The man tied to the chair opened his eyes and felt his heart sink. He didn't
know where he was or who knocked him out. Then his eyes settled on the tall
figure standing near him. Lanky, dressed all in black, with a unique nose that
let the man recognize his captor. The studded collar around his captor's neck
threw him off a bit though. He breathed a sigh of relief until the figure he
thought was Mulder turned his face, revealing a scar on the left side.
Brian Kessler smiled nastily. "What a difference a scar makes, huh? You
went from thinking, 'Here's the guy we can lie to and sabotage and he'll keep
coming back for more,' to 'Oh, shit, this is the clone who's hanging with the
Angel of Death.'"
"I had—"
"Nothing to do with any of that, right? Plausible deniability. Doesn't
matter. We're going to play a little game. Here's America's favorite game
show host, the Angel of Death! Give her a hand! Oh, right, you can't."
Dark Angel walked into the room. "We're going to play Let's Make A Deal.
We have some fabulous prizes for you. Tell him what he could win, Bunny."
"He could win his life or a quick, painless death. I know, you're about to
ask how a quick, painless death could be a prize. It's a prize for being quick
and painless, as opposed to the alternative you get if you lose."
"How do I play?" the prisoner asked with a sneer.
"You tell us things we want to know," Dark Angel said. "But first let's
tell our audience about you. You recently were promoted to your current
position. Your hobbies include supporting eugenics experiments, stabbing
people in the back, sending taunting e-mail messages, playing with people's
lives, and putting harmless old ladies under surveillance for the crime of
regaining contact with the daughter you and your buddies stole from her. I
don't appreciate you sending people to intimidate my mother. I only just found
her again, and I'm not losing her now."
"I didn't have anything to do with that."
Suddenly she had a gun in her hand and shot his leg so quickly that he
screamed as much from surprise as pain. "Wrong answer. I've done my
research."
"Then what do you need me for?" he asked in a choked tone.
"Your challenge is to give me something I don't have."
"Do you know that you and Kessler are brother and sister? Puts a crimp in
your lovelife, doesn't it?"
She leaned back into Brian's arms, and he held her tight. She hooked his
studded collar with her finger. "We know. Fox Mulder multiplied to the
infinite power and Samantha Mulder given three sisters similar but not
identical to herself. We're Kitsune7's Imoto with Imoto2's Kitsune. You
probably find the mismatch of brother and sister unorthodox, but we believe
that variety adds spice to life. In the absence of Elizabeth Kessler and
Warren Elend, we'll have to do for one another. It has to be tough for you
seeing your last surviving control Kitsune looking so uncontrolled."
"You two are sick."
"I'm afraid so. That's another thing we already know. Should I shoot out
the other leg, Bunny?"
"No!" their prisoner said. "You weren't supposed to be like this, Kessler."
"You and your friends dragged me kicking and screaming into this world.
Don't you dare try to blame me for deciding that I'm better off kicking," Brian
said.
The prisoner looked back to Dark Angel. "Pryor, the man you call Mr. Morley
is still alive! He's—"
"—living in Canada. I know that too." She shot the other leg.
"What do you hope to gain here?" he screamed.
"I killed your predecessor and his predecessor, but more people keep
stepping up to the plate. How many of you do I have to kill before you stop?"
"The Consortium toyed with the idea of making Kessler a fixer after some of
the top brass saw his after-Grayce interview! They only reconsidered because
they were voted down by the people who still saw value in him as the last
surviving control!"
"I didn't know that, Peanut," Brian said.
"Watch the master spider in action," she said. "He throws out a few
breadcrumbs, then reels you in when you reach for them. He wraps you in the
sweetest cocoon of lies and half-truths then devours your soul." Dark Angel
shot the prisoner in the head. "Now he's gone."
Brian took a deep breath. "I know he's responsible for so much of what
happened to us, especially recently, but this doesn't make me feel better.
What did you want from him?"
"Killing shouldn't, and I got what I wanted from him. This is called
kicking the hornets' nest. You shake up their happy home—"
"—and watch where the insects scurry to."
"Very good, you have a talent for this. Now we have to get ready for
tonight."
"What are we going to do tonight, Serafine?"
She smiled. "Something a bit unusual actually. We're going to talk with
Mulder."
Feeling conspicuous and out of place, Mulder scanned the dark room for
Serafine and Brian. Dressing in all-black, in fact dressing a lot like Brian
tended to, didn't make him fit in any better than if he'd arrived in a suit.
That attitude difference tripped him up at the door. He'd almost gotten in
free on the strength of his almost perfect resemblance to Brian or Brian's
almost perfect resemblance to Mulder.
The music pounding through the club made Mulder's head swim, but his eyes
still picked out Serafine and Brian on the dance floor, slow dancing in the
middle of the crowd. They rocked spooned together, with her leaning into him
with his arms wrapped tightly around her. Her smile deepened as Brian
whispered something into her ear.
Mulder felt a deep stab of jealousy at their casual affection and obvious
trust in one another. He remembered last night, staring down the barrel of a
gun, not knowing whether his betrayer and former partner would fire or not. It
seemed that every time Mulder resigned himself to accepting something horrible
Krycek did, he found out about something even worse. How far could this go?
Brian and Serafine finally noticed him and directed him to a table. When
Brian and Mulder took a seat, Serafine said, "I'm going to go play Twister. I
don't think they'll let you in on it again after you hustled everyone last
night. You made, what, two hundred dollars?" Mulder noticed in the
candlelight that her bare arms didn't look scarred anymore. He would have to
ask Brian aboutthat.
"I couldn't have done it if you hadn't hid your extreme flexibility until
the end."
"Now that I know everyone wants to play me because I'm so flexible, I don't
have to hide it anymore. You sure you don't want to play?"
"Sera, I have red-green color deficiency."
"It's not like anyone else can really make out the colors by candlelight
either. Mulder could watch. You haven't lived, Mulder, until you've seen a
bunch of adults dressed in leather, vinyl, fishnet, and chains giggling and
twisting themselves into pretzels."
"Now I really don't want to," Brian said.
She smiled and gave him a lingering kiss. "See you later, Bunny."
Brian watched her leave the room then asked, "So what can I do for you?"
Brian wore a silver cross on a chain and a studded collar with a big metal loop
on the front that seemed to be designed to have a chain lead attached to it.
Otherwise, Mulder and Brian wore the same outfit, but Brian's comfort in his
clothing and his choice of neckwear underscored the differences between them.
Brian looked so happy that he seemed to glow from within. Mulder tried to
remember the last time he felt like that for anything other than a brief period
of time. He figured it to be the time when he first started on the X-Files,
happy that he'd found a way to stop Violent Crimes from using him until he
broke into so many pieces they wouldn't be able to put him back together again.
He only had to ruin his reputation to do it and felt a sick joy in flushing his
brilliant career down the toilet.
The last time Mulder saw Brian, Brian had been recovering from a close pass
with a nervous breakdown, camouflaging his own pain and weariness by taking on
the traits of the people around him. Mulder, who also had that kind of empathy
that put him a little too far in other people's minds, knew how easy and
tempting it could be to submerge the pain that way. Now Brian seemed centered,
relaxed, wholly himself, and confident in the love of a woman he trusted who
encouraged his irreverence.
"Just to talk. Not business," Mulder said in the necessary low shout.
Brian raised an eyebrow. "Recent events have helped me see that I'm a bit
isolated. My work on the X-files isn't conducive to having a social life."
"Oh, please. You kept people at arms' distance even while working Violent
Crimes." Seeing the look on Mulder's face, Brian said, "I assume that you came
to me for honesty. Anyone can throw you a line of bullshit."
It never failed to unnerve Mulder to hear Brian talk with a version of
Mulder's voice. Brian was one of Mulder's clones, created by the Consortium as
part of a vast psychological experiment regarding the creation of personality.
The last survivor of the control group Kitsunes, or Fox clones, Brian had been
placed with a family that had been ordered to act like Mulder's, to repeat the
major events in Mulder's life, to see whether major events or a combination of
smaller things truly set personality. Thus, as the last surviving control,
Brian was more like Mulder than any of the other surviving clones.
Samantha had been included in the Consortium's genetic experiments—only in
her case the Imoto, "little sister," line created to be matched with the
control Kitsunes—had been designed to be genetically similar to Samantha but
not identical. Dark Angel recently found out that she was an Imoto, which
genetically made her Mulder and Brian's sister.
The whole recently discovered mess still made Mulder's head spin, but at
least it gave him a family of sorts. "How is everyone?" Mulder asked.
Brian gave him a look that said
I-know-what-you're-up-to-and-I-can-wait-you-out. "Jake has committed about as
far as he's capable to a woman he seems to be in love with. The UN is still
hunting Douglas, but Sera stashed him somewhere that they'll probably never
figure to look. Douglas is actually putting a little weight on now that he's
in the household of one of the best and most coercive cooks I've ever met.
Sera got that dermabrasion done on her arms and legs like she wanted to,
leaving only slight indents, but I miss her scars. A friend is renting my
beach house in my absence. So far no one has firebombed it. Yet. Mom's doing
fine now that we got the surveillance off her back."
"Mom?"
"Rachel Elend. She said that if I saw you again I should say hi for her."
Brian leaned forward. "Mulder, I was wondering if you could check up on
something for me."
"Couldn't Angel do it?"
Mulder couldn't identify the expression that briefly crossed Brian's
now-blank face. "No, not this time," Brian said. "I want you to find out for
me if Cheryl Elend ever broke her left collarbone as a child. I'm sure you
have people who can get you old medical records." Then he switched gears,
posture, and facial expression as he asked, "So, again, how can I help you?"
Mulder wanted to follow up on what Brian had just asked for but found
himself firmly swept back on his original track. "I wanted your opinion on
something. A relationship I have that I can't talk about with anyone else."
"Ah. Okay. Dump him. You tried to keep it at detached, mind-blowing sex
and ignored the fact that you can't have sex with someone without forming some
sort of emotional connection. He does terrible things, disappears for long
stretches, switches sides at the drop of a hat, and is untrustworthy. Your
problem is that you know all this but can't get him out of your head anyway.
He's like the kind of venereal disease that you can live with in slight
discomfort most of the time but flares up into something more serious every so
often."
"Brian! He's not that bad."
"I should thank him for behaving like a decent human toward me last time
instead of, what, raping or killing me? You don't know why you feel the way
you do. I have some suggestions. He's your shadow, who does all the things
you won't. He even lost an arm like you were supposed to. You have a
self-punishing streak that gets off on the danger and abuse. You want to
destroy yourself. It comes from your past with your dysfunctional family. You
should hear Sera's theory on how you're reliving your relationship with your
father through A.D. Skinner. You get off on the idea that Krycek's completely
inappropriate for you. You want the illicit." Brian interrupted his speech by
taking a gulp from the glass in front of him then sucking on an ice cube.
Sometimes it scared Mulder how Brian could read him. "I don't have to listen
to this." But Mulder couldn't look away from Brian's face, underlit by the
candle on the table. A face almost exactly like the one he saw in the mirror
every morning with a similar but not identical mind behind the eyes. He felt a
strange pull from Brian.
"Then leave. Most of all, you don't feel like you have to hide your dark
parts that you hide from everyone else from Krycek. After all, he's the last
person who can pass judgment. I use those parts of myself now, and I feel much
better for it." Brian smiled in a way that made Mulder's heart wrench. "If you
weren't so afraid of arguing with yourself, you wouldn't need to come to me to
hear your own voice taking the other side."
"Last night I saw him again for the first time in a month. He knocked me
down, pointed a gun at my chest, looked at me with the tenderest look in his
eyes, kissed me, and restored my faith in my mission. I never thought for a
moment before that he might love me."
"Are you sure it was love? Maybe it's the affection a man feels for a
favored pet."
"It's not that!"
"You're so certain that you came to talk to me. So far his affection for
you means that he'll hand you over to your enemies and put you in danger but
balk just short of serious permanent damage to you."
"I can't talk to Scully about him."
"For obvious reasons. After her own experiences with implants, did she let
you take that tracer out of your neck? Sera removed mine immediately."
"No, she didn't. I still have it." The noise and the crowd made Mulder more
nervous by the second. "Could we go somewhere quieter and a little less
public?"
"Sure. Downstairs. Follow me." Brian finished off his glass then got up
and led Mulder away.
To Mulder's amazement, downstairs was even darker than upstairs. The music
had been filtered into a dull pounding. Brian led him to a far, secluded end
of the hall. Mulder found himself grabbing Brian, leaning him against the
wall, and kissing him without really thinking about what he was doing.
No matter how hard he tried, Mulder couldn't figure out what mental
processes had led to this moment, couldn't trace the steps. Confusion and
loneliness? An effort to get a surrogate for the person he couldn't have?
Maybe it was the odd magnetism Brian and Serafine seemed to have. Maybe it was
the feeling that he could trust Brian utterly, and he needed that now. Or
maybe it was the thought of taking masturbation in a direction he'd never
thought possible.
Brian didn't fight him. Brian's lips, unlike the rest of him, were cool and
wet, but not with liquor as Mulder had suspected. He'd never realized that
Brian had been drinking ice water. Brian smelled of clove and tobacco smoke,
leather, metal, clean sweat, heat, a little gardenia from Dark Angel, and,
fainter still, gunpowder. He smelled sweet and exotic, like he tasted. When
Mulder had last held Brian under very different circumstances, Brian had been
worn too thin by stress. Since then Brian had put on more lean muscle. The
music pounded through the walls and Brian's body into Mulder's in a kind of
circuit.
Mulder had never done this with someone so close to him in height, with
Brian maybe a quarter of an inch taller. Their faces and groins touched
perfectly. Mulder suddenly wondered if Brian had the same sensitive spots as
he did. He stroked the small of Brian's back and felt the whole body shudder
in his arms as Brian gasped. Facing such success, Mulder paid attention to
every point he knew of, until Brian was writhing, inarticulate, against him.
But when he grabbed Brian's wrist to tend to its underside, Brian yanked it
away. "No," Brian gasped.
"The scars still bother you?"
"The psychological scars, yeah."
"But you had bruises around them last time I saw you."
"Sera is stronger than you could ever guess. She spends most of her life
holding herself back. I made her lose track of that, and she almost broke my
arms in her passion. She was really sorry."
That threw some cold water on Mulder. "Oh."
"You're starting to think again. This wouldn't bother her, which is why she
deliberately left us alone. That and not wanting to hear about Krycek."
"Why were you going along? Was this some kind of mercy fuck?" Mulder grated
out.
"Oh, yeah, I'm St. Brian, generously giving of my body to those less
fortunate. Go to hell." Brian moved closer still and whispered into Mulder's
ear, "Someone's watching. I don't know if it's a voyeur or a professional,
government voyeur. I have to get closer to see. I have a gun tucked into the
waistband on the right side." Brian followed his words with a tongue flick to
exactly the right part of Mulder's ear, making Mulder moan. "So that's how you
know where to touch," Brian said.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Maybe start us moving in the right direction in a fit of passion then let
me go at the right time."
Mulder started bouncing them off the walls in the direction Brian had
indicated while Brian laughed through his kisses. Then Brian tapped Mulder's
back twice, and Mulder let him go. Brian flew into a dark corner, and the
sounds of a scuffle followed. "Speak of the devil," Brian called out. He
dragged Krycek, disarmed and confined, into Mulder's view. "You felt Mulder
getting horny and just had to be here, huh? It's a good thing I got to Krycek
before he whipped it out watching us."
"Fox, you spent so much time dissuading me from Brian, and this what you do the
moment my back is turned?" Krycek asked with a not-entirely-feigned outrage.
"I'll leave you two lovebirds alone," Brian said.
Krycek grabbed him by the wrist. "You don't have to go. I'm sorry I
interrupted."
Brian yanked it free. "I don't approve of your skill with a needle and
thread," he said coldly. "Be thankful I won't tell Angel you're here. She
thinks I was too gentle with you last time." He turned his back and stalked
toward the stairs.
"Brian!" Mulder called to him. Brian paused on the steps. "Are you okay?"
"I could use a cold shower, but other than that I'm fine. You're such a
tease, Mulder." The light tone took the sting from Brian's words. "I won't
tell her Krycek is here, but I don't suggest lingering. She's almost psychic
at times." He leapt up the steps two at a time.
Without Brian there, Mulder and Krycek lapsed into silence as each
inevitably thought about their past encounters and all the bad blood between
them that no amount of mind-blowing sex or tender feelings could wipe away.
Krycek retrieved his gun from the floor and asked, "Did you get to the base in
time?"
"I don't know. After a whiteout I don't remember what happened. I don't
know if it was missing time or a memory purge. I don't know which side won
that round," Mulder said bitterly.
"I'm sorry. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else. There's only
so much we can do."
Then they were holding one another tight, as if drawn together by magnetism.
"I don't know how long I can go on like this," Mulder said softly into Krycek's
ear. "The extreme highs and the lows. The moral compromises. Constantly
being surrounded by death. Never being in the right place at the right time.
The fact that I have to take so many things on faith. The feeling that I'm
helpless and everyone is pulling my strings. Is it so wrong to want at least
one pure and certain thing in my life? And, no matter how attached I am to
you, you're not it, Alex. I don't think you'll ever be it. You're part of the
problem."
Krycek kissed him. "I never mean to hurt you, Fox. In a perfect world
things would be very different but in this one I'm often forced to do things
you would never forgive me for."
"I'm so tired of it all," Mulder said as he relaxed into Krycek's slow,
gentle kisses and caresses and ceased to be for a while. A pounding from the
stairway broke him out of his trance.
Brian hit the floor at a run. "You have to get out of here. Angel took one
look at me and figured out what was going on."
"Then how did you get here before her?" Krycek asked, suspicious as always.
"I think she wants to give you a sporting head start before she hunts you
down and kills you."
"You don't seem to want me dead. Why don't you just tell her that?"
"She doesn't trust my judgment where you're concerned; she's seen your
effect on Mulder. You can get out the same way I'm sure you got in, by the
fire exit."
Krycek gave Mulder one last lingering kiss then dashed out the door. Three
minutes later Mulder and Brian heard gunfire coming from outside, and Brian had
to restrain Mulder from rushing out to his death. This went on for ten minutes
with Mulder struggling frantically against Brian's iron grip and the noise
continuing until finally all went quiet. They both waited there strung taut
with anxiety for a long minute before the door open to reveal Angel and Krycek
standing side by side, each holding a smoking gun. Bodies littered the alley
behind them
"We got the hornets' attention," she said.
Krycek looked at her sidelong, obviously ready to defend himself if she
turned on him. "You stirred everyone up in some convoluted plot to kill me?"
She instantly had a gun to his head. "No, for other reasons. It looked
like most of them were here for you on their own, though. You've been kicking
a few things loose yourself lately, so don't blame it all on me. Helping me
out here tonight earned you a temporary reprieve. Use it wisely." She put the
gun away and walked away, pausing only to squeeze Brian's shoulder as she
passed to go back upstairs.
While Brian stared after her, Mulder asked, "What now?"
"I have to go," Krycek said. "It looks like everyone knows where I am. If
I stayed I would be putting you in danger for no reason, Fox. Don't worry,
I'll come back to see you as soon as I can." Krycek held Mulder close and
kissed him until they both needed to stop for air. "I love you," he whispered
into Mulder's ear then let go and left.
"It doesn't ever end. I could use a drink," Mulder said softly as he
watched Krycek go.
Brian took him by the arm to lead him upstairs. "Have you ever tried a Red
Death? Serafine swears by them."
Mulder woke up, rested and without a hangover, in bed snuggled next to
Brian, who wasn't wearing anything other than his cross and studded collar.
Mulder wore even less. He smiled a little as he remembered a night of shared
secrets, experiences, and finally shared intimacies to create one of the
oddest, most intense, and sweetest bouts of lovemaking he'd ever had. As
partners went,
Brian ranked up there with Krycek but for entirely different reasons. Mulder
and Brian had almost read one another's minds last night. Brian had Mulder
basking in his happiness like a cat in sunlight until Mulder had felt happy
himself.
In a little while Mulder figured that Angel would come back from the
"errands" she said she had to run last night smelling of blood as Brian said
she would, but for now Mulder clung to his afterglow and pondered fate and
inextricable relationships.
He knew he would see Krycek again.
end...
Kicking the Hornet's
Nest
by Viridian5
"You wear guilt
Like shackles on your feet
Like a halo in reverse"
—"Halo" from Depeche Mode"
Looking for love but hoping for evil"
—"Living in Deep 13" from Mystery Science Theater 3000
