Some nights.
Other nights, he'd just as soon stay awake.
Alex Krycek checked the watch on his remaining arm and shrugged a little in
the black leather jacket. The new prosthetic arm attached to his left
shoulder was a cut above the pitiful thing he'd been given in Moscow, but it
still made his back ache. The weight was all wrong. And it affected his
balance. He actually preferred going without it. But while a tough in black
leather and beard stubble was a common enough sight to pass without notice
on city streets, a one armed man was remembered. And he survived much
better, even in the light, if he went unremarked.
Almost eight. The Dandy should be done any time. He'd been hanging around
all afternoon, eavesdropping here, reading things he shouldn't there. He had
to pick up information somehow, and he had to keep his skills sharp. He'd
learned the hard way that information was power, and he didn't like being
powerless. It could get a guy killed. Or at the very least, maimed. The
thought made his missing arm itch.
A lackey, a weedy looking boy with too-pale skin and too-small eyes wearing
a too-perfect suit, slipped from the conference room and handed him a small
envelope. Sealed. The boy didn't linger, turning and slipping back into the
room immediately. Krycek wondered who he was sucking to rate the flashy
wardrobe, then dismissed the kid from his thoughts and pried open the
envelope. Great. An all nighter. Be back in the morning. Nine sharp.
Turning toward the door, fingers automatically shredding the small note, he
hesitated. He wasnąt all that sleepy, after all, and the good jazz bars
didn't really start to cook for another couple hours. While he was here, he
might as well... have a little fun. And add a little to the power base. The
Dandy would know about it, of course. But then, the Dandy would also be
disappointed if he didn't show at least a little initiative now and then.
Making a left instead of a right at the corridor, he headed for the back
office, and the computer he knew would be unattended this late in the
evening. He'd been a decent hacker before he'd been sucked in by the
Consortium, and his experiences since then had only further developed his
talents. Less than fifteen minutes after booting it up, he was through all
five security encryptions and both firewalls. They could follow him in, but
he didn't give a shit. Let them know what he was looking at. Let them wonder
why.
As he pulled file after file of information on his targets of interest,
snatches of conversation flowed through his mind, collating with fragments
of text he'd read throughout the last four years. It made a strange sort of
sense, but there were large chunks missing. Scully he could understand. She
was an unsuspecting black pawn who'd turned out to be the white Queen in
disguise. Skinner was a bit of an enigma, the Knight who was a suspicious
shade of gray. And Mulder? Mulder was a fucking zebra King. There was no
mixing of black and white with the man, but he had elements of both within
him. Krycek's question was simple.
Why was Mulder still alive?
There had been too many opportunities to kill him that had passed untaken.
Some had even come from him, personally, and had deliberately failed, on
orders from on high. It didn't make sense. And in this game, something that
important had to have a reason. It was too dangerous—Mulder was too
dangerous—not to be protected for a purpose.
Reading slowly, thoroughly, through the file on the Cancerstick, now
re-instated, he paused at the medical information. Words drifted through his
mind. "If you kill him, he becomes a martyr." To what? To whom? Blood type.
Genotype... dates. Repressed memories. A filched audiocassette with a
regressive hypnotherapy session with a doctor... more words floated past.
"Mom? He scares me. He scares Sam." "You're quite a little spy, aren't you?"
Text from a journal, hidden in a file, copied unaware. 'The label peeled
back, and it was my name. Mine, not Samantha's. Why did they take her? Why
not me?' Private correspondence, between a young FBI agent with a bad
attitude and a crazy mother, and a man in the shadows. A visit to a
hospital, to another older woman, with another son, who had an even worse
attitude, toward the man in the shadows at least. A miraculous recovery, and
a rift between mother and son that no one would explain.
Another son.
His hands paused over the keys.
A reason to keep him alive.
Well, yeah, as long as the Cancerstick was in a position of power with the
Consortium. But that had passed to the point where they'd tried to
assassinate the son of a bitch. For a fleeting moment, Krycek wished he'd
had that assignment. He'd've really enjoyed pulling that trigger. And he
wouldn't have left the bastard breathing to escape, either. Pushing happy
fantasies aside, he returned to his conundrum. Mulder should have lost his
protection when his father, for the Cancerstick was certainly his father,
lost his power. Yet he'd remained alive, still a thorn in the Consortium's
side. So Mulder, himself, must have something, hold some power of his own,
of which he was probably completely unaware. And whoever had that power...
had a hold over the Consortium. Somehow. The key would be to figure out what
that power was, and use it to the best advantage in the coming war.
Hell of a way to treat one's allies, but when those allies are enemies to
begin with, it only makes sense. He smirked to himself, remembering the last
time he'd seen Mulder, then the expression froze on his face.
He wasn't the only one interested in Mulder's comings and goings.
Leaning forward intently, staring at the screen, he began to push buttons,
following a very faint trail. As he traced it further and further, the trail
grew bolder, and the intent became unmistakable. Someone, high up in the
echelons of power in the Consortium, was after Mulder.
No way. No fucking way. Not 'til he'd had his own chance at exploiting that
particular resource. He wanted to find out what made Mulder so damned
important, and how to use that to his advantage. He couldn't do that if
Mulder was dead. So, Mulder would stay alive.
He would see to it.
Dead ends, paperwork, no sleep, a dyspeptic Skinner, bad reruns on the late
show (what was with all the goddamned Gilligan's Island? What happened to
Man from UNCLE?), a pregnant Godzilla that looked like Alien on steroids and
couldn't frighten a flea, Scully on a religion kick, and not a single
fucking alien in sight.
So much for war.
Fox Mulder stared morosely into the carton of moo goo gai pan balanced on
his knee and sighed. He was not thinking about Alex Krycek. He was not
thinking of tying him to the door post and beating him until he stopped
squeaking. He was not thinking of prying secrets out of him with the
judiciously wielded end of a red hot poker. And he most certainly was not
thinking of that bizarre Judas kiss the bastard gave him... after giving him
back his gun. His loaded gun. Which he, for some reason that he also was
determinedly not thinking about, had not used to kill the rat bastard.
He angled his chopsticks over the open container, trying to decide the best
angle of attack to keep from ending up with hot noodles in his crotch, and
the window exploded.
Chopsticks went one way, he dove the other, and what was left of his carton
of dinner decorated everything from his pants to his sofa to the opposite
wall.
Somebody shot his moo goo gai pan.
From his relatively secure position curled up into a fetal position next to
the television in the far corner of the living room, Mulder stared at the
now completely silent mess that moments ago had been his apartment.
Shattered glass coated the table and the floor in the tiny den, noodles,
vegetables and sauce coated the couch (and his pants), one chopstick floated
peacefully along the top of the fish tank, the end just starting to sag as
the balsa wood became soaked through. A few feet away in the direction of
the door, the murdered take out container lay, mute testimony to an
assassination attempt gone oddly awry, a perfect hole drilled in one side of
the carton and blasted out the other. A few stray noodles bled from the
perforation like intestines trailing from a gutted corpse.
Reaching shakily for his coat, staying carefully out of the line of fire, he
caught a hanging sleeve and dragged it toward himself. A quick scrabble
through a pocket and a finger poked the number one fast dial button. Please
don't be at church, Mulder prayed silently, and was rewarded for his piety
by a grumpy voice on the other end of the line.
"Scully."
"It's me," he croaked out, amused at the reversal in their usual roles.
"Someone just shot my dinner."
"That's usually done before it makes it to the table, Mulder," she snapped
back. He could hear music in the background. Fuckin' A, he'd just managed to
screw up another of her few and far between dinner dates.
"This time it was post-prep, Scully. I'm in my living room. My Chinese food
was just shot out of my lap." He swallowed, then forced himself to continue.
"And my gun's in the room where the shot came through."
She didn't actually say anything, but he could hear her teeth grinding
together through the line. "I'll be right there, Mulder. Don't move." Or
I'll kill you myself. Again, unspoken, but clear as a bell.
He nodded agreement to the dial tone ringing in his ear.
She made it in record time. She always drove faster when she was pissed. Of
course, he had moved, and that didn't improve her mood any. He wasn't sure
if the fact that he hadn't been shot at when he'd moved was a plus or just
made her pissier. He supposed if he ever had a date for her to interrupt
he'd be in a better position to judge. He could always pause the tape and
start it up again later, so he was never quite as irritated at being
interrupted as she was.
At least he had something to do that night, since he wasn't sleeping anyway.
Ballistics were a bust, no match to any pending weapon or criminal. He
filled out more paperwork, nailed boards over the inside of his window,
swept up glass, left the chopstick in the tank for a fish toy. He was
hungry, and tense, and more than a little pissed off by the whole affair,
until he walked into the office the next day and saw a report on his desk.
Not ballistics, forensics. Not a bullet. His moo goo gai pan had an
additional ingredient, a mushroom most fine restaurants would shy away from
using in their dishes. There was enough amanita phalloides in the veggies to
take down a healthy elephant.
Whoever'd killed his dinner had saved his life.
He was jumpy for days afterward. For a man who relied heavily on take-out
food to survive, and who couldn't afford to lose any weight to begin with,
it was a trying time. The Chinese restaurant hadn't a clue who'd added the
additional garnish to his dish. The delivery boy had disappeared (Mulder
hadn't thought the tip was that bad). He spent a lot of time hanging out at
Scully's apartment, scaring off her dates and picking off her plate, until
she told him to hire a taster and stop living under her dining room table.
Eventually it passed, as all the weirdness in his life usually passed, and
other than doing quite a bit more cooking than he ever had before (and
finally figuring out how to turn his range on) life continued as it was wont
to do. A month, two, a road trip to Minnesota to look at crop circles,
another to Arizona to put away a tongue fetishist before he killed any more
hitchhikers, another acre of trees killed to feed the ever-expanding
appetite the FBI bean counters had for paperwork in quadruplicate. Nights
spent with the VCR, weekends spent swimming and looking for the perfect
poster for his reconstructed office, days spent chasing homicidal, possibly
mutant, definitely disturbed headcases. Life was on an even keel.
Mulder set out for his early morning run just like every other day he
managed one, which meant, as usual, there was no set pattern to his
activities at all and he didn't have a 'standard' time, route or
destination. Which also meant that whoever the son of a bitch was, he, or
she, was watching, and waiting.
The bullet missed by a fraction of an inch, so close he felt the disturbance
in the air current, heard the whine beside his ear before he heard the
muffled crack of a silenced gun. Close, too close, both the bullet and the
shooter. He dove, rolled, had his gun out and miraculously didn't drop it.
Adrenaline pushing him on, he rolled to the side of the path into the bushes
and listened hard. A cough, another silencer, this one sounded different,
shorter, harsher. Not as close.
He crawled swiftly around the side of the bushes, heading in the direction
from whence the first bullet had come, eyes everywhere at once, breath
echoing in his ears, competing with his heartbeat. He found the rifle first,
but only because he tripped over the body.
Well, he hadn't really been looking down.
The shooter, a woman, was cooling rapidly, no evidence of a pulse to be
found. Looking up and around, he saw a few scuff marks on the ground heading
vaguely away from the body, but the prints weren't clear enough to make
anything of them. He reached into his fanny pack, drew out his cell phone,
and wearily punched a button.
This time she was at church. He told her to go back to the service. She told
him not to be an idiot. Besides, the priest probably wouldn't let her back
in, since she'd already interrupted the mass once with a ringing phone. He
stopped arguing, staring at the entry wound between the shoulder blades of
the would-be assassin. It looked familiar. He told himself he was being
paranoid, agreed with himself, and looked again. It still looked familiar.
Ballistics confirmed the hunch. Whoever'd killed the assassin, Jane Doe of
the filed off fingerprints and the utter lack of traceable dentition, had
also slaughtered his magic-mushroom laden dinner four months earlier. It
would seem that he had a guardian angel. Who used a nine mil Koch P7 with a
silencer. And who had damned good timing.
The rifle slug had only missed him by an inch.
Mulder had too many enemies to pin these assassination attempts on any
particular one too easily. But most of them weren't the shooting kind. More
the kidnap, drug, freak out, videotape the results for posterity and
mind-wipe type. Which led him to believe that it must have something to do
with the Consortium, for hadn't everything truly strange in his life
eventually been tied into the Consortium? He sicced the Lone Gunmen on the
problem, brainstormed with Scully until neither of them had an unstormed
brain cell left between them, politely begged Skinner to join the hunt, and
came up empty handed all around.
It was enough to drive a sane person nuts, and Mulder wasn't particularly
balanced on the best of days.
Happily, or frighteningly, depending on the perspective, it wasn't nearly as
long between the second and third attempt as it had been between the first
and the second.
He was walking home after questioning a source, or a snitch, depending on
the person describing the meet. It was a beautiful night, clear and crisp, a
rarity in DC in the autumn. He could actually see stars. Which was probably
why he didn't see the car that screamed out of the alley and very nearly
turned him into Federal Agent Roadkill.
Except for the strong arm that came out of nowhere, grabbed him by the back
of the collar, and dragged him out of the way, nearly strangling him in the
process. Both hands tearing desperately at the knot in his tie, trying to
keep himself from being asphyxiated after just being saved from certain
death by maniacal vehicle, Mulder twisted frantically to look over his
shoulder and catch a glimpse of his guardian angel.
Well, shit.
Choking, he had time for the single, disgusted thought that he'd always
assumed autoerotic asphyxiation presumed both nudity and erotic activity,
then his head was swatted with singular efficiency against the side of the
brick wall behind him, and all the lights went out.
When they came back on again, he was lying in his apartment. He was sprawled
on the sofa, shoes off, tie undone, a wet towel against the bruises he could
feel on his windpipe, and a melting icebag propped under the goose egg on
the back of his skull. The door was locked, the light was considerately off,
and the only noise in the quiet apartment was the gurgling of the filter in
the fish tank.
At least now he knew who his guardian angel was. Which begged the question...
why was Alex Krycek working so hard to keep him alive?
It had started out as a means to an end. It developed into a crusade. Krycek
had waited, and watched, and traced nearly invisible strings of influence
back to the source, only to determine that it was one of the inner echelon
of power in the Consortium who wanted Mulder taken out of the picture. Since
this particular man, a monotonal, dead eyed, cold fish glutton, was on the
wrong side of the battle anyway, the Dandy made no move to stop Krycek's
little quest to keep Mulder safe from the Pig.
Not that it would have done much good if he had. But still, it was nice to
stay in the good graces of his patron for a change.
He'd saved Mulder from at least five assassination attempts, and during two
of them, Alex had come uncomfortably close to being caught. Then the fiasco
the night before had hit. He knew he couldn't stay lucky forever, but he'd
been enjoying himself, sort of, and he'd wanted to see how long it could
last.
So much for his fun. The gig was up. Mulder had recognized him, he'd known
by the gleam in the bright, oxygen-deprived hazel eyes, and knew who was
constantly saving his ass. There were many times Krycek cursed the overly
enthusiastic Siberian peasants who'd sawed off his arm—usually he cursed
them on a daily basis—but never so bitterly as times like that, when he
really could have used one arm to pull Mulder out of the way and another to
thump him so he wouldn't be able to look backward and see his rescuer. He
sighed, resigned. Might as well get it over with. Pay him a little visit.
See just how much he could get away with not telling, and just how much he
could get in return for what he would tell.
Besides, all that watching was making him antsy. Mulder had been a secret
fantasy of his for years, ever since before they were originally partnered,
and after watching him like a bug under a microscope for six months, he was
ready to do something, anything, to get a little bit closer.
Didn't help that he could still feel Mulder's skin under his lips, still
smell him, after all those months. Didn't help that he did, every night, at
least every night that he actually got any sleep.
It also didn't help that he still hadn't figured out what made Mulder so
damned special that the Consortium had been willing to protect him, until
the division in power in the inner circle had splintered the goals of the
group. The only thing he had been able to figure out was that Mulder was
important, to the Resistance, and was a threat, somehow, to the
collaborators. Which merely added impetus both to the Pig's timetable for
killing the agent and Krycek's determination to keep him alive.
Maybe it was time to put an end to the cat and mouse game for all sorts of
good reasons. And maybe he was just justifying the approach to himself
because his lips were itching. Didn't matter, in the end. Because it was
time to strike a deal.
Mulder wore a turtleneck sweater under a blazer for the next three days and
answered Scully's raised brow with a mysterious look. This, of course,
merely amused her, and successfully distracted her from questioning him
about the odd hickeys he was hiding under the high neckline.
Too bad it was from a chokehold. He quashed that thought before it could
develop into 'wish it had been lips' and threw out yet another email query
to Frohicke. They'd developed quite a code, to the point where there were
times when he wasn't completely sure what his paranoid little friend was
telling him, but then that wasn't all that uncommon in the history of their
friendship. So he didn't let it bother him this time.
He was too busy checking his back trail. Of course, that didn't do him any
good either.
Coming home the Friday night after the attack, he unlocked his door and
wandered in, wondering if he had enough munchies to sustain him over the
weekend without having to make yet another run to the store (this cooking
gig wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Food actually spoiled when one
didn't cook it). Trying to look every direction at once, checking
automatically to make sure there weren't any odd papers lying on the floor
or clear lines of sight for riflemen (or women), checking behind the door
before setting both locks and the chain, and peering behind the fish tank,
he nearly tripped over the man coming out of his bathroom.
Before Mulder could flick the safety off on his gun, the fine bones of his
wrist were caught in a punishing grip and his arm was twisted up between his
shoulder blades. He dropped the gun, of course—he tended to do that when
his fingers went bloodless and every nerve from his shoulder to his
fingertips screamed in pain. He managed to bite back the instinctive
agonized cry, but couldn't help the little whimper that whuffed out. Oddly
enough, his attacker actually paid attention, and some of the pressure eased
on his arm.
"Calm it down, tovarisch. You're not going to shoot me, and I'm not going to
hurt you."
"Bullshit," Mulder tried to sound tough, but it came out a little
breathless. He could feel Krycek pressed all along his back, and now that
his arm wasn't being ripped out of the socket, the rest of his body was
waking up to the possibilities. Trying to ignore those, as well, he did his
best to bluster on. "What do you call what you're doing to my gun hand,
then?"
"Insurance." The flat tone had a hint of dry humor behind it, but there was
no doubt that he meant it. There was a slight rustling sound, and he felt
the thigh behind his move sideways as his gun was kicked into the far
corner. "Have a seat. Get comfortable."
Mulder was shoved not ungently toward the couch. Spinning slightly, rubbing
his numb wrist, he started to kick back at Krycek only to freeze at the
sight of the pistol aimed unwaveringly at his stomach. "Just a friendly
little chat, hm, Alex?" Irony dripped from the words. He gave his best
impression of nonchalance as he slumped onto the cushions, but the tension
in his body gave lie to the image. Krycek took note of his attack readiness
and perched just out of reach on the end of the coffee table.
"We do have to talk, Mulder."
"About what, aliens? Invasions that haven't happened? People shooting me and
you shooting them? Why are you suddenly my bodyguard, Krycek? And where the
fuck do you get off kissing me?" He froze again, aghast that he'd actually
said what he'd been thinking. Somehow, all the internal censors slid
off-line every time he had to deal with Alex Krycek. Scrabbling to fake a
save, he plowed on, belligerently. "You shot my noodles!" Whoa, that hadn't
been quite what he'd meant to say, either. "And that woman who was going to
shoot me, you got her, too, and you nearly ripped my head off getting me out
of the way of that runaway car. What the hell is going on?" His voice had
risen until it was a full throttle yell. Krycek stared at him, fascinated, a
funny little half smile playing at his mouth. Mulder had a nearly
uncontrollable urge to belt him right across those curved lips.
"Not to mention the rigged brakes that I patched on the car you rented on
the trip to Minnesota. And the 80 milligrams of amygdalin in the Ben and
Jerry's that disappeared from your freezer last month. Or the prussic acid
that was ground into your gourmet coffee beans a couple weeks ago. Were you
wondering why that didn't make it into your grocery bag? Or the 45 mils of
methylene chloride in the Miller's that, uhm, fell over and broke in your
refrigerator ten days ago." Mulder choked, and Krycek waited politely until
the gag reflex had passed. "You just noticed the loud ones. At least this
time there wasn't any LSD in the water supply. This was all just for you.
Aren't you special?"
"Why?" he finally managed to spit out, and couldn't make his tongue work
properly to finish the question. It was probably just as well, as Mulder
couldn't even decide himself whether he was asking why he was being
targeted, or why Krycek was stopping the attempts. Or even why he might be
considered special. By anyone. Thankfully, his enemy, or bodyguard, or ally,
or whatever the hell he was, answered all of the questions asked by the
single word.
"I don't know yet," Krycek said simply. "I'm still working on that."
They stared at one another for a long moment, then Mulder stared
disbelievingly as Krycek gave an odd, one-shouldered shrug, uncocked his
weapon, and reholstered it under his left armpit. "You got anything to drink
that's nonhallucinogenic?"
Mulder shrugged. "How the fuck should I know?"
Krycek nodded. "Good point. I'd know better than you would."
He rose from the edge of the table and wandered into the small kitchen,
rummaging in the refrigerator and pulling out two cans of Budweiser. Tossing
one to Mulder, who caught it instinctively then sat and stared at it, he
lowered himself onto the couch and popped the top, balancing the can between
his knees. Mulder opened his mouth to protest the casual hominess of his
actions, only to have something completely unrelated fall out.
"What happened to your arm?" Well, hell. Another synaptic misfire.
"Siberian peasants chopped it off."
There was a long, unpleasant silence. Mulder stared at the unopened can in
his hand, at the fish still circling the sodden chopstick caught on the
filter hose, at the carpet that desperately needed to be vacuumed. Anywhere
but at the elegant line of Krycek's throat as he tipped his head back to
drink down the last drops of beer in his can. Anywhere except at the awkward
stillness of the left arm that wasn't really an arm. Anywhere at all that
wasn't in those too-knowing, too deep, and too fucking believable green eyes
staring back at him.
It didn't work, of course. It never had.
"I'm sorry," he finally offered. Krycek gave another off balance shrug.
Before he could open his mouth and stuff his foot down his throat again, the
other man moved. Krycek leaned forward, carefully set the empty can down on
the table top, swiveled on the cushions and leaned back against the arm of
the couch, staring at Mulder. It didn't take long to give him the fidgets.
"Could've been a Russian thing," he suddenly said, and Mulder jumped a
little. The non sequitor made no sense, and he began to run the conversation
back in his head, trying to figure it out. "Might have been a Judas kiss."
Oh! That. He swallowed, trying not to notice how close he and Krycek were
sitting. When had that happened? "Could have even been the Kiss of Death, or
a symbolic way to seal the pact, let you know we were both on the same
side." Another shift, and those damnable eyes were closer now, and Mulder
couldn't have backed away if his life had depended on it. "But it wasn't.
Any of those things. And you know it." Mulder tried to shake his head,
instinctively denying whatever it was that Krycek was implying, but he found
he couldn't move. He was hypnotized by the low voice, the air of intimacy
between them in the close confines of the darkened living room. "You knew I
was going to kiss you. You flinched, all right, but not away. Toward me." He
wanted to turn away, wanted to close his eyes. Wanted to be anywhere but
where he was, leaning toward the truth he didn't want to admit. Truth
shining out at him from wicked green eyes. "It was a kiss. Just a kiss. A
kiss between enemies. A kiss between allies." By now Mulder could feel the
brush of breath over his lips as Krycek leaned closer, until those eyes
shifted out of focus, and it was only the voice, the scent, the warmth, that
held him there. So close. "I shouldn't have kissed you," so close they were
nearly touching, "on the cheek." So close, they did touch. Breath over his
lips, into his mouth, making his tongue curl and relax. "I should have
kissed you," and he did.
For long moments there was only the sound of suction and release, as warm
lips played with his, outlined his upper lip, drew in his lower, nipped at
it and soothed it with a questing tongue tip. Mulder'd tilted his head
sometime, somewhere along the line, to give him better access, to deepen the
touch. A release, another breath over his sensitized, moistened lips. "Here.
And here," as the mouth roved, along his offered throat, under his ear. "And
here." Nipping along his jaw line. Someone, somewhere, was whimpering
softly, and the hot breath over sensitive skin soothed, tormented, added
impetus to the offering.
Then it was gone.
And he wanted it back.
He was actually reaching out to pull Krycek back up against him when reality
slammed into him like a brick to the head. His mouth worked, but once again
his tongue failed him.
"We need to talk, Mulder." At least the bastard's voice was unsteady. Small
victories, but any cause for celebration was a just one, at this point,
Mulder's mind gibbered at him.
"So, talk." God, he'd sounded even worse than Krycek. Breathy. Low.
Inviting. Like Kathleen Turner on downers. He shook himself. He had to get a
grip. On something.
"Right." For a second, Mulder thought Krycek was agreeing with him. Then
long fingers reached around to grasp his chin and force his head up. A
feather-light kiss was dropped on his mouth, then that voice threaded
through his head again. "Make a bargain. I'll keep protecting you, and when
I find out why they're trying to kill you, I'll let you know."
"Who's they?"
"Don't know yet." Another pecking kiss. It was really distracting.
"What do you get out of the deal?"
"You." No hesitation at all. Mulder tried to swallow, and found a tongue in
his mouth.
A tongue that didn't belong to him.
For half a heartbeat he almost considered biting down. Then that tongue
started to move, and the heartbeat skipped, and all thoughts drifted away
again. He should be fighting this. Should at least be laughing at the
bastard, or haggling with him, or beating him up, or something, anything,
anything at all, except what he was doing. Which at the moment was
cooperating, enthusiastically, in getting naked and horizontal together.
His body finally decided that his mind was turning in too many circles to
make any decisions, and animal instinct took over. There were a few snags,
literally, when he got to the straps digging into the soft skin of Krycek's
shoulder, but he was moving full steam ahead by that time. Other than taking
care not to jolt anything, the prosthetic arm was just another piece of
furniture to get the hell out of the way. At least, that's the way it felt
to Mulder.
Coffee table scraped on the carpet, the beer cans went over, the couch
banged against the wall, and clothes ended up tossed from one end of the
room to another. His mouth finally kicked in with the program, and he was
suddenly voracious, licking and sucking from one end of the barely uncovered
flesh to the other. Better than sunflower seeds any day of the week. Almost
as salty, too, wandered through his brain, as he pushed down on Krycek's
hips with both hands and swallowed him whole. From the strangled scream
choked out a few feet above his bobbing head, that move went over well.
He made a feast of Krycek, hands moving all over him, bruised ribs and
scarred stump and callused fingers, soft throat and crinkled nipples, musky
sac and straining shaft and ridged stomach. His mouth followed his hands,
taking the other man by storm, carrying them both away in a welter of
passion. As they slowly wound down from the peak, he thrust lazily into the
mess splattered between them, not wanting to leave the strong arm wrapped
around his neck, fingers worked into his hair, thighs clenching around his
hips; the haven of the curve of neck and shoulder where he buried his face
and bit, lightly, sucking the warm skin into his mouth over and over,
marking it, living on nerve endings and residual energy, denying reality as
long as he could. Still in a haze, he felt lips brush lightly over his
temple, fingers caressing his scalp, heartbeat thundering under his chest.
Closing his eyes, one final denial of the truth, he didn't notice when he
slipped into sleep, still listening to that heartbeat coming down in time
with his own.
When Mulder finally went out, he went out like a light. Krycek lay in the
darkness, crushed into the couch cushions, eyes staring at nothing, hand
quietly calming the shaking muscles along the clean line of Mulder's back.
The shaking gradually faded into rhythmic breathing, the slightest
suggestion of a snore from somewhere below his left ear, tickling slightly.
He took a deep breath.
Well, that had gone somewhat better than he'd expected. They were both still
alive, they had at least the beginnings of a truce, and somebody somewhere
had one hell of a surveillance tape. Knowing how well Mulder was watched,
probably several somebodies in several places had every different angle
possible of their recent lovemaking.
His thoughts stopped, tripping over the term, then soldiered on.
Okay. He could deal with this.
Dandy knew he was watching out for Mulder. Pig would too, now, if he didn't
already, which he probably did, given the accelerated pacing of the
incidents. The alliance was struck, and the warning was out there. Mulder
was marked. His property. His responsibility. He'd managed to lie about
enough that the Pig might think he was still safe, so that would give him an
edge, at least for a little while.
He hoped it would be long enough.
Long enough to stop the assassination attempts. Long enough to figure out
what the hell made Mulder indispensable... other than his obvious uses. Long
enough to win this war, if there was any way it could be won. Krycek
carefully disentangled himself from the human octopus clinging to him,
smiling a little when Mulder didn't even stir. He dressed in the dark, by
touch, as quietly as he could, and let himself out into the empty hallway,
locking the door deliberately behind him.
Mulder had fulfilled his part of the bargain, at least for starters. Now
Krycek would keep his end of the pact, and forge the alliance between them
until it was unbreakable, if that could be done. Judging by Mulder's
response tonight, it wasn't going to be nearly as difficult as he'd feared.
He'd just have to keep him guessing. Krycek grinned to himself and slipped
out the side door, into the night. This was going to be fun.
It had been a long day. Unfortunately, not nearly long enough. Scully was
off cutting up dead bodies, and he had distracted himself with paperwork all
day, but by seven Mulder couldn't put it off any longer. He'd had to go
home.
To his relief, or perhaps disappointment, he couldn't be sure, there was no
one lying in wait for him, as there had been the previous night. Just a
stray pair of shorts, stuffed under the edge of the chair. An empty can,
rolled under the television, bleeding a trickle of beer into the carpet.
Semen stains on the couch.
A manila envelope in the exact center of the coffee table.
He looked up and behind him almost simultaneously, waiting for a sneak
attack that didn't come. When his heart finally fell out of his throat back
down into his chest where it belonged, he reached over, picked up the
envelope, and felt along it carefully for any hidden wires. No signs of
explosives, so he very carefully edged it open.
A file. Two photographs. A print out. A thread in the fabric, not the whole
pattern, but a corner of the tapestry. The colonization project. The
hybridization experiment, some statistics, mortality, growth rate,
immunology reports. A little something.
In return for a little something.
Mulder stared at the papers clenched in his hand, then at the incriminating
stain on the couch cushion, then back at the photos.
He'd struck a bargain with the devil, and he couldn't find it in himself to
regret it. Even if the price turned out to be his soul.
Overheard in a cornfield:
Devil's Bargain
by Brenda Antrim
He was used to skulking around in the shadows of the halls of power, not
walking down the middle of the corridor with all the lights on. When he'd
been working for the Cancerstick, he'd been a hired thug, directed here,
beat this one up, steal that, shoot the other one. With the Dandy, as he
privately called the well dressed old man who'd given him back his life
after the mess with the boy Dmitri in the hold of a ship, he at least got to
sleep nights.
"Keep your head down!"
"What the hell are they looking for?"
"Us. Now put your head... Krycek... what are you doing?"
"Distracting myself. I don't like the dark."
"I... mean... oh, jeezus... what are you doing?"
Hitch. Fumble. Whimper. Thrash.
"Been awhile, has it, Mulder?"
"Shut up and keep your head down."
