the sensation shimmering all the way to his toes though it concentrated about half way down, igniting a small fire of exquisite pleasure. Small, eager hands, astonishingly shy moved under his shirt, soft, loving hands. A tongue licked the skin of his chest, teeth closed in, just teasing, not nearly hard enough to break the skin. He did not move. He welcomed her with pleasant thoughts, with grateful little sighs. As if taking that as encouragement she became bolder still, moving over his body, licking, biting, scratching in little cat bits. Easily enough to bring a shiver, not enough to drive him mad. Not yet. Lips and tongue lapped at a nipple then with an unexpected pounce came down hard, sucking, drawing him in, forcing out a moan of surprise and pleasure. More than his heart was throbbing now, his blood was up and hot, rushing like white water down to his nether regions. This was working up to becoming the most intense wet dream of his life. Please, just don't let me wake up, not now. The pressure on his left nipple released, a woman's silvery laugh, almost too soft to hear, came from below his chin. A small, cold shock ran up Mulder's spine. What if this wasn't just a very, very nice dream. Maybe Pete or Lawrence had decided as a final bit of irony to hire the girls from the third floor, maybe even the legendary Mabel, to attend their prisoner before the final cut, like a last meal. If so, whatever she charged, it wasn't nearly enough. The eager mouth clamped down again this time on his other breast. At the same time somewhere low, a hand, warm and soft, squeezed. All thoughts of dreams or not, of kidnappers and prisons fled. There were no thoughts at all. Just pleasure, guiltless, beyond depth, past perfection. There was no hurry as if time had no measure. There was not fumbling, not a single false move, not a one, as if the artist who played his body knew exactly what he wanted even before he did. Before he could wish for a little pressure here, some release there, a cupping of his balls now, a sliding along the shaft this long and no longer, it was done. His body shuddered as he struggled to hold it all in, to make it last. The affect all this was having on his blood pressure he didn't dare think about. Hands massaged his chest and his buttocks at once. The throbbing in his veins inched up another level. Nails raked along the inside of this thigh. Now this was approaching madness. At the same time the claws on the other hand carved blissful ridges down the skin of his back. Glorious. In the tiny corner of his mind that could still reason, there smoldered a shred of remorse for taking so much and giving none in return, but he found, not entirely to his surprise, that his arms would not lift, instead felt leaden as if he were restrained by silken cords. The hands smoothed his brow, as if comforting him, telling him not to worry. We are sexual creatures, she seemed to say. Words are extraneous. A few thousand years of civilization cannot erase hundreds of thousands of years of nature's drives. Lie still, be at peace. His head fell back as he she lowered herself onto him, warm and wet. Peace was suddenly the farthest thing from his mind. She rocked against him, slow but with presence and it was all he could do to keep from flying away, but that would be giving in too soon. With a shuddering breath he stayed with her. Very good, came the whisper and she kissed him, easing up, letting him fall back gently only to bring him back to the heights less than a minute later with just the tiniest movement of her body. It was harder not to come this time, every muscle in his body, a special few in particular, were beginning to quaver in little convulsions with his need. Jaw clenched, fists like claws he stayed on the earth. She stroked his head as if he were a good beast to obey her so well, to which he growled softly. This was becoming too much. He had been patient. How long did she expect him to wait? Forget the gentlemanly control, a little ravishing was beginning to look better and better. Only he could not move! His nostrils flared in his frustration as his body began to oscillate furiously between pleasure and pain. Hold on, she told him in a voice still soft but with an edge beginning to creep in. The greatest prize goes to those who wait. She moved again, lowered her mouth and sucked. His body tight as a drawn bow, stretched as if to breaking between her outstretched hands. The center of his fire was the arrow poised but not allowed to loose. His moans became cries, become curses, but just before he might have sailed over the edge her voice snapped in his ear. No! A moan burst from him which was more like a sob. In his frustration he twisted in her arms trying to evade her but she only teased with the greater art. Raving, cursing, thrashing he wished himself rid of her, rid of this dream. But she held him close, held him to the ground. Panic and instinct, primordial and old as the world, rose in challenge. With the strength of a cornered wild beast he wretched himself free from her arms the only way he could - by flinging himself skyward. As he slid past her, he was shocked by the savage, harsh cry in his ears. This was his voice and, wondrously, his body was as lithe and light and yet as majestically strong as a falcon's. Suddenly there emerged before him a massive shape, a mountain, its lofty top high above him lost in the clouds. Proud, free, powerful, he found this no obstacle. Soaring, blazing like a comet, skimming over its rocky slopes like a flare of light, like the storm's wind, he scaled its heights. Effortless, magnificent, his body possessed at that moment a strength beyond imagining. With every pounding thrust of his heart, he seemed to grow larger and larger as higher and higher he flew. The rush of the air behind his eyes was like thunder. Suddenly his eyes were full of sky. The highest pinnacle lay at his feet. On the brink he paused and again came that harsh, fierce sound, a near-to-bursting cry of defiance and triumph, for he was free, his suffering at an end, and she could not stop him. He would fly, would leap into the air to take the most blissful fall of all. Only once poised on the edge he erred. He looked down. The fall from here was far, too far, far too far, and in that moment of hesitation, neigh onto panic, she had him. She descended from behind. Her fierce, strong arms embraced him and entrapped him, wrapped him round and round in golden chains to hold him to the mountain. He screamed in his anger, the fire in his loins threatened to flare across the sky. Every place the chains touched on his body was like the touch of her hands, far beyond pleasure. He raised his arms in his anguish and found to his horror that he no longer had arms, but huge leathery wings that when outstretched darkened the whole of the mountainside. And looking down he found his body was immense, long and scaly, a serpent beautiful in a golden red sunset. NOOOOOO!!!!!! But his scream had no human sound. Then she touched him where she should not, the way she should not, the way she had which, he realized now, had driven him maddened to the mountaintop. Is that what she wanted? To drive him over the edge? If he fell from here he would die. Golden chains biting deep and hard into his flesh, logic shattering like glass, he roared, lashed with his tail, flailed in his insanity around and around pulling the chains tighter and tighter unable to find her. Yet he knew even through the scarlet haze of his rage that she was there, had to be there. He could still feel her teasing hands, the warmth and wetness of her mouths, both driving him higher and higher, pleasure raking his body, over and over, till there was no dividing line between it and anguish. Shocks convulsed him and still she hung on refusing to let him go. What else could she want of him? He had already grown into this monster under her hands. He already burned. Did she think he could go on burning and burning and burning forever? I am dying. I will burst into flame and I will die. A cool hand fell down softly on the red gold of his breast. It is time, my lover. Open your eyes. With a last burst of will, he forced open his serpent eyes, but he did so not at her bidding but to see his temptress one time before she thrust the burning brand into his vitals and he burned alive. His hot, weary eyes opened upon his iron prison. He had nearly forgotten, only it was no longer black, there was light now, light where there should be none. Nevertheless, a thin greyness like spider webs clung to all things, outlining the shape of ceiling, floor, the pipes on the walls. And her. Her face hung in the empty air, the glowing light dusting her exquisite face, the nose and chin, her jaw. The light clung like a fairy's breath to her masses and masses of black curling hair. Then he looked deeply into the two black pools which were her eyes. Through these he saw, outlined by the webs of light the edges of the low door as if through her was deliverance. In bewilderment he realized that he should not, could not, be seeing this door. For it was behind her. Enough! she growled, the sound coming from low in her throat, rumbling in warning and the tiny window on the world she had opened for him slammed shut. Around him sprang the mountain and the thunder of the wind, the cries of the carrion birds and the screams in his ears as the chains bit deeper and deeper into his serpent skin. She was there this time, clearly there. Her white arms reached for him. When he sobbed flinching from her touch, she stroked his flanks and then almost tenderly she breathed upon the fire she had left banked within him. That was the end. There was no more containing. He burst into flame. Uncontrollably, he blazed into a brilliant agony. That brought a smile to her perfect lips, a smile which was much of the kind which the devil smiles, as she pressed her warm thighs around him. "Now you may fly," she whispered and crying out she sank her nails deep into his hide all the way to his soft and tender flesh. He flew. Chains stretched to breaking before, the links burst at the moment of their combined screams. Now and truly free at last he soared one final magnificent time into the insubstantial air - before he began to fall. For he did not how to fly, not from this high above the ground. Even if he did there was not enough wind for his huge winds, instead he fell. Down, down, faster and faster, tumbling over and over, he poured out his whole self, not only his seed but all of his blood and bone, being and soul, too, poured all out upon the thin air as he fell burning from the heights, becoming smaller and smaller as his life flowed out. Only at the very last moment with blackness closing in on his mind, as he heard his lungs gasping on the smell of his own burning, did her strong arms catch him. Only in the final seconds by the glow of the ghost light did he see again through her dark window that he was a man, a man with his left arm aching from the shackle, a man sitting on a cold iron floor fully dressed, covered in sweat, his body convulsing in the remnants of exquisite pleasure and agony. She held him. She kissed his senseless lips. She lowered his limp body into a black and silken void and, greatly satisfied, departed. End of chapter 4 From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:52:42 1996 I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at (Windsinger@aol.com). __________ / __ __ \ ( (__) (__) ) --------[[[---------]]]----------------------------------------- -------- JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 5a/9 by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but there are some very nice parts in here, too. For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 5a Jake dreamed and for once he didn't dream of her. Didn't dream of coming home from work, calling her name, and tossing off his sports coat. Didn't dream of calling her name again more frantically this time and then walking into the bathroom to find her floating in the rust-stained water. He didn't dream of the feel of her wet and cold in death, lifeless in his arms. Neither was the red book in his dreams, nor the red shoes, nor any sign of that mindless stud for whose caresses she had trod their love in the dust. He dreamed of the dark, of the dripping water as his only companion. He dreamed of that and the rats. Had he had time to warn Agent Mulder about the rats? He dreamed of his kidnappers' clubs and their hard hands and the knife. "Why?" had been in the dream. His own voice crying over and over again, "Why?" In cruel answer he had received only a new punch to the groin, two more to his face, a kick to his thigh and another and another on and on until there was no point to asking any more because none of it made any sense. Just when he thought he could bare it, the pain always got worse. This was especially true the time they had dragged him, crying, out of the horrible iron prison into the light where grinning Lawrence had held him down so that Pete could wield his knife. There had been no way of knowing what they were going to do. He had screamed when they cut and he didn't mind who heard or that Lawrence struck at him to shut up. He had screamed again as the fire-heated blade cauterized Pete's handiwork. But that scream didn't last long for after that he had passed back into the blackness for a long, long time. He was walking now, walking and walking and the world was rolling around as if he were in the center of a carrousel on a stormy sea. Pretty lights, but so cold. Cold wind in his hair? Where was his hat, Mulder's hat and the cane? Lost the glasses, too. Good riddance. Walk, put one foot down after the other. Where was Stella? Stella, Stella? Here girl. My friend, my only friend who only snuggles closer and licks my hand when I cry and doesn't tell me like Paul and Alex's mother to buck up and get over it and move on. Stella, who doesn't care if I don't talk for days. Want some water, you shaggy monster of a dog? "Water? Here's some water, child." Choking, Jake came up from some deep place. Had he almost drowned? He was coughing up water that had somehow gotten down into his windpipe instead of his stomach. The open palm of a sturdy hand was pounding him on the back between his shoulder blades. "You gonna live, child?" Jake's eyes flew open and he stared wild-eyed around at his surroundings. Nothing looked as it should. It was still night, only much colder and, therefore, much later than his last memories of the alley. He was sitting to a side of a broad, flat plain of barren earth. He felt as if he were down in a long hole, like an old dry riverbed, only this was too straight, too flat and there were the soft sounds of a city. But the city sounds were like those of a city in the deadest part of night, the time just hours before the dawn. And the city sounds were far way and somehow above him. Yes, there were the street lights like rows of white-blue stars on the horizon. Mama Rosa was kneeling beside him holding an old but clean Mystic Mist jar containing some water. She had been trying to give him some to drink. That's where the water had come from. He could still feel its wetness in his mouth. Rosa's old eyes crinkled under her snowy brows. "Welcome back, child." She seemed genuinely pleased to see him. "Where are we?" She gestured to her right and to her left where the flat, dry ground stretched out on either side as far as they could see. "Why the freeway." "Freeway?" Baffled, Jake stared again at the what he had taken to be a peculiar riverbed. It very well could be an expressway carved out below ground level. It had the width and that would explain the straightness. It was obvious now that he knew what to look for that this was a road that had never been paved and on which over time a straggly collection of weeds, some scrubby bushes and a few daring, gnarled trees had managed to grow. Now the over head bands of lights made sense. Quiet, nighttime city streets passed on overpasses above it. "Where does it go?" "I didn't think you'd been on the streets very long. From here to there. I like it. It's a smooth ride for old Bessie here and no one bothers me." Old Bessie seemed to be a rusted shopping cart which Mama patted affectionately and which Jake had not noticed before. His eyes were still not focusing too well. Since he had been put into that black tomb, left and forgotten, there had been so much darkness. Would he ever be able to see right again? Rosa was continuing, "They began this project, oh, ten years ago now, but lost their funding and it never got finished. As if I cared. I like it better as it is." The pieces were falling together, a least some of them. This was clearly not even close to the alley where he had fallen asleep with his head in Mama Rosa's lap. His muscles ached, especially the sore spot on his stomach just under his ribs. He felt damp and not just where the water she had tried to give him had spilled. "How did I get here?" "Why you walked, child. Well, crawled, ran, stumbled - anyway you got from there to here." Jake stared at her wrinkled face unbelievingly and she explained very gently, "You slept maybe an hour back there in the alley, then you started moanin', soft at first and then as if all the demons of hell were after you. And your skin! It did feel like Old Nick himself was giving you a guided tour. Hot! I'll say. Could've scorched Mama's old bones. But did you rest? Not you. There was somethin' you needed to do and you needed to do it real bad so I just decided that I might as well take you. Even if you were out o' your head, that never made any mind to me. I've known sicker and crazier men to move at a right good pace and never hurt them none." The old woman proudly patted the shopping cart as if it were a good old horse. "You leaned on old Bessie a good piece of the way. The worst of the fever broke, oh, about fifteen minutes ago." Jake didn't see how he could have walked anywhere so feverish and out of his head as she described, not without remembering, but the proof of her story was here around him on this barren, surreal plain, wherever here was. Groaning he forced himself to his feet, the general bone-weary ache which was over and above his known injuries made him ready enough to believe her. As he stood, the world did the merry-go-round trick again. Jake reached out and found that Bessie was indeed a right steady conveyance. He stared up at the nearest row of street lights. They seemed impossibly high, impossibly far away, impossible to reach. As the fog had cleared from his mind Jake felt again the frantic need to get Mulder the help he had promised. "Rosa, I need to find a policeman -" The old woman spat. "Polic-y-man no good. On the make, every last one of them. Spies. I don't talk to them, they don't talk to me." "A phone then," Jake begged though there certainly was no Ma Bell outlet down here. "Voices," Mama whispered warningly. "That's rather the point." "Nasty voices, demons. You know the demons. They had you by the throat only a little while ago." Jake leaned his long body over the shopping cart with its piles of old ratty blankets and clothes and for the first time he really looked at Rosa or tried to for her image kept shifting. She really was a tiny, wizened thing with a spark of madness in her beautiful black eyes. What did Hamlet say, "I am but mad North-North-West: When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw." For all of her innate kindness, the wind in her sails seemed more than a little changeable. Anxious, Jake studied the skyline and was relieved to see that his angle on the point of the Washington Monument was not significantly different than when he had sighted it from the steps at the foot of the building where he had been held captive, and it did, in fact, seem closer. That was a good sign, but would Rosa help him reach street level? She clearly didn't trust many people in authority and Jake needed not a hole in the ground but help: FBI, police, fire department, 911 operator, minister, Salvation Army worker, good samaritan, butcher, baker, candlestick maker - at this point Jake wasn't about to be very picky. Jake took another reading of the sky, the sky to the east this time. The night was still wearing it's black velvet cloak. Not a hint of the dawn. There may still be time, but he needed to hurry. Who knew what Lawrence had already done or planned to do. And Pete had this obsession with sun up, an old west hang up like his Bowie knife. Would this be the morning he began carving again, this time on the real Agent Mulder? "Rosa -" "Mama, dear. Call me Mama," she insisted sweetly though a little vacantly. "Mama, you said when I was sick that I asked you to take me somewhere? Where?" "Why the big, red building." Jake knew his response to that was as vague as hers. "The one with all the old soldiers - " Old soldiers? Jake wondered confused. An old soldier's home? "And the horses," Rosa added. "Soldiers and horses." The lights went on in Jake's befuddled brain and he actually smiled even though it hurt his bruised face. The Building Museum was all blood red brick with the thick frieze running around its entire exterior on which was depicted in high relief a parade of Civil War soldiers on foot with their commanders on horseback. The 'old' soldiers. It was not surprising he would have told her to take him there. He had found the building's symmetry comforting and had spent many hours there contentedly drafting and explaining his concepts as part of the exhibit. Even though he must have been close to running on empty, he had managed to describe it near enough. With an effort that nearly caused him a fall, Jake pulled the old woman to her feet and hugged her. This brought an embarrassed and beaming smile to her wrinkled face. "The red building with the soldiers, you know where that is?" he asked. "Of course, child," Mama Rosa said grasping the handle of old Bessie, "and we're nearly there. The freeway takes us almost to the door." ********* "Agent Scully..." Dana raised her head from where it had fallen into her arms. Skinner was standing in the doorway. Had she been sleeping? How could she? "Sorry, didn't mean --" "Get some real sleep, Agent Scully," said Skinner softly. "It's very late and we have nothing new to go on. Maybe something in the morning." "I don't want to go home --" "I know, so don't. Sleep here." Her supervisor had already unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie. There were dark patches under his eyes. He had been working as many long hours on this as she had. So he did care about Mulder as she had always suspected. "Have the police been informed?" Dana asked, her words a little slurred in her exhaustion. "If Jake gets away alone and he's lost and hurt it's no telling where he'll end up." Skinner had begun nodding before she finished speaking. "Yes, and the fire departments and the hospitals. The only problem is there are not many police on the streets tonight. There was an explosion with some follow up looting and, if I hear correctly, a minor riot. City services are pretty much booked up for the night." Dana smiled weakly. "Not a diversion of Mulder's I take it." "Not this time. Construction too close to a natural gas line. Just don't expect much help from the police tonight." Skinner paused but could think of not much more to say. The waiting was the worst. Probably better to be Mulder, certainly in danger but with something to do. "I'm going to sack out on my couch in the office. Someone will call me if anything happens." He gestured down the hall with a tilt of his head. "I know where there's a cot in a storage room down here." Dana's eyes went wide. What Skinner was suggesting was almost -- intimate. "Get some sleep," he urged her as he turned more heavily than usual to head back towards his office. "I'll know where to find you if you're needed." One more time Dana stared down at the picture of Samantha and Fox. Sam outgoing, full of life. Fox a little thin, a little shy, already the serious one. "Come back, Mulder," she whispered. "I don't want to find Sam without you." The distance to the small room where Mulder had spent four restless days was not far but seemed to stretch as far as the hours since she had last seen that distant, tattered figure sitting on the steam grate. Nothing in the room appeared to have been touched. There were the science fiction books she had bought him but which he had not had the patience to read, the stack of case files he had tried to focus on, his two changes of clothes on a hook behind the door. Carefully Dana took off her shoes and folded her jacket over the back of the one chair. Even the cheap canvas cot felt good to her tired body. Only after she had lain there for a few minutes did she notice the scent on the sheets - Mulder's - and looking found a few short brown hairs. After that, sleep was impossible. Sighing, Dana rose and headed wearily back to the office. There had to be something useful she could do. ******** Frantically, Mulder's eyes flew open or he hoped they had. He had been in and out of dreams enough for one night. The question of the hour was: Was this reality or was he in a dream still? Somehow, after what he had last seen in this place, the complete absence of light was almost comforting. With his free hand he reached out and, yes, the junction of the two walls was where he thought it should be. His prison was cold, hard and damp. His left arm felt as if it were going to separate from his shoulder. He was thirsty, his stomach rumbled, and Scully wasn't here. This then was reality. After his last 'dream', he hoped he would have the sense to add Scully to his next one, at the very least for the protection she would give him. On trembling legs Mulder forced himself to his feet, not truly comfortable because he had to bend over under the five foot ceiling, but at least a change in position. It was worth the effort to remove the strain on his arm and the numbness of his butt. All was silence. He could hear only a little drip, drip, drip of water someplace high above. Someone must have flushed recently. The breath of a breeze touched his damp skin. He flinched, tensed, dreading that this might be 'her' coming back. But it was only the faintest stirring of the air down the air vent above his head. Dread? The X-rated magazines he indulged in would have said he was incredibly fortunate - all that passion, the kind of climax other men can only lie about, no danger of AIDS, and no chance of any little surprise on his voice machine a few weeks later. So why wasn't he just counting the hours till his batteries were sufficiently charged up so he could try it again? Because despite the videos and the Playboy Calendars, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and his other reading materials of a suggestive nature, Mulder longed more than anything for the real thing. The homogamous relationship, the wedding, the wife and kids. Normalcy. That these were unlikely ever to be his, at least not for a long time, well, that was the price he had to pay for this job and the promise he had made to himself so many years ago not to rest until he had Sam home and safe. Not to say that the kind of event he had just experienced was not noteworthy - memorable - utterly amazing - but it threatened to push him even further off the deep end of the Gaussian Curve than before. Not the direction he wanted his life to take. So was he afraid of her, this - earthly spirit? Absolutely. Was it a dream? From the feel of the dried sweat on his skin, the shimmering ache in selected parts of his body that was a special reminder of those kinds of activities, the stiff, sticky dampness of certain parts of his clothing, Mulder knew that at least part of it had been no dream. Other facets, particularly the bestial transformation, however, were fading. Perhaps this would not be a bad game to add to his wish list of fantasies to try out some day with the right partner, but in this case that twist had surely been her addition to the evening's entertainment. He had slept after the vision had left him. No, that wasn't a truly accurate statement. He had passed out from the explosive climax of it all - and the sheer terror of that glowing, fantastically beautiful, incredibly sorrowful face. Even now the memory of that face, that light, sent a shudder through him so intense that he had to lean back against the wall or fall. Scully was never going to believe this. Did he even believe it? If he dared tell her she might just say that he had let his imagination get away from him. But Mulder was well acquainted with his imagination and had never known it to be THAT good before. Mulder flexed his back till the vertebrae cracked and then used his free hand to pull his shirt away from his skin. He could still feel the touch of it, of her, moving in the most incredible way under his clothes, all over his body. No, this had been no simple wet dream. Mulder had had some doozies before and none had been anything like this. A sound moved in the darkness, just a rustling at first and then a wailing, a familiar shrieking of the ancient, iron hinges. The firebox door. A wild hope flew up. Scully? The door opened wider and a thin, artificial light showed around the edges. There was no human sound. Unlikely Scully then. She would have called out. Awkwardly, Mulder slid back to the ground. He rested his head against the upraised shackled arm as he had found Jake, providing again the appearance of weakness and injury. Not an easy trick when every finger and toe and sinew in your body wanted to attack. Automatically, Mulder did a quick mental survey, a little meditation. If there was going to be a confrontation of some sort in the next few minutes it was best to know where you mind was. What he found was anger, no doubt about that, but it was tempered with professional coolness. He was after all trained for this and a little anger made for a good adrenalin mix. And fear. Don't forget fear. This was not a good situation and he had every right to be afraid only it must not rule him. Mulder knew he had to cling to one thought above all others - that his kidnappers had to continue to believe for as long as possible that he was the prisoner they had had all along. Men such as these did not like being made fools of. They had to continue to believe that their rat hole had not been found, that they were safe and could take time with their cruelty. It was the only plan Mulder could think of - buy time for Jake to get away, buy time for Scully to come. The small, low door swung suddenly all the way open. A burning light burst through the darkness. Mulder clamped his eyes shut, found it took precious seconds even through slitted eyes to see again. A huge shape forced itself through what seemed now a tiny doorway. More sounds as the figure dragged something into the prison behind him. The figure was Lawrence, the larger of the two, not the knife wielder, and he was alone. The knot in Mulder's groin loosened ever so slightly. Lawrence had brought what looked like a crude wooden crate with him, not heavy but sturdy enough to use for a seat for himself. He had clearly been in this iron box before and was not about to sit on the filthy, damp floor or crouch uncomfortably under its ceiling. He sat himself down close to the prisoner. Far too close for Mulder's comfort. A new kind of fear began crawling about within Mulder's empty stomach. End of Chapter 5a From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:54:10 1996 I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at (Windsinger@aol.com). __________ / __ __ \ ( (__) (__) ) --------[[[---------]]]----------------------------------------- -------- JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 5b/9 by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but there are some very nice parts in here, too. For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 5b Lawrence carried a flash, abruptly it swung around, leaping out to play over the prisoner's face, lancing directly into the agent's eyes. Mulder flinched and would have turned his head away but one of the man's huge hands darted out and took an iron grip on his prisoner's jaw. "I see you're awake. I wasn't sure you would be after our last little get together. Case you're interested, Pete and Jim Bowie are taking a little nap. He wants to be fresh for the operation. Wouldn't want to slip and lose the patient. At least not too soon." The thumb of Lawrence's hand which had a vise grip on Mulder's jawbone moved slowly over the stubble on the agent's face. Every muscle in Mulder's body contracted at once sending his blood pressure soaring, his heart pounding. Hard to believe Lawrence couldn't hear it. Every nerve ending screamed: fight, bite, kick. Every one, that is, but the grey ones inside Mulder's head which reminded him in Scully's voice that the ex- con probably had enough strength in one hand to snap one special agent's neck. Stall, Mulder. Time is life. Somewhere beyond the glare from the flash Lawrence's expression was puzzled but amused in his way. His often-broken nose gave him a resemblance to an older Rocky Balboa. His second hand came up to turn Mulder's head from side to side critically examining his victim in the light. Mulder blessed the glaring, uneven light of the flash. His make up job had never been intended to stand up to this kind of scrutiny. Lawrence shrugged. "My aunt would call this 'plum amazing'. Plum amazing, how even beat up you can look better than any of new meat I was ever given when I was at Marion. I remember saying that to Pete the first time I ever saw you. 'Now there's a nice piece of ass I wouldn't mind a taste of.'" Mulder tried to flinch away but Lawrence had a tight grip that only increased in pressure. "You didn't know that I was the one who pointed you out to Pete, did you? We had just come back from a 'night' job and were leaving this little deli we know, when here you come just walking along in those fancy clothes as if you didn't have a care in the world. You had your coat over your arm and, oh, I liked the look of that walk you had." Lawrence's free hand began to stroke Mulder's hair, to touch it in a way that one person does not touch another unless they are VERY close friends. The fire that burned in the agent's hazel eyes did nothing to dissuade the huge ex-con. Lawrence held all the cards and he knew it. Grinning suddenly as if amused exceedingly by his prisoner's response, Lawrence ceased the intimate gestures, dropping back into the manner of a man critically appraising a horse or a dog he might buy. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of your bleeding fags. The fairer sex are a pleasure I certainly enjoy but when there is no alternative one does develop, as I've said, the taste." The huge hand reached out as if to examine the injured eye which if he probed too closely would reveal that its swelling was fake and the bruises false. With a burst of anger he had no trouble generating Mulder brought up his free hand to push Lawrence away, a doomed move from the start but he needed the distraction. Dismayed, Mulder found that Lawrence was not only strong and clearly articulate, but fast. And a fast, smart, strong enemy was the worst kind. With a wide grin of triumph as if he had been expecting his prisoner to make this kind of move, Lawrence caught the wrist of Mulder's rising arm. At the same time, he dipped into one of the pockets of his coat. The man's grip was so intense, numbing the arm he held almost immediately, that Mulder barely felt the coolness of the new ring of metal as it encircled what had been his free wrist, but the all-too-familiar click of the lock he certainly heard. Within three seconds, Mulder's second arm was cuffed up above his head next to the first. A huge hand came around behind Mulder's back until Lawrence had cupped the back of Mulder's head in his meaty palm and was drawing the agent's face to within inches of his own. "Now there's some spirit," Lawrence hissed. "I was beginning to wonder. When I pointed out your swinging little ass to Pete he took a second and, startled like, announced that, Jim Daniel! but if you weren't that damn over-educated Fibbie who'd sent his cousin Billie to Marion. I remember tellin' him 'Naw, couldn't be. A Fibbie dressed like that? Your run of the mill Fibbie has about as much fashion sense as the Secret Service.' You can tell both of them a mile away. In fact it's rather hard to tell them apart. But Pete said he was sure so we took our opportunity." Without taking his one hand from the back of Mulder's neck, holding it like a mother cat controls an unruly kitten, Lawrence began with deliberation to unbutton Mulder's shirt, raising the undershirt, tracing his finger over Mulder's skin. Throughout this process the con's small, dark eyes were, thankfully, on Mulder's face watching for the fear and the anger which were the big man's rewards, and Mulder generated enough of both to ensure Lawrence's attention. The con could not be allowed to notice that Mulder's chest and stomach were certainly dirty but uninjured. "You know, Fox -- your Mommy named you well, didn't she -- when all of your ID seemed to indicate that we had gotten ourselves the wrong man, I remember I was mighty suspicious. You certainly didn't act like any Fibbie I'd ever met. I said so to Pete. 'Are you sure we've got ourselves a Fed? Sure you haven't got it wrong?' 'Oh, no,' he says, 'this one may be under cover but he's Fox Mulder, for sure. That kind of name and your kind of pin-up boy looks he remembered from the papers. I wasn't so sure, but I went along. I admit I was really surprised when, after receiving the first set of pictures, that your superiors asked so sweetly after your welfare and wanted to arrange a meeting to discuss 'negotiations'. Oh, they eventually denied that we had you, but by then we figured it was just a ploy to confuse us." Black spots were beginning to appear before Mulder's eyes. The con's vise-like grip had to be pinching a host of nerves and blood vessels. The spots cleared as with slow deliberation Lawrence's other hand reached to loosen the agent's belt and Mulder's adrenaline drip shot through the roof. "How are you doing down here, by the way? Pete's a pro, you have to admit. No anesthetic but he cauterized that little snip real good. Steady hands, Pete has. I was real disappointed in you, Agent Mulder, you shittin' like a pig and then passin' out on us. No entertainment value at all." Lawrence's hand was getting far too close to discovering what he shouldn't. Mulder turned up the burn and let the hate blaze through his eyes. "If talking a man to death is torture," he whispered in a raspy voice as if long unused, "then you should be well entertained." Lawrence rocked back, small, beady eyes showing surprise and delight. "Ho, ho, it talks. Three days. And here I thought Pete's little snip had somehow cut the link between your brain and your mouth. Women always do say that a man's brain is in his cock. You got me almost believing it." As he had leaned back, Lawrence's grip on the back of the agent's neck relaxed ever so slightly. Reason slipped through Mulder's fingers. Somehow he found moisture in his dry mouth, not much but just enough to send a stream of wrathful spittle right into Lawrence's face. As the con hurled himself back cursing, Mulder exploded kicking and twisting away from the con's huge hands with every ounce of strength. A calloused hand came out of nowhere to connect like a club against Mulder's jaw and mouth. Pain erupted in his face, in his head, as his skull snapped back against the iron wall. Light burst in Mulder's skull that had nothing to do with what was coming in through his optic nerves and he tasted blood. Lots of it. "You're stronger than I expected but not strong enough. But keep it up. I like the feisty ones." Lawrence was close to him, very close, a hand down near Mulder's crotch again. Though dazed, Mulder knew Lawrence was getting far too close. He surged upwards, pivoting against his cuffed hands. As his knee drove itself into what he took to be Lawrence's face, he enjoyed a fleeting satisfaction. Another blow to his jaw left Mulder with his head spinning but somehow he found the strength to force his body to turn away from Lawrence, to partially show his back as though seeking protection from another blow. It was one of the hardest things Mulder had ever done in his life but, as intended, the submissive posture was all that was needed to spark the huge man's imagination. With a roar from Lawrence which in Mulder's ears sounded more like football cheer than anger, Mulder felt his stunned body being lifted by a huge arm around his waist. While his victim lurched and kicked to no effect, Lawrence roared with triumphant laughter. There was a scraping sound and then Mulder found himself flipped back to front and dropped down hard onto his knees. The scraping sound had been the crate Lawrence had brought in being moved to serve, Mulder soon realized, its intended purpose. It was now against the wall so that the prisoner could be stretched over it, cuff-linked arms shackled high on the wall, the edge of the box cutting across his stomach. All of this served to keep Mulder on his knees, hips and particularly buttocks all too vulnerable to what Lawrence obviously had in mind from the start. Lawrence moved with a frightening grace as if he had done this time and time again. As he dropped his weight down on the agent's legs, one dirty hand clamped itself over the agent's nose and mouth while the other reached around his victim's hips and began expertly to complete the release of Mulder's belt. At the same time he lay along the agent's broad, young back letting teeth and lips generously kiss and nip the skin at the back of Mulder's neck. Furious at being barely able to move and not able to breath at all Mulder struggled but his ineffectual twists and snarls only further fueled Lawrence's laughter. Only when his resistance weakened as blackness closed did Lawrence remove the hand over his prisoner's mouth leaving both arms free to reach around his prisoner's hips. Gasping, head hanging slack on his neck, shackled upraised arms practically pulled from his sockets, Mulder barely noticed what Lawrence was doing, only that he could breathe again. Within seconds the con's large hands had expertly manipulated both button and zipper, thick fingers hooked inside the waist band at both of his victim's sides and smoothly both boxers and pants were pulled down with a single fluid yank. Furious, tears of anger and humiliation coming unbidden to his eyes, Mulder fixed burning, unfocused eyes on the blackened iron wall. He wondered if it were possible to will your body to turn to stone. Setting his jaw, he waited for Lawrence's obvious next move, but his tormentor did nothing for a full five seconds except stare at his prisoner's cooling naked flesh. When the huge, rough hands finally touched that skin Mulder lurched backwards against his cuffed hands and felt the back of his head impact with something soft. Mulder prayed it had been the con's thick nose. With an almost leisurely destain, a huge hand reached out and wrapped itself painfully around a fist-full of Mulder's thick brown hair which put an end to that avenue of resistance. "Naughty, naughty, and just when I was going to congratulate you, Agent Mulder, on how much you surprise me. You shat into your pants when Pete made his little cut. Like I said I remember that vividly and I was going to ask you how your diaper rash was doing but decided that was just a little - " Lawrence leaned forward draping himself across Mulder's back to whisper in his ear - "just a little personal. I figured I'd have to clean you up a bit - a little '409' never hurts - but what do I find? As clean and lily-white as ever I saw one." Lawrence laughed again, deep and echoing. Mulder could feel the bellows- like lungs heaving in mirth against his back. The man's weight was pressing the prisoner's midsection against the edge of the crate which limited each breath to one desperately inadequate pant. "My, but that one-eyed vet must really have taken his job seriously. What did you give him to clean your bottom for you, Agent Mulder? You know what they called me at Marion? Breaker Lawrence, that's cause I've got a rod like steel and I can get through the tightest little holes you can imagine. I was looking forward to adding yours to my collection. To go where no man has gone before? I do like that. Only looks like I may not be the first one to make this particular voyage." One of Lawrence's hands caressed the side of Mulder's right thigh moving up towards where certain other body parts were hidden in shadow but exposed enough to probing hands, just as a certain agent's ass was currently against a certain ex-con's crotch. Pete's snip had been small. There would still be a very noticeable difference between Jake and Mulder in this respect. The hand moved on up towards Mulder's groin. Moved closer. Mulder forced in enough air to grunt out, "No..." The exploring hand hesitated. Lawrence cuddled closer to let his hot, stinking breath brush across Mulder's ear. "No? Still a little tender are we? I think I'd like to hear you plead with a bit more conviction though if you don't mind." Mulder wondered if hatred could drip like poison from a man's lips. If so, then at that moment his bite would be lethal. "P-Please." Lawrence chuckled in response as though he had seldom enjoyed himself so thoroughly."Not bad, though as our little visit together goes on you'll get better. As for not lettin' you in on the fun? It's no sweat off my back. This is your last chance to be a man is all, if you know what I mean. Only fair." Voice tight with bitterness, Mulder spat out, "This has... NOTHING... to do with being fair." "Oh, but it does. If you knew what happened to Macon, you'd understand. He died three years into his sentence from injuries suffered in a small riot, a riot that started with a gang rape. His. Course between you and me I know Pete's anger ain't all for Macon's sake. How do you think a little thing like Pete survives in the Pen. 'Petula' we called him. From the day he stepped into that place, he didn't have a chance. He was younger then, too, and prettier. Just look at you. You've got pounds and inches over Pete and see where you are." Lawrence shifted his weight slightly and Mulder was able to draw for the first time in minutes something approximating a full breath. Probably the ex- con hadn't liked the sound of the agent's strangled breathing. No fun humping the dead or just as good as dead. Lawrence shifted to get his hands on Mulder's smooth taut bottom again. "Now let Breaker Lawrence see just what damage has been done." Rough fingers worked around Mulder's rear, strong and demanding, stretching. Mulder dropped his head till it hung limply down between his up stretched arms. He forced his mind up, out, anywhere but here. Focus on the cold, the clinical... Rape was violence, power, not sex. In this case it would buy him time, maybe life. Torture? To the body, yes. Mulder could feel the bleeding already, another wound added to his psyche, but this kind of pain was nothing compared to the scars already on his soul. Lawrence was softly humming, happy. If Mulder knew the routine correctly the ex-con would be reaching now into his pocket for the lubricant. "Scully..." Mulder sighed soundlessly like a petition, like a prayer, "this would be a real good time for you to show up." He tensed, listened, prayed. No rescue. Don't think then. But it was impossible not to. The gel from the tube was so very cold. End of Chapter 5