Didn't they understand?
They were all hellbound. They had no weapons left in the arsenal. The fetus
was gone, and with it any chance they might have had at fighting the
Invaders with genetics. The vaccine was a one shot wonder, and what was left
of Marita was proof they hadn't been able to replicate the exact formula. Or
she'd've been dead. Usefulness expended, husk tossed out in the trash.
His right hand clenched in the dark leather glove, and he closed his ears to
Spender's bleating. His authority. How had anyone as deviously brilliant and
coldly ruthless as Cancerman managed to whelp something this spineless? The
fingers relaxed suddenly.
Of course. Spender wouldn't be a problem much longer. But perhaps he could
perform one last task before Daddy caught up with him and corrected his
mistake. Hopefully, Jeffrey wouldn't fuck this one up.
"That authority isn't yours, now is it? It's your father's." His voice was
soft as a whisper, compelling as the edge of a fine steel knife against the
jugular. "You've been a tool, just like your mother. A tool to take down
Mulder. To stand in the way of the X Files. To make sure the truth never
sees the light of day."
He watched the light, dim as it was, finally dawn in the flat eyes. There
was determination there, too, and Krycek hid his triumph behind a solemn
expression.
"Not for long." Spender nodded decisively.
"Hurry," Krycek hissed. "Before your father stops you."
Spender tossed an uncertain look over his shoulder. "But what about-"
"I'll see to her." Calm voice, reassuring. Spender bought it.
Fucking idiot.
He turned to Marita as soon as Spender was out of sight down the corridor.
He knew what he had to do, and so did she, but for once, the familiar spark
was completely absent. She looked drained, pushed past the point of
endurance to pain, as if she would welcome death.
She did.
Her body relaxed bonelessly against his in a parody of satiation. He lifted
a finger and gently closed her eyelids. She weighed nearly nothing as he
lifted her and placed her in a bed in the far corner of the room, tucking
her in, smoothing her hair against the pillow. She looked, if anyone
happened to see her, as if she was sleeping. Someone would, eventually,
discover that she was dead.
The smell would tip them off.
Mulder shook his head in disbelief. Why the hell would Scully expect him to
turn away from Diana? And get the Gunmen in on it with her? So, his ex-wife
spent time at Mufon meetings when she got the chance. Well, shit, they
started the X Files together, the woman was interested in EBEs and their
victims, why the hell wouldn't she go to the meetings? Why was it, when it
was a matter of her trusting him, he was expected to balance his intuition
with Scully's logic, but when the situation was reversed, she expected him
to make a choice between the two? They did their best work when they trusted
one another enough to disagree.
Don't make me choose, Scully, he cried to himself, but all he did was slam
the door behind him. The walls had been there a very long time, and they
weren't going to come down easily.
Even for Scully.
Three days later the world had taken another 180 turn. The bodies at the
hangar were gruesome, and he could tell from the porcelain pallor making
Scully's freckles stand out like paint spatters that there were some ugly
repressed memories bubbling to the surface because of them. Then Spender got
his head out of his ass and stepped back, as he should have in the first
place.
A thought struck him, staring at his boss. Maybe daddy Spender was one of
the flambéed? With his power base gone, Spender wouldn't have any backing,
and he'd be wallowing back in the puddle of mediocrity where he belonged. A
shiver ran over his spine, and the short hairs at his nape stood up.
Nah. He'd never be so lucky. Cancerman was still alive and kicking out there
somewhere, malignant as ever.
They stayed in their superior's office for another twenty minutes, going
over the top layer of the ton of paperwork they'd have to wade through to
get the X Files back where they belonged. Carting another half ton along
with them into the elevator toward their office—their office, again,
finally!—the shiver ran through him again.
"Mulder? You okay?" Bright blue eyes peered up at him concernedly over her
own pile of paperwork. Mulder answered automatically.
"Fine, Scully. Just a goose stepping... that is a weird expression. Predates
the Nazi storm troopers. I wonder if that's where the idea came fro-"
The elevator doors open and he smelled it before he saw anything.
Blood.
The papers hit the floor and his gun was in his hand before he thought about
it. Scully mirrored his action, flattening against the wall, her own Sig
Sauer out and ready. One glance between the two of them, and they slunk down
the corridor, he going in the door high, she low, of course, as it should
be.
Spender.
Well, what was left of him, anyway. The single gunshot had hit him in the
face, not doing much to the plain features other than giving him a third eye
in the vicinity of his left nostril. The real damage was in the back, where
most of his skull, a great deal of blood, and more gray matter than Mulder
thought the younger man had possibly possessed were splattered across the
floor, the wall, and the coat rack.
Not waiting for Scully to verify the death staring at him from the blank
eyes, Mulder punched the quick dial button for Skinner. Waiting for it to
ring through, he said thoughtfully, "You sure you want a desk down here,
Scully? Maybe they'll give you combat pay." He smiled into her glare, then
reported the corpse to his boss.
Welcome back to the X Files.
It didn't take long for his allies in the Resistance to fill Krycek in on
the ambush at the hangar. It took a little longer to get confirmation from
his source in Russia that the compound for the vaccine was too unstable to
replicate in large quantities, and given the problems the lab rats were
having getting reproducible results, the damned stuff could have been a
fluke.
That left the inoculated.
Himself. Mulder. Scully. Marita, if she hadn't been used up by the idiot
doctors at the research lab, to the point where he'd had to put her down.
The few remaining clones, perhaps. Some of the inmates of the gulag. A few
of the Mufon mothers. They had few viable alternatives, but they were in the
middle of a war, and they would use whatever weapons they could get their
hands on. If they didn't, if they could bring nothing to the table in any
show of strength, the allies would become just another enemy, and Earth
would be relegated to nothing more than a battleground for Titans.
He really didn't want to see his planet turned into the galactic equivalent
of Poland. A place to burn to the ground on the way to greater treasures.
Now to convince his reluctant Human allies. At least their boss wouldn't be
a problem. He still had the trigger for those little dam-builders lying
dormant in Skinner's veins. And he'd use them. Without a trace of
hesitation.
Actually, that was kind of fun. He grinned for an instant, then got down to
business. He had a world to protect. A people to save. An ass to cover.
Wary of Cancerman, who by now would know just who had slipped the Resistance
the information about the meeting at the hangar, unable to pin down an exact
count of who was still unroasted in the Consortium, Krycek was extremely
cautious with his approach. He avoided Scully, knowing she'd shoot him
before he could get his mouth open.
Mulder, on the other hand... Mulder had not seemed unreceptive to his
reasoning that night in the apartment. And he surely knew what that salute
on the cheek had meant. He'd felt the shudder along the angled jaw.
Brothers in arms. Allies in a crusade.
A slip of the tongue away from fucking one another on the living room floor.
Yeah. Mulder would listen.
It was a hell of a lot better than background checks and piles of manure,
but playing at Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore was a stretch even for him
Š not to mention for Scully. Mulder was glad to be home, happy to be away
from the Stepford community that had housed the most recent X File. He
slumped onto his couch, wondering for the umpteenth time why he couldn't
remember getting a waterbed, where the lava lamp had come from, and why it
didn't bother him more than it did.
Before he could come to any conclusion, a metal clamp closed over his
windpipe and he stopped breathing.
"Hello, Mulder."
Well, shit. He'd kinda hoped Krycek had been one of the toasted skeletons in
that hangar. Not that his luck ever was that good. Unable to respond to the
purred greeting, he gurgled. The grasp eased fractionally, and he dragged in
a grateful lungful of air.
"Sorry about that," came a chagrined whisper. Mulder didn't buy the
contrition. "Still getting used to these new gears. They're a little stiff."
A heavy body slithered over the side of the couch and settled beside him on
the cushions. Mulder managed to unpeel one of his hands from the gloved claw
holding his throat hostage, and weakly attempted to poke one of Krycek's
eyes out. The clamp, to his surprise, didn't tighten.
"Can the foreplay, Mulder. We have important things to discuss."
He rolled his eyes toward his tormentor and gurgled again, inquiringly this
time.
"Everything is totally fucked up. Plan B is blown, plan C is shit, and I
need you to make a plan D."
The metal hand was steady as a rock against Mulder's skin, but the
fingertips were rubbing very gently against his carotid artery. Almost a
caress. Damned distracting. Mulder forced himself to ignore the circular
motion, and his own Pavlovian response to submission combined with danger,
focusing all his attention on Krycek's soft voice.
"There are elements in the Resistance who don't want to work with the
Humans. They don't trust us, not surprising since the Consortium has been
collaborating with their masters for the last fifty fucking years. But that
leaves the rest of the Underground out in the cold."
For a wild instant, Mulder was convinced he was stuck in a World War Two
movie, and Krycek was going to morph into Christopher Plummer in the heart
of occupied France at any moment. Then he jolted back to reality. Not with
that little pug nose was Krycek ever going to pull off Plummer. And Mulder
sure as hell was no Harrison Ford.
The eyes were about right, though.
"Did you hear me, Mulder?" No, he thought, and gurgled encouragingly. Yes,
that was definitely a caress. "The Resistance took back the alien fetus, so
we don't have the option of genetic engineering as a weapon. The lab boys
are having a hard time replicating the vaccine against the Black Oil. That
leaves us."
"Us?" Hey, no gurgle. Sometime during Krycek's 'save the world' monologue
the clamp had relaxed completely and was now wrapped around his neck,
rubbing little circles at the nape of his neck. If he wasn't sure Krycek
would kill him if he did it, Mulder'd be melted over his lap purring like a
cat in a field of catnip.
One knee edged up on the sofa as Krycek turned to face him, the metal hand
drawing Mulder into a mirrored position. Brilliant green gold eyes pinned
him, and Mulder found himself willing to listen to anything.
Trust no one, except the one person in the world you should trust the least.
Him, you trust.
It made a twisted sort of sense.
As Krycek laid out his plan to keep Humans from being the forgotten victims
in an intergalactic civil war, complete with Scully harvesting tissue
samples from Mufon members and he and Mulder sneaking back into Siberia
(avoiding the peasants, this time) to smuggle out blood samples from
inoculated prisoners, Mulder made the unwelcome discovery that he would
follow Krycek to hell. He had no idea why. It just was.
When the plans finally ground to a stop, he smiled gently at Krycek. "You're
out of your fucking mind."
Krycek growled. Mulder shivered. The clamp at the back of his neck pulled
him forward, and a mouth rivaling the Flukeman's attached itself to his,
making a damned good attempt to suck his tonsils out through his tongue-tip.
Oh.
Yeah.
Shit.
They never made it as far as the water bed, still depleted in its big wooden
frame. Good thing, too, because Mulder wouldn't have been able to stand that
much visual stimulation. Porn videos were one thing, but that mirror on the
ceiling over that bed would give him a heart attack right about the time
Krycek ripped his jeans open and swallowed his cock whole. When he gave up
the fight and held his own knees back for Krycek to fuck him into oblivion,
the image would have surely caused him to stroke out.
He was relieved, in a little corner of his mind that huddled in the corner
and took notes, that his neighbors were used to screams coming from this
corner of the building. He'd hate to have to explain this to the Metro
police.
Sprawled like an auto accident victim between the couch and the coffee
table, feeling every inch of rug burn on the small of his back and along his
shoulders, he ran his palms lazily up and down Krycek's shoulders, trying
not to think how easy it would be to snap his neck as he lay there. The dark
head rose from his chest, the darkened eyes caught his, and Mulder revised
his definition of 'easy.'
"You're a homicidal maniac," he ventured in a conversational tone, not easy
when he was still panting like a racehorse after the Kentucky Derby.
"You're pretty psychotic yourself," Krycek responded pleasantly. Compliments
exchanged, he got down to business. "You in?"
Mulder glanced down at the puddle of sweat and semen that had, five minutes
earlier, been Krycek in him. "Isn't that your line?"
Krycek grinned at him, and Mulder found himself grinning back. Maybe Krycek
had a point. This was all pretty insane. "What's in it for you?" he couldn't
resist asking. Krycek lost the grin.
"Life. I don't want to be burned alive, don't want to be a walking
receptacle for an oilspot, don't want to be a feeding trough for baby
aliens. And I don't want to lose."
There was truth in the softly muttered words, and in the steady gaze staring
down into his. Mulder considered it. He could trust the truth. Even this
truth. Even Krycek's truth.
At least, this truth.
"You get to break the news to Scully," Krycek put in before he could figure
out how, or even if, to share this newest revelation. The prospect of trying
to explain an alliance with Krycek, shapeshifter Rebels, Mufon moms, Russian
labor camp inmates, and the X Files wiped everything out of his head.
"Fuck."
"Yes, thank you," Krycek answered politely, and did.
Mulder pounded his head against the floor, ignored the rapping from the
neighbor below them, and decided the revolution could wait until morning.
So could Scully.
Mid-groan, he started to laugh, shaking his head when Krycek paused to stare
at him quizzically. How could he explain? He didn't understand it himself.
But it would be okay. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. They were
going to win. It was gonna be the hardest fucking thing any of them had ever
done. They were going to go to hell. But they were going to come back.
If he was heading to hell, at least he'd have damned good company.
Hellbound
by Brenda Antrim
It was all going to hell in a hand basket. Alex Krycek stared at the shaking
shadow that used to be Marita Covarrubias, at the perfectly bovine
incomprehension in the flat light eyes of Cancerman's spawn, and fought the
urge to kill them both where they stood.
