by Ganymede
At that time of the night Merlin looked back and forth from Tomas to Dio, from blue eyes to brown, letting
every ounce of frustration, exhaustion and impatience of the last three days
show in his face, his voice.
"All right, we're here. We're out of the DOJ building, across town, in a little
out-of-the-way bar in an out-of-the-way street. No one knows us here." He leaned
across the table, palms flat on the scarred, nicked wood, voice a gravelly
snarl. "Now what was so fucking important that you had to drag me halfway across
town to tell me?"
"You misunderstood us, Agent Mulder." Tomas's blue eyes icicle sapphire, tone
just as cold. "We don't have information for you. You have information for
us."
"And what information would that be?" Matching tone for tone, cold for cold.
Tomas leaned across the table, glaring, dangerous. "Tell me everything that
happened Friday night."
Merlin felt the flush start at the back of his neck, the tightness beginning in
his crotch, as he replayed a snippet of the conversation he and Alex had early
Saturday morning in his head.
::Fuck you, Merlin::
::That can be arranged::
::Are you serious?::
::As serious as you want me to be::
Merlin tuned back into the conversation as Tomas finished talking. "... from the
moment Luis entered the bar until the moment he left."
"Why?"
Tomas was unprepared for the question. Several possible answers piled up on the
back of his tongue, while he sorted through the stack, choosing the wisest
response. He opted for the truth, or at least an expurgated version of it.
"I heard Alex's version of the events of that evening. It.... something about it
doesn't make sense. I wanted to hear it from your viewpoint. Perhaps your eyes
will show me what I need to see to make it add up."
Merlin blinked, blinked again as he mentally reviewed the video of the
confrontation in the bar. "What in specific doesn't add up?"
Tomas shook his head. "Not yet. You first. Afterwards, I'll explain."
"Where do you want me to start?" Looking at Dio, nursing a beer, silently
observing.
A hint of a smile played around Tomas's handsome face, the first of the evening.
"Start at the beginning, continue to the end, and then stop."
"... and the bar security arrived just as Alex hit the exit and disappeared. The
whole time Alex was headed for the door, Luis just watched. Didn't make a single
move to stop Alex. Just stood there and let Denise pound on him. He could have
squashed Denise like a bug—after all, Luis is a good four inches taller and at
least fifty pounds heavier. He didn't. He let Denise land those punches, with
barely a token defense."
Tomas sat back, nursing his beer, contemplating. Blue eyes focused on a spot
eighteen inches in front of him and almost a year earlier. It just didn't make
sense. To quote Mr. Spock, the behavior was illogical. He took a deep breath,
ran his hand through his blond hair, and looked at Dio.
"Alex was right. It doesn't add up."
Dio looked at him over his wire-rim glasses, rested one hand on top of his
lover's. Eyes warm, full of love. "Can you put your finger on what doesn't add
up?"
"Logistics. His stated goal and his actions are contradicting each other." Tomas
looked to Merlin for support. "You're following what I'm saying, aren't you?"
The computer that Merlin called his brain was frantically testing scenarios,
trying on alternative viewpoints. "I think so. Spell it out for me, using small
words."
Tomas nodded, continued. "Luis told Alex—hell, told the whole room—that his
intention was to leave and take Alex with him. Got that so far?"
"So far so good." Merlin smiled, and saw its echo on Tomas's face.
"If you were planning on kidnapping someone, would you make a public
announcement to that effect in front of a crowd of witnesses?" Tomas saw the
awareness start to dawn in Merlin's hazel eyes. "I didn't think so. You also
wouldn't make a grab for someone in front of several dozen possible rescuers
either. You would wait until the mark left the building, until you could get the
mark alone. Luis knows this." Derisive snort. "Hell, he has first-hand
experience at kidnapping Alex. If that was really his plan, all he would have
had to do was wait outside by Alex's bike, in the dark. Very simple, very easy.
But he didn't do that."
"If that's true, and he wasn't trying to kidnap Alex, then what the bloody hell
was he trying to do?"
Both men turned and looked at Dio in unison, with the same calculating light
behind their eyes.
"Luis made a fumbling attempt to grab Alex, not ever planning to succeed."
Merlin ran his tongue behind his teeth, thinking, calculating. "His goal wasn't
to force Alex to come with him, but to scare the hell out of Alex. Luis wanted
to make Alex run like a scared rabbit. His goal was to get Alex on the run, on
the road, far away from the bar."
Tomas's proud grin was the beam of a teacher with his prize student. "Exactly.
The $64,000 question is : Why?"
"Because.... because there was something at the bar Luis didn't want Alex to see."
"Or," Dio's deep baritone, "there was someone in the bar who Luis didn't want
to see Alex."
Merlin stopped breathing as that realization hit him. "Fuck. Luis was at the bar
in the first place to meet the representative for the Colombians. If Alex had
stumbled onto their meeting..." Merlin followed that thread to its knotted
conclusion. "There would have been a bloodbath."
"I think it's more than that, Merlin. I'm not sure exactly what, but there's
something else going on. Luis needs Alex out of the way and on the run, out of
everyone's reach, including his own. Alex did exactly what Luis wanted—hit the
ground running and went underground."
"But what purpose would it serve to have Alex out of Luis's grasp, when the time
came to turn him over to the Colombians?" Merlin rubbed his eyes, brain spinning
78 rpm.
"Unless Luis had no intention of turning Alex over to the Colombians."
Both Merlin and Dio turned and stared, openmouthed, at Tomas.
"What the hell are you saying, T? Are you saying that Luis was trying to
protect Alex?" Dio gazed slack-jawed at his lover.
"Do the math, D. Luis succeeded admirably in getting Alex the hell out of Dodge,
paranoid and looking over his shoulder. What other motive makes sense? Why else
would he do it?"
"Tomas, this is Luis we're talking about here." Dio met Tomas's eyes across the
scarred table, talking without words.
Tomas refused to back down. "I know what you're thinking, Dio. You're wrong."
::After everything I've.... hell, we've been through in the past ten months, you
still think I have feelings for him?::
"Am I?" Dio continued to stare into his lover's sapphire blue eyes.
::I hope to g_d I am wrong, Tomas. I don't like the implications if I'm
correct::
Merlin covered his eyes with his hands, sighing loudly. "Trying to get inside
that sick, twisted head of his and figure out what makes him tick is an exercise
in sociopathy. If, if your hypothesis is correct, Tomas, what kind of game is
he playing with the Colombians? What the hell is he up to?"
"That I don't know, Merlin. But I plan on finding out."
Quiet.
Still.
Peaceful.
Silence undisturbed by phones, footsteps, interruptions. No disruptions. No
emergencies. No minor wounds to be cauterized before they became bleeders.
Walter Skinner needed this after the afternoon, after the week, after the ten
years he had put in at the FBI. This was his sanity. This was his reward for
getting through the twelve-hour days and the six-day weeks, month after month,
year after year.
This is why he was still in his office, with the door closed, at 9:30 that
Sunday evening. He wasn't working on next months budget. He wasn't getting ready
for the meeting he had in less than fourteen hours with his boss. No, he was on
a fishing expedition in some old case files. He was fishing for answers to
questions that even the lead investigators had forgotten about.
The singular Skinner concentration had kicked in, and the rest of the world had
gone away. His focus had narrowed to a crime scene photograph from a seven year
old murder in Pensacola. Skinner's focus, his ability to tune out everything
around him for hours at a time, had earned him the respect of his colleagues,
several promotions, and the nickname "Bulldog."
That singular Skinner concentration was in full swing when a knock on his door
yanked him out of his reverie with a start.
Skinner looked at the door, puzzled. Kim, his secretary, had gone home hours
earlier, leaving behind a grateful boss and a gift certificate to Starbucks on
her desk for a Monday morning treat. The cleaning crew was already gone. Who the
hell would be in the building at the waning hours of Sunday evening?
"Come in." Curiosity overcame habit, common sense.
"I hope I'm not intruding, sir."
"You're not, Agent Mulder."
Skinner sat back in his chair, folded his hands behind his head, and watched
Merlin walk across the room to the other side of the desk. The younger man had
obviously had a few drinks—his movements were loose, his eyes a shade too
bright and his defenses down. Merlin looked... almost relaxed. Casual, as he sat in
the leather office chair and cocked his head, watching his boss watching him.
Skinner idly wondered if Merlin enjoyed his view as much as Skinner enjoyed the
panorama from his vantage point.
They both sat there for a long moment, not looking, not not looking. Visceral
possessive growl building in the back of Skinner's mind.
Skinner bent first, with just a hint of a smile.
"So, what brought you back here tonight, Agent Mulder?"
"Curiosity, sir. Something you said has been tickling the back of my cerebellum
all evening, and I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep until I got an answer."
Skinner arched an eyebrow, amused. Playing it out for everything it was worth.
"Is your cerebellum always this ticklish, Agent Mulder?"
"No, sir." Deadpan face, mischievous look in his eyes. "Only about certain
things." A wealth of meaning in those words, a rich subtext clearly understood
by both participants.
"OK, I'll bite. What did I say that took a feather to your corpus collosum?"
"It was about a certain bar, sir. The 511." The mischievous look was back, and
it brought friends.
"What about the bar, Agent Mulder?" Skinner was curious now. Curious to see
where this conversation was leading, and who was leading. Curious about the
enigma sitting across the desk, relaxed, loose, delicious.
"Sir, as you may recall, earlier this evening you referred to the 511 as an S&M
club. Before I came up to your office, I reviewed my notes. Nowhere in my report
did I state that the 511 was anything but an ordinary bar. It is, as a matter of
fact, an S&M club, but that knowledge is not publicly disseminated."
Skinner let a small smile play across his face. The conversation was getting
more amusing by the moment. "And your point is, Agent Mulder?"
Merlin took a long look across the desk, paused, and waved a red flag in front
of the bull.
"Deputy Chief Skinner, how did you know that it was an S&M club?"
The hint of a smile on Skinner's face came to full bloom. In the right light,
his smile could be described as predatory. He unlaced his hands from behind his
head, rested his forearms on the desk and leaned over confidentially.
"How did I know it was an S&M club, Agent Mulder? Because I've been there
before. "
"For a case, sir?"
Brown eyes met hazel, caught. Everything unspoken dancing across the
high-tension wire between them.
"No, Agent Mulder. Not for a case."
Merlin hesitated, for just a moment, and then went charging ahead.
"Have you been there.... recently, sir?"
"Not for quite a few years, Agent Mulder. Why?"
"Just curious, sir. They've made quite a few changes and additions the past
eighteen months or so." Merlin got up out of his chair and started moving toward
the door. He got halfway across the room, turned, and winked at his boss.
"Sir, if you ever feel like checking out the new and improved 511, give me a
call."
Another smile, almost as predatory as Skinner's, a slow, loose-hipped walk
across the short distance to the exit, and the door closed behind him.
Chapter Two—Great Divide
Took a look down a westbound road
Alex sat in the diner of a truck stop on Highway 80 right outside Toledo, head
in his hands, watching the rain sheet down from the sky, thinking blasphemous
thoughts.
Rain had knocked him out of his planned trajectory. Rain, teacups and buckets
and cats and dogs worth, had forced him and his motorcycle off the highway to
take shelter at a greasy diner on the topside of Ohio.
Finally, after almost an hour of making calculations in his Palm Pilot, he
walked over to the bank of pay phones and started the dominoes falling.
Headed out to my big two-wheeler I was tired of my own voice
When the phone was finally picked up on the sixth ring, he didn't expect to hear
a voice on the other end. He knew that there were ears listening in the silence,
minds processing, the Collective anticipating every word he would say. He was
accustomed to it by now—as accustomed to it as to the full-body
pins-and-needles sensation he always felt when in their presence. They had no
explanation.
"Crow, it's Alex"
Silence
"The fecal matter has impacted on the rotating oscillating air circulation
device." He let some of the panic and frantic energy come through in his voice,
though it was wholly redundant. They already knew.
He heard movement from the other end of the phone, and he sensed another ear
pressed up against the receiver. Not Crow anymore.
"What happened?" Tim's quiet, breathy voice, as if he were unaccustomed to
using it. With that crew, maybe he was.
"Luis happened."
::Fucking hell, it' s been ten months. How fucking long will it be before I can
say his name without the fear?::
" Are you injured?"
Alex fingered the ring of violet bruises on his neck. " Not seriously. Not yet."
"What do you need?"
Alex paused for a moment, knowing that seven other pairs of ears heard every
word, seven other minds delved, read, processed. " I need the traveling kit. And
some information."
"ETA?"
Alex looked at his watch. "Four hours."
"It will be ready." All business. Plans set in motion. It would be ready, too.
"What information do you need?"
"A phone number." Heart-beats piling on top of one another.
::I' ll make it better, Merlin. I promise. It' s my job to make everything
better, isn't it?::
"Whose?" Alex wasn't deaf—he heard the snap and hiss behind the bland
presentation. The impatience of a human behind Tim' s machine facade almost made
him smile. Almost.
"Walter Skinner. Deputy Chief of a joint FBI/Justice Department Task Force."
"Home?"
"Correct." ::Getting snarky, are we, kids? Or is the whole lot of you PMSing?::
A millisecond pause, and then Crow' s melodious tones. " The number you
requested is XXX/XXX-XXXX." Perfect intonation for a phone recording. Alex had
to laugh.
"You've been practicing that with a tape player, haven' t you?"
"Nope. Just doin' what comes naturally. Four hours?"
Crow was the most human of any of them. That's why she was the Face—the one
member of the collective that anyone outside a very select circle ever got to
see.
"Four hours."
"We'll be ready for you." **Click**
Alex took a deep breath, and started dialing again. One down, one to go. Looking
at the world through an aquarium—refraction throwing everything off,
disorienting. Tilting the wrong way on its axis.
**Ring** **Ring**
" Hi, you've reached Sasha and Misha' s. Just keep in mind—if you' re not part
of the solution , you' re part of the precipitate. Leave a message. If we like
you, we'll consider calling back."
::They' re not kidding, either. If they return your calls one time out of three,
it must be love::
" Sasha, Misha, it's Alex. It's payback time, boys. Remember that big favor you
asked me four months ago? Well, it's my turn now." Alex looked at the palm pilot
in his hand, numbers scribbled across the screen, hieroglyphics. "I need a big
favor, and I need it tonight!"
Took a bead on the northern plains And I just rode that power on
Dio finally managed to manhandle a very drunk Tomas up to their hotel room and
onto the bed, where Tomas immediately fell into a deep, loudly snoring slumber.
Dio sat by the bed for a long time, just watching Tomas breathe. The fear was
back, right next to that huge empty place in his soul, his gut. This emptiness
and Dio were old friends, on a first name basis after two months of living in
each other. The pain was there, too, but he carefully avoided touching the edges
of that recently healed wound. Scabbed over—not healed. It would never heal.
Alex was gone. Again. Disappeared, maybe of his own volition, maybe not.
Dio unstrapped the holster at his lower back and pulled out his Beretta, passing
it from hand to hand. Dio hated guns. Didn't want to have anything to do with
them. Refused to carry one. Until Luis. Until he discovered just how quickly and
easily the people he loved could disappear, and exactly how little the thin
shell of late 20th century civilization actually covered of the ugliness that
lived underneath. Now he always carried his Berretta in its holster at the small
of his back, even into therapy sessions. His innocence was just another casualty
of Luis.
::Luis!..Alex!..Dammit, Alex, don' t go pulling this shit with me, with us. You
don' t think we love you, Alex, but we do::
Dio pushed that thought away and reached for the phone. He needed to hear Alex'
s voice, prolong the illusion, even if it was nothing but a recording. His
fingers knew the number by heart.
" Hi, you've reached Alex' s voice mail. To leave a message, press 1. To hear
the inspirational thought of the day, press 2.
>>2<<
Alex' s melodious tones and self-amused smirk carried clearly across the phone
lines. Dio sat back on the bed next to his snoring lover and took one deep
breath, then another. The message was a new one, obviously recorded in the last
six hours. Alex was alive, and well enough to put a new message on his voice
mail.
" Today's warm and fuzzy thought of the day is brought to us by those cheerful
boys at the Albert Shen Self Help and Self Realization Experience."
"Let me get you off to the right start by keeping it real: life sucks.
It's like a great big kick in the crotch.
With a steel-toed boot.
Filled with the foot of a big, burly Swede, named Sven.
Then, when you're down, it gets a couple of its buddies to help stand you up,
and does it again, this time with a running start.
So, I figure just suck it up and grin and bear it.
Just pack some ice on the tender spots and sit and think happy happy thoughts
until you're feeling better and/or can stand.
Send a couple of drinks down for moral support."
Laughter bubbled up in Dio, spilling over until he thought he would not only
wake up his sleeping lover but everyone else on the fourth floor of the hotel.
The message was so perfectly, typically Alex. He couldn't have been any clearer
if he had sent a telegram. Life sucked right now, but Alex was going to be fine.
Stood alone on a mountaintop
Deputy Chief Walter Skinner was sitting on the patio of his Virginia house,
nursing a vodka tonic, when the phone rang.
He checked his watch—11:30 P.M.
He knew from long experience that a call at this hour could mean only one of two
things.
The first unpleasant possibility was that one of his agents had been injured, or
worse
I' m sorry, Mrs. So-and-so, but I have some very bad news. It is my duty to
inform you that your husband, Agent so-and-so...
Skinner knew it was part of the job when he signed up. He had ridden with the
Deputy Chief when he was just an agent to his partner' s house on a cold October
afternoon back in 1979. That day, that car trip, still played a recurring role
in his nightmares.
The other unpleasant possibility was that his brother was calling him from jail,
again. This would make his fourth DUI, and the judge had been explicit last time
in the consequences of another conviction. Prison time. SERIOUS prison time, and
being the brother of a high-ranking FBI official wouldn't get his fat out of the
fire for this one.
He took a deep breath before reaching for the phone, mentally steeling himself
for another night of cleaning up someone else' s mess. His calendar was booked
tight tomorrow, starting with a breakfast meeting at 7:30 a.m.. Oh, well—it
wasn't like this would be the first or last night he had gone without sleep in
his career. Best get it over with.
::And behind door number one...::
" Skinner here."
" Hello, Deputy Chief Skinner."
The voice was male, and very definitely not official. Perfect phone-sex-line
voice. This wasn't a call from the hospital, or the police station. He could
hear the self-satisfied purr emerging from the receiver.
"Who is this?" If the person on the other end of the line hadn't used his name,
he would have suspected this for a prank call. An obscene prank call.
"This is Alex Krycek, Mr. Skinner."
Blink.
Blink.
The last time Alex had spoken to Skinner, earlier that day, he was cursing at
the Deputy Chief in Russian and accusing him of blackmailing his junior agents
into illicit sex in the executive bathroom. That had been before the young man'
s unauthorized disappearance, short-circuiting the bureau' s plans for his
authorized disappearance into protective custody.
::I really need to get my phone number changed::
"Where are you, Mr. Krycek?" His coldest, most formal voice, reserved for agents
who lose their gun, their badge and their car in the line of duty in the same
month.
"Upstate New York, sir. Pennsylvania is beautiful this time of year. The next
time you have a long weekend, you really should come down and enjoy the scenery.
When was the last time you took a vacation, sir?"
He clenched his jaw. Thought about the lecture he had received during his last
trip to his dentist. Unclenched his jaw.
"Why are you in upstate New York, Mr. Krycek?"
Skinner could hear that grin again. "It' s the state between where I was two
hours ago and where I will be two hours from now. It' s also the quickest way to
get to Canada, sir. Although, in the grand scheme of things, it would have
probably shaved a couple of hours off the overall trip for me to cross the
Canadian border from Washington State, but I wanted to get the unpleasantness
with the passports over with as soon as possible, before someone got the
brilliant idea of slapping my photograph up in post offices across the country."
"Why are you going to Canada, Mr. Krycek?"
"You have to go through Canada to get to Alaska, sir."
"I see."
::When did I lose control of this conversation? On second thought, when did I
have control of this conversation?::
"Do I need to ask the next question, Mr. Krycek, or can you extrapolate from the
last three and save me the trouble?"
The grin was back, glowing through the telephone wires. "Let me put my telepath
hat on....Hmm. Survey says, the next question is 'Why Alaska?' Am I right, sir?
Do I win a prize?"
He nodded.
"I am going to Alaska because it' s very far away from Washington, D.C., from
Luis Christien, and even farther away from Colombia. My hunch is that the
Colombian hit men who are after my fair backside will dislike cold weather so
much that they won' t bother making an expedition to a state with climate that
resembles the inside of my freezer. I've also had a yen to visit our fiftieth
state for a while, and now seemed as good a time as any. Oh, and you don' t need
to keep calling me Mr. Krycek—I don' t stand on formality much. Just call me
Alex."
Dentist be damned. "Why are you calling me at 11:30 at night, Mr. Krycek?" A
little extra emphasis on the formality.
"To speak to you, sir. Why? Do you often have people call you late at night and
say nothing? If so, you might want to speak to your local constabulary about
this problem you' re having with prank calls."
::Like this one?::
"What did you need to tell me that necessitated calling me at 11:30 at night
from hundreds of miles away?"
The glow was gone. He heard one deep breath, then another. "I' m calling to make
sure Agent Mulder doesn't get penalized for my actions, sir."
Agent Fox Mulder. Brash, headstrong Agent Mulder who had trouble with authority
figures and some of the best instincts he had ever seen in his fifteen years
with the bureau. Agent Mulder with the facial scar he received in the line of
duty and the most amazing hazel eyes...
"What sort of penalty are you referring to, Mr. Krycek?"
"I don' t want..." Pause as he sorted his words, carefully selecting his next
few. " He shouldn't get in trouble for my untimely exit. He had absolutely no
way of knowing that I was planning on leaving. Hell, I didn't even know what I
was planning until I left the building. He didn't know, he couldn't have stopped
me, and it would be very unjust to discipline him for something that was out of
his control and not his fault."
Discipline.
If you ever feel like checking out the new and improved 511, Deputy Chief
Skinner, just let me know
::A quicksilver grin, and a wink, and he was out of my office, and I was
pinching myself to see if it was all a dream. Did one of my junior agents just
invite me to accompany him to an S&M club? And did I just respond in the
affirmative?::
" I don' t think he should be reprimanded for not being precognitive, Sir."
Skinner brought himself back forcefully to the conversation at hand.
"All right, Mr. Krycek, I will consider officially not reprimanding Agent
Mulder," pause, " if I get some answers from you."
"I can't turn myself in, sir." The words were rushing out, tripping over
themselves in their haste. "I'm a little too fond of my corporeal existence and
attached to this mortal coil for that to be a viable option."
"I want some answers, Mr. Krycek. If you give them to me, I will be much more
charitably inclined towards your friend."
One deep breath, then a pause. "What do you want to know, Sir?" Quiet, resigned.
::It' s my turn, Mr. Krycek::
"Why did you run?"
"Because if I didn't, I would end up dead."
"Agent Mulder informed you that you would be put in protective custody and kept
safe until the trial was over. That arrangement is good enough for witnesses
against organized crime figures and other people needing federal protection. Why
wasn't it good enough for you?"
"You don' t understand, sir." A little note of pleading. Skinner fought back a
smile. "You can' t protect me from Luis Christien. You don' t know what he's
capable of. You've never seen him in action. I have. Sir, in my life I have run
across a lot of scary individuals. I have NEVER met anyone who scares me as much
as he does."
"You' re afraid of him?"
"I' m not afraid of him, sir. I'm terrified of him, and with good reason. He'
s wealthy, he has connections, and he has absolutely no morals or ethics. The
man is a sociopath, sir. If he wants me dead, I would be dead, and there would
be nothing that you or the Federal Bureau of Investigations would be able to do
to save me. My only hope for saving my skin is to stay out of his reach until
the trial is over."
"You don' t believe that the FBI has the resources to keep you safe?"
"The only person who has the resources to keep me safe, sir, is me."
Bingo.
Skinner had the answer to the problem that had been bothering the back of his
brain since Alex dashed out of his office more than eight hours earlier. Skinner
had been trying to figure out the Alex puzzle since that morning, using his
skills that had been honed as a young agent in the Dallas office, which had been
gathering rust since. Alex' s behavior in his office, the information in his
file, didn't make sense. Now it did.
"This isn't the first time you've had to rely on your wits and your own
abilities to keep yourself safe, is it, Alex?" Subtly shifting to using his
first name. Formality gone, gentleness in its place.
"No, sir." Quietly.
"As a matter of fact, I doubt you have ever let anyone else take care of you,
except when you were so sick or incapacitated that it was a choice between
giving up control and dying." His voice was soft, like velvet over steel.
Soothing, enchanting, weaving a spell.
"Yes, sir."
"That' s what it' s all about, isn't it? Control? You have to be in control at
all times, or else the consequences would be catastrophic, wouldn't it?"
"Sir, if I lose control of a situation, people I care about tend to get injured,
or worse."
Unbeknownst to almost everyone, Walter Skinner had a gentle streak a mile wide.
His house was filled with plants and birds, and the occasional homeless cat or
dog. He had always had a pronounced weakness for lost causes and small children,
and a magnetic attraction for strays of the animal and human variety.
Alex was a stray, a green-eyed wild cat, hovering in the shadows around a fire,
terrified of the flames yet needing the warmth to survive. Skinner understood
strays, knew how to care for them, knew what to do, what not to do to have them
eating out of his hand. He very much wanted to have this particular stray eating
out of the palm of his hand. Or other places...
"You have to be in control in order to ensure the safety of the people around
you. You're the only one who can protect them, keep them safe. Is that right?"
"Yes, sir." Hesitantly, having no idea where this was going and not sure he
liked being along for the ride.
"It gets exhausting, doesn't it? You can never take a day off, never drop your
guard, never relax." Deep voiced, flowing like honey down the phone line.
"No, sir."
"But that' s what you want more than anything, isn't it? You just want to share
the burden, let someone else take their turn being on point, so you can relax
for a few minutes. Do you dream about it—having someone else take control for
just a little while?"
"Yes, sir." Airy little sound, less words than a verbalized whimper.
::Breathless already, Alex?::
"You want to be the one being protected for a while, don't you? You want to feel
safe for a while, cherished, guarded, instead of it always going in the other
direction?"
No answer, just the sound of breathing.
"You're tired, I can tell. Blood and gut and bone tired. Tired of planning,
tired of strategizing, tired of thinking and tired of feeling.
"Let me take some of that burden for a little while, Alex. Let me protect you.
Let me show you what it feels like to be safe, to be cherished.
"You don't have to do anything, don't have to say anything, don't have to be
anything. All you need to do is surrender a little bit of that control. Let me
be in control, just for a little while.
"I know you're tired. Rest here with me. Let me be in control." The frightening
smile was back. " I promise, after a few minutes, you won't be able to think at
all and the only thing you will be able to feel is my hands all over your body"
A quiet gasp and low shudder on the other end of the line, then a thump, a
muffled expletive and a flurry of giggles.
"Dammit, sir," Alex tried to snarl, but the effect was greatly blunted by his
continued giggles. "Next time WARN ME before we have that kind of conversation!"
"Why?" Skinner asked wide-eyed, the model of innocence. "Would you have hung up
on me before I could start?"
" No, you fucking moron, I'd make sure I wasn't in a frigging phone booth! Ow. I
think I injured myself!"
Skinner couldn't help it. He started to chuckle, then laugh, and the harder he
tried to stop, the worse it got. He sat down on the cold concrete floor of the
patio, cradling the receiver with his shoulder, and laughed until his sides
ached and tears ran down his cheeks.
"Are you alright, sir? Or do I need to hang up and call 911?"
"No, I'm fine." Skinner was wheezing and wiping the tears from his face with his
sleeve. "You just—it just struck me as funny, that' s all."
"So you find the idea of me getting so flustered and distracted that I nearly
concuss myself on a pay phone amusing, do you?"
"So that got you flustered and distracted?" Skinner couldn't keep the pleased
smile off his face.
"I plead the fifth. I refuse to testify on the grounds that....."
"If that little monologue got you all hot and bothered, young man, you are in
deep, deep trouble. Once upon a time, in a previous incarnation, I was
considered the master at phone seduction. Alas, that was quite a few years ago,
and my skills have since rusted into oblivion. You are in the presence of a
skilled artisan, I will have you know."
::A skilled artisan who has definite plans to get you more than flustered and
bothered. Damn, how long has it been since I've wanted to do that to someone?::
"So are you trying to tell me that the next time I disturb your tranquil
evenings reverie, I should be certain to be in a comfortable, private location?"
Another 500 megawatt grin and hope in Alex' s voice.
"Are you trying to tell me that there will be another phone call?" Grinning.
"Could be, sir. Could be."
Chapter Three—True Colors
"I'm on the outside Alex finally arrived at the small, nondescript house near downtown Chicago, at
the intersection of Halsted and Dayton avenues, at 2:30 in the morning.
He was exhausted.
He was beyond exhausted. He hadn't slept in well over twenty-four hours, and the
only things at this point that were keeping him going were fear, adrenaline, and
pure stubbornness. He'd been on the road since 3:30 p.m. the day before, and the
muscles in his legs and back were starting to spasm. Slowly, quietly, he parked
the motorcycle and got off, wincing audibly as his spine creaked and popped.
::I am too young to feel this old, and way too old for this shit::
As he walked onto the porch, the full-body pins-and-needles sensation returned.
The Collective knew he was here now. Before he could touch the doorbell, the
security light on the door switched from red to green, the mechanical click loud
in the early-morning suburban silence. He pushed the door open and walked into
the darkness.
Eight pairs of eyes tracked his entrance, eight minds sifted through his,
delving deep into the dark corners of his gray matter. The prickling sensation
in his skin went from annoying to nearly painful. He dragged his palms over the
skin on his upper arms, pushing hard into the muscles, trying to soothe the
irritated nerve endings. His brain had long ago accepted the intrusion—his
body was much less forgiving.
Footsteps approached in the darkness, quietly and expertly, someone experienced
at navigating in the misty twilight illuminated only by the glow of multiple
computer screens. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw a girl standing
next to the stairwell, leaning on the banister, watching him. Her light brown
hair was black in the partial light, her white T-shirt gray, her eyes gleaming
yellow. He shook that thought out of his head quickly, before the Collective
could pick up on it. That was one area of his head he didn't want eight sets of
feet traipsing through.
"Hey, Crow."
"Alex, you look like shit." She walked closer, almost close enough to touch. She
wouldn't. That rush of images, thoughts was too strong for any of them
individually. Only after they were interfaced would she put her hands on his.
"Three words, little girl. Kurte Moj Trubku."
"In your panting, sweaty, wet-dreams, Alex." She smiled her best Jack Nicholson
smile, managing to look both impish and deranged simultaneously. The image of
her instead of Jack in the scene from "The Shining" hatched into his
imagination, making him laugh. From the background, he heard a snicker and a
quiet "Here's Johnny!"
He spun around, and found himself face-to-face with the Collective.
Eight men and women, ranging in age from barely seventeen up to their
mid-forties, sat in front of laptops and desktops scattered through the room.
Each was wearing headsets, simultaneously watching him and typing. The silence
was cut only by the click of eight keyboards, and the static hum emerging from
the earphones.
"Alex, what the hell happened to you?" Crow was standing next to him now,
peering at him as if she expected him to fall over at any moment.
Alex sighed. "It has been a really, really lousy weekend. Started out on
Friday night..."
"Yo, doofus," Crow interrupted. "Don't tell us. Show us."
Alex chuckled again, to himself, leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes,
and started remembering everything that happened over the past seventy-two
hours. As he showed them his memories, the typing sounds slowed, then stopped,
as each mind opened to take in the images.
Alex remembered the multicolor hues of the clothing heaped on the kitchen table.
He remembered the terrifying feel of trying to breathe and nothing coming in, as
his windpipe was compressed by the links of his necklace tightening under Luis's
grip. He remembered candy-apple red pumps, and running for his life. He
remembered talking to Merlin for hours, and the horrifying realization that
everything he ever knew about his life was built on a lie.
When he thought back to the kiss, to the way Merlin felt in his arms, he heard
snickering and "Eew, gross!" from the backmost corner of the room. Tim, most
likely. The youngest and most sheltered member of the Collective, barely
seventeen, had no life experience outside the commune where his parents lived
and now this house, these people. He flipped a bird in his general direction,
and felt as much as heard the "So's your mother" in reply.
Alex felt.... drained. Drained of energy. Drained of memory, as if reliving it for
an interested audience sapped all the color away, leaving it sepia-toned, bad
black and white. Drained of emotion, of feeling. Alex took a step,
miscalculated, nearly fell before Crow's strong arms appeared around his middle,
holding him up.
"Up, up you go, Alex. C'mon, you're too big for me to carry upstairs and put to
bed like an overgrown toddler. One foot in front of the other." Crow's running
patter, and he wasn't even sure if it was coming from outside or inside his own
head. With major force of effort, he pushed her away, leaning hard against the
wall.
"I... I can't stay here. They'll be looking for me. I have to.... "
Crow smiled, a beguiling, dangerous smile. "The only thing you have to do, Alex,
is walk up the stairs and take a left at the second door." The grin was gone,
and in its place determination, well-banked anger. "Listen very carefully, Alex.
You. Are. Not. Going. Anywhere. Not until you get a couple of hours of sleep.
You're no good to the Collective dead or in a hospital—again."
She didn't understand. He had to make her understand. He had to make his
sleep-deprived brain work. "If they find me here..."
She smacked him upside the head, too hard to be merely playing. "Hello!" The
look in her eyes spoke volumes. "Telepaths here, remember? We'll know before
they get within two blocks of this place. And I promise, we'll wake you up
before we get to the firefight. Our early warning system works just fine, as we
demonstrated to you when they tried to kidnap Manny..."
Alex couldn't hide the proud grin that bloomed on his tired face. He and Tomas
had come to the rescue, tires squealing and guns blazing, when Manny's parents
hired security officers to masquerade as police and drag their son home against
his will. That was one of the best nights of his life. They needed him, and he
was there. He hadn't let them down. He was their protector.
Let me protect you, Alex. Let me show you what it feels like to be safe, to be
cherished
As the memories of the conversation earlier that evening flashed across his
brain, Alex hid his face, trying to hide his blush, the rush of blood away from
his brain towards his face, and down lower. Crow smirked, arched an eyebrow at
him. "Alex, Alex, Alex. Been a busy little boy, haven't we? Two of them? Tsk,
tsk, tsk." She swatted him gently on the ass. "Bed. Now." Before he had a chance
to open his mouth. "Alone. Geez, Louise, you barely post-pubescent boys are all
the same..."
Dreaming. Remembering
He could smell the salt in the air, hear the faint cries of the gulls, feel the
tides pulling even through walls and locked doors. The drug's gravitational pull
was strong on him, sucking him back down, wrapping him in layers of gauze. His
wrists itched fiercely under the restraints, where the scabbed-over wounds were
starting to heal under their bandages, but even that wasn't enough motivation to
overcome inertia and sedation. Neither was the dipping of the bed, as another
body weight was added. Strong arms pulling him, rearranging him like a rag doll,
draping him over the latest occupant of the bed was almost enough, but not
quite.
Then a cool hand started gently stroking down Alex's back, from the nape of his
neck, between his shoulder blades, finally stopping at the elastic of his
boxers, only to start again at the back of his neck.
That was enough motivation.
Alex opened his eyes, lifted his head, found Luis watching him, his face only a
few inches away. Alex tried to push away, move, but he was so tired, and the
drugs made him so weak... Alex closed his eyes, put his head back down on Luis's
chest. He hated this, hated the drugs, hated Luis, hated himself for being
pathetic, for being weak. The rage in his chest coiled tighter and tighter,
crushing his lungs, and the screams were building in the back of his head,
looking for escape.
"Kitten, look at me." Heavily accented, crystal-clear English.
Alex found himself looking into Luis's coffee-brown eyes. There was an odd
expression on Luis's starkly handsome face, somewhere between regret and
longing. Alex was almost surprised—soft emotions were a side of his captor he
hadn't seen before.
"Kitten, you've been here for over a week. On the first day, I told you we could
do this the easy way, or the hard way." Alex tried to look away, but he was
imprisoned by a hand at the back of his neck, steel grip under the necklace.
"Every time, you took the hard way. Every Single Time."
::What, and you're disappointed? You expected me to make it easy for you to keep
me here against my will? E'bat-kopat::
Alex knew better than to give voice to any of the thoughts that were running
through his head. The bruising on his back and legs were a vivid reminder of
Luis's bad temper and sick joy at using his belt as an instrument of discipline.
"You don't like the way the drugs make you feel, do you, Kitten?"
The glare Alex gave Luis was pure 190 proof hatred, cold enough to kill. The
fingers on the back of Alex's neck tightened, pulling the necklace snug against
his throat, threat clearly implied.
"I asked you a question, Kitten. I expect an answer." Luis's voice dropped half
an octave, now a definite snarl. The links of the necklace were starting to bite
into Alex's neck.
Alex looked away, clenched his jaw, swallowed hard.
"No." Little more than a whisper. The scream in the back of his head was almost
deafening.
::I hate you so much::
"Kitten, I don't give a damn about how you feel about me right now. There will
be plenty of time to change your opinion of me later. Right now, you will
learn the rules, and you will obey them. Or I will keep you on the drugs until
you can be more... agreeable. Do you understand?"
The chain bit into his neck again, and he nodded, rage still boiling in his
veins.
"Good." The hand moved down from Alex's neck, started stroking his back again,
long, slow strokes.
"This isn't military school, Kitten." A hint of a smile crossed Luis's face.
"There's no book of do's and do not's for you to remember. There are only four,
and I'm relatively sure you can handle that many. You're a very smart young man
- that's one of the reasons I chose you."
Alex turned away, put his head back down on Luis's broad chest. He couldn't
stand to look at the other man anymore, couldn't stand the psychotic intimacy,
the crazy farce of lovers cuddling on the bed.
"Eventually, Kitten, you'll be given free run of the house. After that, free run
of the island—if you can behave yourself and follow the rules.
Rule #1—If I give you a direct order, I expect you to follow it. No questions
asked.
Rule #2—Do not try to hurt yourself.
Rule #3—Do not try to hurt anyone else in the house.
Rule #4—Do not try to escape."
Alex felt the cold numbness start to build inside his chest, frozen teardrops
pushing their way out between tightly closed eyelids. He focused on his
breathing, concentrating on slow inhales through the mouth, long exhales through
the nose, trying to ignore the tendrils of ice that coated the inside of his
chest, constricting his heart.
::That's it. He's never going to let me go. I'm going to die here::
Luis's voice was soft, almost gentle. "I know this is hard for you, Kitten. It
always is, the first few months. I will make it as easy on you as I can, if you
are willing to meet me halfway." He dropped a kiss on the top of Alex's head.
"I'll make you a deal. I know you're really, really tired of being in this room.
If you behave yourself for the rest of the day, you can spend the night in my
room tonight. Do you think you can do that—do you think you can be good for
the next eight hours?"
Alex forced down the laugh that was burning the back of his throat. "Luis,
you've got me sedated and chained to the fucking bed. How the hell do you expect
me to 'be good'"?
Another smile, this one making Alex's skin crawl. "You're very resourceful,
Kitten—you'll figure out a way."
"Alex, wake up."
"Alex, wake up!"
"Alex, dammit, WAKE UP!"
Alex cracked open one eye, nearly blinded by the sunlight flooding the room.
Crow was standing by the door, arms crossed over her chest, wearing a
disreputably stained t-shirt and equally threadbare boxers—obviously stolen
from one of the men living in the house. She did not look amused.
"Are you awake now, Alex?"
He ran his hands through his sleep-rumpled hair, nodded.
"Good. You were having a nightmare. Anyways, it's time to wake up. Check-out is
at noon." She turned to leave.
::Fuck. Shit. Did everyone in the house get a front-row seat to my nightmares?::
"Crow?"
Hand on the doorknob, she didn't turn around. "What?"
"Did you... did everyone..."
She looked over her shoulder at him, hand still on the knob. "Did we see your
dreams? No." Definitely irritated. "How did I know you were having a nightmare?
Easy. I have the room next door, and you talk in your sleep. Loudly." She
glared at him. "Anyways, Alex, the inside of your head is someplace that none of
us like to be. It's a nasty, dark place." She turned quickly and left the room,
before Alex could do anything else to irritate her.
A few minutes later, a freshly combed and washed Alex wandered downstairs, past
a few sleeping bodies sprawled on the couches, laptops still buzzing nearby,
headsets still emitting their crackling staticky hum. He drifted quietly into
the kitchen, where Crow and another man were sitting at the table, reading the
Tribune and eating breakfast.
Before he could sit down, Crow looked up from her paper and pinned him with her
eyes.
"Alex, I'm sorry I was being such a little shit earlier. It's just been a really
rough couple of weeks chez Collective." Grey eyes apologetic. "I won't burden
you with the details, but the next time you swing by, there might be some new
faces—and a new Face."
Alex nodded. "Understood."
A young black man looked up from his bowl of brightly-colored cereal and smiled
at Alex. "We were beginning to wonder if you would ever wake up."
"Sorry, Robear. I didn't mean to sleep until almost noon. You guys should have
gotten me up earlier."
He shrugged. "No biggie. Sasha and Misha were here about three hours ago. Your
truck is parked outside, and your bike is stashed safely elsewhere. The
traveling kit is by the front door, and I've got some extra documentation for
you here."
Alex gazed at Robear groggily. "Extra documentation? What the hell are you
talking about?"
"Catch." A manila envelope came arcing in his direction. Alex caught it with one
hand.
"What is it, Robear?"
Robear just gave him a look that spoke concisely about his opinion of Alex's IQ.
"Just. Open. The. Frigging. Envelope. Already. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, you
can be difficult!"
Alex did as he was instructed. Inside was a complete dossier on Anna Romanek,
professor of Russian at Cal Poly, including a recent picture, her address, and a
map to her house. There was also two smaller manila envelopes, one with the name
"Fox Mulder" written across it in black marker, the other "Walter Skinner."
At the bottom was another, smaller envelope, this one white. Alex opened it
carefully, saw a flash of green. He nearly dropped the envelope, fingers
suddenly shaking as he pulled out one $100 bill after another. A small
multi-colored card fell out between two bills. It was a Platinum Master-Card,
the name Alex Krycek on the line right above Collective Computing.
Alex looked up from his handfuls of green, eyes wide. "This.... there's $5,000
dollars here."
"And a credit card." Robear added helpfully.
"... and a credit card. Why are you giving me $5,000 dollars and a credit card?"
Robear's grin was wide and almost insufferably self-satisfied. "Because you're
going to need it. You've now got a new cell phone, a new laptop with a cell
modem, clean license plates and registration on your truck, cash and a credit
card. In exchange, I need everything in your wallet except your driver's
license."
Alex blinked a couple of times. "Why?"
Robear snorted, shook his head slightly. "Because," in a tone often used with
small children and idiots, "you're going to disappear for a while. That means no
using your credit card, no using your calling card, nothing. We will be keeping
all of those here for safe-keeping. You will be welcome to take them back when
the trial is over—though with the picture on that license, I don't know why
you would want them back."
Alex rubbed his eyes again. This was too surreal. The Collective was never known
for altruism—it was an organization that depended on ruthless practicality for
its very survival. Alex was allowed to be their friend for the same reason that
others outside the core group were tolerated—they had skills that were
required for the Collective's continued existence. Yes, they liked him, but
the only reason he was there was because he was useful to them. This generosity
was vastly out of character.
"No, Alex, we haven't been smoking monkey crack." Robear, grinning broadly. "You
have no idea how much time and energy it took to make Peter Cryder disappear and
have Alex Krycek appear in his place four years ago. Beautiful piece of hackery
and forgery. Beautiful. You die, it gets wasted. Who looks at the identity
papers on a corpse, anyways?"
Alex slid easily into his best Upper East Side Jewish accent. "I'm hurt—hurt
by this lack of concern for my emotional well-being." He brought the back of one
hand to his forehead dramatically, closed his eyes, sniffed away tears. "I'm not
feeling any love in this room," he choked out. "You don't love me anymore!" He
put his head on the table, dissolving into loud sobs.
Robear and Crow applauded. Alex hopped up, smiling, and took a bow.
Chapter Four—In the Office
"She was married when we first met,
The whole time Merlin was walking from his cubicle to his boss's office, he was
mentally beating himself up with steel-lined gloves and trying out new career
choices.
:: Maybe I could get a job at one of those 1-900 psychic hotlines. Or maybe I'll
go to Meteorology school and become a weatherman. I wonder if the Weathermen are
taking applications. I wonder if there are any Weathermen who aren't in prison
or dead...::
His so-called friends in the Task Force weren't helping. When word got around
that he had been summoned to a meeting with Iron-Face Skinner, someone put a CD
of dirges in the player. A betting pool was immediately started on Merlin's
method of suicide after he received the axe. The main debate running in email
was whether Merlin would, in a fit of post-termination depression, throw himself
in front of a bus laden with tourists or just jump off the roof of the DOJ
building. Merlin's partner, JJ, put $10 on the bus. The pool was up to $230.
::Just my luck—I finally get the guts to proposition someone I've been lusting
after for months, and I get canned for it. Maybe I'll take a job on an Alaskan
fishing boat...::
Merlin stood for a long moment outside Skinner's office door, building up the
courage to knock.
::Summoned back to the scene of the crime, and all that good criminal justice
technobabble. This is just too fucking poetic for words. What did I do in a
previous life to get the local reigning deity this pissed off at me?::
He thought of walking away, contemplated pounding on the door with his head,
thought better of it when his boss's secretary wandered by with an armful of
files.
"Just go on in, Agent Mulder. He's in there with someone from VCU, discussing
your case."
::My case? What the...:: His arm, working independently, knocked on the door.
"Come in."
Just the sound of the man's voice was enough to turn the butterflies in Merlin's
stomach to rabid piranha. After a silent—and very fast—appeal to any
persuadable holy figures for courage, he opened the door and walked in.
Into something completely other than what he had expected.
Instead of a review panel, convened to discuss his sexual harassment of his
boss, Merlin found Walter Skinner, jacketless, sleeves rolled up, leaning over
the conference table, talking to another man. Skinner's back was to Merlin, and
the younger man indulged in a moment of sheer lust watching the object of his
desire unnoticed.
::Does he have any fucking idea how beautiful he is?::
Broad shoulders, lean muscle, brick wall of a chest, heavy dusting of hair on
his forearms barely camouflaged behind starched white shirts. Tight abs, strong
legs, flat muscular ass masked by tailored dress slacks and jackets. Black
handle of his service revolver poking up from the small of his back, an
exclamation point in a sea of white.
Merlin's palms itched. He wanted to touch, feel warm skin and muscle, taste
sweat, draw his fingernails across Skinner's broad back, remove the Sig and kiss
and lick the hollow underneath. He wanted to feel the larger man's pulse through
his skin, listen to him breathe. All the blood flow from the upper half of his
body was diverted to his crotch, making thinking impossible. The best Merlin
could do was chew on the inside of his lip and hold onto the doorknob for
support, hoping his legs wouldn't give out under him.
Skinner looked up from the paperwork spread across the table, and locked on
Merlin. The DC arched an eyebrow at his recalcitrant agent, and a hint of a
smile flickered across his face. For just a second, Skinner dropped the Deputy
Chief mask. Underneath, he looked smug. Self-satisfied. Preening before an
appreciative audience. Then the mask was back up and all Merlin could see was
his own reflection in chocolate-brown eyes hidden behind tortoiseshell frames.
::You like knowing I've got a hard-on for you, don't you, sir? You get off on
that, don't you, sir?::
"Thank you for joining us, Agent Mulder." The sound of his voice made the
muscles in Merlin's stomach quiver. "Since this is your bailiwick, I thought you
would like to be in on this meeting. I'd like to introduce you to Agent Collins
of the Violent Crimes Unit. Agent Collins has a Ph.D. in Psychology and nine
years experience profiling violent criminals. I've invited him here to help us
locate our errant Mr. Krycek."
Merlin sidled across the conference room and pulled up a chair on the opposite
side of the table from the gray-haired Collins. "VCU? I don't understand. Why
did you call them in? What can they do?"
Agent Collins chuckled. "I've been reading your case reports on Mr. Cryder..."
"Krycek." Merlin responded with more venom than absolutely necessary. "His name
is Alex Krycek. Not Peter Cryder, not Peter Romanek. Alex Krycek." Merlin was
surprised by the rush of protectiveness elicited by the mention of Alex's name.
Skinner gave him a sideways glance, eyes narrowed, saying nothing. Once again,
Merlin was certain that his boss could see through him like glass.
Collins, expression as sour as a mouthful of lemon, continued. "Mr. Krycek,
and I believe I have a handle on where he is headed, and where he can be
apprehended."
"Apprehended, DC Skinner?" Merlin addressed the questioning look to his boss. "I
was unaware that Alex had done anything worthy of getting arrested for. Last
time I checked, there was no outstanding arrest warrants for him. Who's the
criminal here, sir? Alex or Christien?" Hands balled into fists under the table,
Merlin watched his boss, waiting for an answer.
"Actually, Agent Mulder," Collins broke in, "Mr. Krycek is a witness in a RICO
statute case. Therefore, we have the legal right to place him in protective
custody, voluntarily or otherwise. His abhorrence of being detained, as your
report stated so bluntly, is simply not a concern of the Justice Department or
the FBI."
Merlin was starting to violently dislike Agent Collins.
"Arresting him is not our preferred option, Agent Mulder." Skinner's bass rumble
from across the table distracted Merlin from thoughts of 'accidentally' shooting
the VCU agent. "Collins has graciously agreed to help us locate Alex. We can't
keep him alive if we don't know where he is."
There was something about the tone of his boss's voice when he mentioned Alex's
name that caught Merlin's attention, and he looked Skinner straight in the eye,
searching for something under the surface.
::Alex? You called him Alex? What the fuck's up with that? When did he go from
Mr. Krycek to Alex?::
"Agent Collins, please continue. I believe you were telling me where you believe
Mr. Krycek will be hiding."
Merlin turned his attention back to the older agent, dressed in a blue suit that
made a valiant attempt to cover his paunch. "Yes, please. I'm anxious to hear
your educated opinion."
Collins cleared his throat. It was obvious from the expression on his face that
he wasn't sure if Merlin was making fun of him or not. "As I was saying, Deputy
Chief Skinner, I believe that Mr. Krycek is looking for a safe place to go
hide until the danger is over. Considering his background and the recent
parentage issues in his life, he will be drawn to places that remind him of his
childhood. I believe we will find Mr. Krycek hiding in an abandoned house within
a few blocks from where his parents lived when he was growing up."
Merlin bit the inside of his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. From the
expression on his boss's face, Skinner was having a similar problem.
::Agent Collins, I see that you've set aside this special time to humiliate
yourself in public::
"We appreciate the work you've put into this profile, Agent Collins, and we will
be reviewing it thoroughly..." Skinner was giving his canned "We're done, now
get out of my office" spiel, but Merlin wasn't listening. He was wandering down
a back alley in his mind, following a lead, making the intuitive leaps in the
process that won him his nickname. Collins didn't offer to shake Merlin's hand,
and Merlin didn't watch the older agent leave. Once he heard the door close
behind the VCU agent, Merlin turned and looked at his boss again, and started
guffawing.
"Where the hell did that man get his Ph.D. in Psychology—- mail order?" That
set of another round of chuckling that ended with Merlin's head laying
forehead-down on the slick cool glass-top wood conference table, snorting and
laughing. He looked up at his boss, at the indulgent, amused expression on
Skinner's face, and he lost it all over again.
After Merlin finally managed to catch his breath, sides aching from laughing too
hard, he glanced back at his boss. Yup, same expression. Merlin rested his chin
in his palm and basked in the gaze, for just a moment.
"Sir, if you keep looking at me like that, your reputation as 'Old Stone-Face'
will be permanently ruined."
Skinner shrugged, the half-smile still on his face. Merlin wondered what it
would take to make the man smile, really smile, at him. He decided at that
moment that he wouldn't stop trying until he could make it happen.
::You have it so bad for him, Merlin::
"You don't laugh very often, do you, Agent Mulder?"
"Nope." Merlin waved his hand airily toward the closed door, towards the
departing atoms that once belonged to Agent Collins. "Not often do I get such a
perfect buffoon to laugh at, either. I feel like I should thank you for letting
me see that. Better than anything I've seen on Comedy Central recently."
"So I'll take it that you had some issues with his profile."
"Issues? Jesus, sir, did they teach classes in BossSpeak at Quantico?" He
chuckled again, mostly to himself, as he stood up and walked away from the
table. "You could say I had issues with his profile. His profile was full of
shit. That man couldn't find his ass with both hands, a flashlight, and a brace
of guide dogs."
Skinner snorted. "Well, now that you mention it, his profile was
quite....creative."
Merlin looked at Skinner, aghast. "Creative? Creative?? That profile was a
work of fiction. Please tell me you weren't planning on following his
suggestions...."
Skinner chuckled slightly. This was a different side of Agent Mulder. Looser,
more relaxed, less guarded. Human, instead of the breathing incarnation of an
FBI agent. Skinner liked this new incarnation, and idly wondered how he could
encourage this behavior without crossing too many boundaries or violating too
many Bureau rules.
::Bureau rules be damned. I want it, he wants it, we're both going to have it::
Skinner pulled up the chair next to Merlin; sitting so close he could feel the
younger man's body heat, smell his cologne. His skin tingled with the closeness,
and he knew Merlin felt it too.
"Alex called me three nights ago."
Merlin did the math. Three nights ago would have been Sunday; the same day Alex
started his cross-country jaunt. Merlin hadn't heard from Alex since the meeting
in that same office earlier on that fateful Sunday. He arched an eyebrow at his
boss, evaluating.
::Why the fuck did Alex call you? Why didn't he call me? He doesn't even know
you!::
Skinner saw the jealousy simmering behind Merlin's hazel eyes, and he wondered,
not for the first time, if there was something more going on between Mr. Krycek
and Agent Mulder than met the eye. There was nothing in Mulder's report that
indicated that the two had been close friends previously, but obviously there
was some relationship. It would all become clear eventually, he was sure. He
could wait. Skinner was a very patient man.
"Well, sir? Are you going to tell me what he said, or do I have to get out my
Ouija board and channel your answers?"
Skinner smiled, a real, amused smile, and Merlin's heart stopped beating, just
for a moment.
::That does it. I am so fucking lost::
"I'll tell you, Agent Mulder. He called to protect you. He didn't want his
disappearance to reflect badly on you. He didn't want you 'disciplined',
quote-unquote." Another one of those rare, heart-breaking smiles. "Interesting
choice of words after our conversation earlier that evening, wouldn't you
agree?"
Merlin looked away, tracing the pattern in the carpet with his eyes, face hot.
He knew he was blushing, knew Skinner could see it. Merlin had a sneaking
suspicion that his embarrassment pleased his boss in some way he didn't want to
examine too closely.
Skinner let Merlin squirm in his own skin for another moment, then continued.
"He also told me that he was on his way to Alaska. He said that he believed he
would be safe there."
"Bullshit." Merlin was still talking to the carpet.
"Pardon me, Agent Mulder?"
Merlin looked up at his boss. "Bullshit. He's headed west, yes, but he's not
going to Alaska."
Skinner frowned, and Merlin bit his lip, trying to resist the urge to soothe the
frown lines between his boss's eyes with his fingertips, kiss them away. "You
sound awfully certain of that fact, Agent Mulder. You sound like you know where
he's headed."
Merlin stood up and walked to Skinner's desk, putting the last piece of the
puzzle in place. "I do."
"Enlighten me, Agent Mulder." Eyes fixed on the younger man's face, voice doing
that snarling thing that made Merlin's stomach do flips.
Merlin turned around in front of Skinner's desk, faced the older man. "He is
going to the same place you would go if you found out that the man you had
called "Father" for twenty-four years was no blood relation to you." He paused,
watching Skinner try to follow the trail he left.
"You would go have a long talk with your mother, sir. And that is exactly where
Alex is heading—to his mother's current residence in San Luis Obispo,
California."
Chapter Five—Letters
"I finally found a reason—
TO: MKANTWEAPONS1@hotmail.com
Tomas—
As I predicted, Provo sucks. Next time, it's your turn to make the biennial Utah
trip.
I wish I could put my finger on what exactly it is about this city that makes me
twitch, but it's something subtle. It's in the depressing homogeneity.
Everyone's blond and blue eyed. Everyone has perfect teeth. Everyone is tall,
thin and small-boned. I feel like I wandered into an Aryan Poster Child
Convention.
This place makes me feel like more of a freak than I do normally. It's worse
than Texas. At least South Texas has shitkickers for local color. Provo doesn't
even have rednecks. It's bad when I'm nostalgic for the Klan...
I delivered Weapon #2 last night—only 14 more to go. The money was wired to
our 'other' account this morning. As you expected, Mr. Clair also wanted the
1814 sabre, as well as the 1816. He introduced me to several of his friends, and
we now have two more orders for pre-Civil War swords. (sigh) This means more
trips to this godforsaken state, doesn't it?
Next stop—California, and the estate sale of Mr. Braithe. His son promised me
first dibs on the guns, provided he gets a 5% pre-auction percentage. I swear,
Bratishta, it felt positively South American, arranging to slip the man a few
$100 bills. Bribery makes the wheels of commerce spin like a Matchbox car.
Miss you. Miss Dio. Wish I was home.
Love,
Alex
The phone rang at 12:45, rousing Merlin from his comfortable perch on the couch,
staring blankly at the television. He had seen this particular bootleg MST3k at
least twenty or thirty times, and the jokes were starting to wear as thin as a
Denny's omelet. A little late for telemarketers, and his partner JJ was happily
asleep by this hour, or up with his newborn daughter. Probably a wrong number,
he shrugged to himself as he groped on the floor for the cordless.
"What?"
"Hello, Merlin. I hope I didn't wake you." Quiet voice, still fighting off
sleep. Familiar voice.
::Alex::
"I wasn't sleeping. I almost never get to sleep before 2 a.m."
"Must be a bitch getting up to be at the Hoover building by 8 a.m. What does
that give you, four hours of sleep a night?" Underneath the light tone,
something dark in his voice.
"You sound like my partner. 'You need to get more sleep, Mulder. You really
should get more exercise, Mulder. Here—try this soy bran bar, Mulder. My wife
picked you up some vitamins at the health food store, Mulder.'" Merlin did a
well-practiced imitation of the Austin, Texas born and bred John Jones,
affectionately known as JJ.
"It's nice to have someone fuss over you from time to time, isn't it?"
"It has it's good points, yes. Alex, I'm assuming you aren't calling me at this
ungodly hour to criticize my sleeping habits."
Long pause.
"Alex, what's wrong?"
A low chuckle. "You haven't known me long enough to read me so well, Merlin."
"Alex, you're about as transparent as glass and as subtle as a cement block.
Something's wrong, and obviously you called me to talk about it. So instead of
dissembling about how much sleep I get every night, why don't you tell me what
you called to tell me, so we can both get some sleep."
Merlin knew he said the wrong thing the moment it came out of his mouth.
"I... I'm sorry, Merlin. I won't keep you up any longer. I won't bother..."
"Alex, shut up."
Alex went very silent. Even across hundreds of miles of phone lines, Merlin
could hear Alex clenching his teeth.
"Alex, that didn't come out the right way. I didn't mean that the way it
sounded. Tell me what's going on, please."
More silence. Time for a stab in the dark.
"Bad night, Alex?"
Quiet voice. "Yeah." More darkness.
::Good guess. Care to go two for two?::
"Nightmares, Alex?"
"Yeah." Quieter. Barely audible.
"Tell me about the nightmares, Alex."
"Merlin, you're a shrink, right?" Little-boy voice that made Merlin want to pull
Alex back into his arms and chase the bad dreams away.
"I'm not a psychiatrist like Dio, but I have a Master's degree in Clinical
Psychology. Is that close enough for you?"
"Yeah, that's close enough. I just.... I just need to talk to someone who will
understand. Someone who's been there, you know?"
"I think I do. What do you want me to understand, Alex?"
Sharp intake of breath. Merlin realized Alex was crying silently on the other
end of the phone line. "I'm so fucked up, Merlin. I'm so fucked up..."
"Breathe, Alex. It's all right. It's just a dream. It can't hurt you." Merlin
crooned quietly into the phone, offering comfort with his voice. Weaving a
spell. "Shh, shh. It's all right."
Gradually the younger man's breathing evened out from the muffled whimpers and
gasping. Merlin heard cloth rustling near the phone, realized that Alex must be
wiping his tear-stained face.
"I..I'm sorry, Merlin. You have better things to do then listen to me lose it
over the phone."
"It's all right. I don't mind. Do you want to tell me what happened tonight,
Alex?"
"I dreamed about him. About Luis. I dreamed he was in the bed of my truck, in my
sleeping bag with me. I dreamed he was... he was touching me. Sucking me off in my
sleep, like he used to do. I tried to stop him, tell him no, but it never made
any difference. I pretended to sleep through it, but it didn't change anything.
I woke up yelling, begging him to stop touching me..." another ragged gasp, "and I
realized I had come all over myself."
More quiet crying sounds from Alex's end of the phone. Heavy breathing, as Alex
tried to get the tears under control.
"Shh, Alex. I know. I've had someone do that to me, too. It's humiliating,
degrading, realizing someone was having sex with you while you were asleep, or
drugged."
"You don't understand!" Frantic crying noises, trying to stifle the sound. "I
knew you wouldn't..."
"Alex, please explain it to me. I want to understand. Please."
"It was degrading. It was humiliating. It was one of the worst things that ever
happened to me." Ragged breathing. "And now that it's over and I'm safe, I'm
having wet dreams about being... being..."
::You still can't say the word 'rape', can you, Alex?::
"Alex, it will be OK."
"No, it's NOT OK! I'm not OK! It's been ten months, and I'm still just
discovering how fucked up I am, how fucked up he made me!"
Merlin marveled at how smoothly he shifted gears over into ShrinkMode. "Alex,
talk to me. Tell me what is so screwed up about you."
"I hated it. I hated it, and I wanted it, and I wanted it to stop, and it felt
awful and it felt really, really good. I didn't want to do it but he made me and
he made me come and I couldn't... I couldn't..." Sobbing in earnest now.
"Shh. Shh. It will be all right, Alex. Just breathe. Just breathe."
Whimpering, little broken words. ".... all my fault... all my fault.... .nothing but a
whore.... "
"Alex, I need to tell you something very important. Listen to me carefully."
Quiet voice undershot with steel, pulling Alex back from the dark place inside
his own head.
"Are you listening, Alex?"
"Uh.... yes. I'm listening." Voice rough with tears and pain.
"Alex, what Luis did to you was classic brainwashing technique—straight out of
a CIA textbook. Sleep deprivation, food deprivation, and rape. If you can force
your victim to respond sexually, all the better. You said yourself he was trying
to break you, and he almost succeeded. Raping you was just another way to do
that."
"No. No. It wasn't.... it wasn't like that. He didn't.... "
"He didn't rape you, Alex? Is that what you're trying to tell me? It wasn't rape
because he made it feel good? I'm going to let you in on a little secret here.
You're a human male. You're hardwired to respond to certain stimuli, no matter
what the source of the stimuli is. The old joke is true -the right stimulation
in a sensitive place, and you'll belong to anyone. Your nerve endings don't care
if the stimulation is coming from a man, a woman or a well-trained dog. And your
brain can only override so much."
"But I went to him willingly!" Self-hatred bubbling through under the pain.
"Alex, he set that up. He set the entire thing up with getting you in his bed as
the end goal. He kidnapped you, held you against your will, and sedated you when
he didn't like your behavior. Oh, and he also gave you one thing, exactly one
thing that felt really, really good and took the pain and terror away for a
little while. Of course you're going to seek that out. It was the only escape
you had. He wanted it that way. He planned it that way."
Alex felt like he was going to be sick again. "Oh, god... oh, god..."
"Alex, it's not your fault. None of it is your fault. It's all his. He set up
the situation. He did it to you. You were just trying to survive. You did what
you had to do to survive."
"I don't... I can't.... God, it's hard to think about this. I spend so much time just
pushing the memories away..."
"But no matter how hard you push, they just keep coming back, don't they? They
won't stay in their little box, no matter how many times you lock the door."
"Speaking from experience, Merlin?"
"Ya wonder why I decided to get a Masters degree in Psychology, Alex? I wanted
to figure out what was going on inside my own head. I figured it would be
cheaper than spending the rest of my life in therapy." Short pause "Alex, can I
ask you a question?"
"Umm, sure."
"Did you get any therapy when you got back? Have you had any professional help
in dealing with this?"
"Yes.... no. Dio wanted me to, but I refused. I thought I was dealing with things
OK. Anyways, Tomas needed the help so much more than I did. He completely fell
apart after we got back. Suicide attempts, self-mutilation, bullemia—he was a
mess. I spent most of my time the first few months just taking care of him,
helping him recover. Dio tried, he really tried to get me to see someone, or
just talk to him about it, but I didn't want to. I thought if I just kept
looking ahead, kept putting one foot in front of the other, I would be OK."
"How about when you were in the hospital?"
Small chuckle. "The first shrink I was assigned to was crazier than I am. Jesus
Christ—talk about Physician, heal thyself. I didn't want to be alone in a room
with that man, much less telling him my innermost thoughts and feelings. There
was another shrink—at least I thought he was a shrink at the time. It's a
really, really long story, but he listened, and he helped me. He probably did
more good than anyone or anything else at that hospital. After I got out, Dio
dragged me kicking and screaming to a therapist who specializes in trauma
victims. She tried, really she did, but I couldn't tell her. I wanted to, but I
just couldn't. I just couldn't."
"I'm glad you felt you could talk to me about this. No, scratch that. I'm really
flattered that you did. Touched."
"Yeah, Merlin. Touched in the head." Low chuckle interrupted by a huge yawn. "I
can trust you, can't I? You're not going to go telling tales outside of school,
are you?"
"Alex, when I get to work tomorrow.... later today, I will report that I did talk
to you. I will not give any details on what we talked about—merely the fact
that we did. Please note that at no time during this conversation have I asked
you where you are or told you to turn yourself in. To be brutally honest, right
now I am less worried about the Columbians getting their hands on you than I am
of you doing something stupid."
Complete silence on the other end of the line.
::Ba-bing. You hit the jackpot::
"You have been thinking about it, haven't you, Alex?" Gentlest voice, talking to
a child.
"If Luis.... if Luis.... I'd rather be dead than go back there. I won't let it happen,
Merlin. I can't." Scared little-kid voice again.
Merlin put on his best imitation-of-his-deputy-chief-voice. "Alex, promise me
you won't do anything stupid. Promise me if you start to give in to those
thoughts that you'll call me first. Promise me."
"I promise." Another jaw-dislocating yawn.
Merlin fought off a yawn himself. "Alex, go to bed. It's way too late, and some
of us have to work for a living, instead of gallivanting across this great large
country of ours."
"Merlin?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. For... for listening to me. For not being horrified. For being there."
"Anytime, Alex. Anytime."
TO: MKANTWEAPONS2@hotmail.com
FROM: MKANTWEAPONS1@hotmail.com
RE: the state of the state
Alex—
Next time it will be my turn to go to Utah, I promise. As a matter of fact, I'll
take the next two trips to Provo. Just come home safely, OK? You've got Dio and
me worried sick.
As you requested in our last phone call, we had the exterminators come by. Our
house is clean, as is Dio's office and all the cell phones. Apparently, you
don't rank high enough on anyone's priority list to go to the trouble of placing
surveillance on us. Good news—you're also not on the National Crime
Information Computer. That means that you can make it to the Oklahoma 1500 Gun
and Knife Show as we planned, without worrying about the instant background
check bouncing.
Three days and counting until the anniversary. Plane tickets are purchased, and
packing has commenced. I will see you, same place as last year, same bat-time,
same bat-channel.
Miss you, Alex. Love you. Be careful, and we'll be praying for your safe return.
Love,
Tomas
Chapter Six—Broken Thoughts
"I wear this crown of shit
Skinner had just resumed his usual position behind his desk after a grueling
meeting with his boss when his cell phone rang. He stared at the phone in his
fist for a moment, trying to figure out who would be calling him on his private
line. No one—no one—had this phone number, aside from immediate family. He
would have given the number to his close friends, except that he didn't have
any. Just a steady procession of co-workers, acquaintances and one-night-stands
with aspirations of houses in the suburbs.
The phone trilled again, and Skinner answered it on autopilot.
"Skinner."
"Just one question, sir." The words were snarled through gritted teeth. "How the
fuck did you know?"
::Alex... ::
This was a different Alex, a different voice from the post-orgasmic, sated,
sleepy goodnights less than twenty four hours earlier. This voice screamed of
rage looking for an outlet, of betrayals old and new.
He put on his best talking-off-the-ledge voice. "How did I know what, Alex?"
"How the fuck did you know that I was searching for my mother? I get to her
house, and the entire Los Angeles branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigations
is lying in wait like a flock of vultures."
Skinner's head was spinning, working all the possible angles. Obviously, Agent
Mulder's cover was blown. He needed to contact the young agent, let him know
that Alex was in town, cordon off the neighborhood if necessary.
"Alex, can you hang on for a moment? I've got another call..."
"Don't bother trying to call Merlin, sir." Voice dipped in anger and acid,
burning in Skinner's ear. "He won't find me. I'm long gone. And yes, I'm sure it
was Merlin. I can spot those Armani suits of his six blocks away."
Skinner blew out a long breath, silently chanting a litany of curse words in
several languages.
::Well, this quiet afternoon has now gone completely and utterly to hell::
"You saw your mother. You didn't..." Skinner didn't get a chance to finish the
thought.
Alex snorted in disgust. "What kind of monster do you think I am? You think I'd
hurt my own mother?" His voice dropped in pitch, dropped the disgust, pain
showing through the thin spots. "I talked to her. That's all. Just. Talked."
"How did it go, Alex?" The spot behind his chest wall ached, sympathy pains for
the man on the other end of the phone line.
Skinner could hear the shrug, see the hopeless cast in those green eyes. "I
don't know, sir. I don't have any objective criteria to judge it on. Is it a bad
talk if I have to hold a gun on her to get her to leave with me? Is it a good
talk if, at the end..." His voice broke. "If at the end, she tells me she still
loves me and wants to be part of my life? You tell me, sir. I've never done this
before."
Skinner released the breath he didn't realize he had been holding. "I don't know
either, Alex. This is a new one for both of us." Almost as an afterthought.
"You'll be all right."
Alex 's voice was quiet, barely audible. "You know you're the only person who
says that to me. Everyone else asks if I'm all right. I can tell by the way that
they ask it that they expect me to be falling apart. You just tell me that I
am all right. Everyone else asks the question. You provide the answer."
"That's because I know you will be. You're not broken, Alex. Far from it."
"How do you know?" Lost little boy voice. Wanting desperately to believe.
"Alex, did I ever tell you I was in the war?"
"No, sir. You never told me." A quiet chuckle. "I don't know much of anything
about you."
"I spent three years in South-East Asia. Laos, mainly, but also Kampuchea and
Vietnam. I was a soldier in a bloody, unwinnable war. I've seen a lot of strong
men in bad situations. I recognize the look. That's the look I see in you."
"I..." Alex paused, swallowed. "I don't feel very strong sometimes."
"Alex, the first time I met you, I knew you. Not you in particular, but I knew
who you were, what you were made of. You reminded me of the Amerasian street
kids I saw in Hoh Chih Minh city. The police called them cockroaches, because as
many times as they tried to eradicate them, destroy them, they kept coming back.
They were strong in the same way that you're strong. You're strong, Alex,
because you've had to be."
Skinner could hear Alex start to relax, feel the tension start to evaporate. "I
don't understand you, sir. Everyone else, when they look at me, all they see is
the damage. To them, I'm a collection of broken pieces. It's what defines me.
You... you don't see me that way. You see the parts between the broken pieces."
"That's because I've had a lot more experience in dealing with people who have
broken pieces. You don't go through a war, experience the things I've lived
through, and make it out unscathed. It doesn't happen. The guys I went to war
with, my real friends, are all broken. Scar tissue is strong, Alex. You're
strong. Whether you believe it or not."
"Are you broken, sir?"
"Yes." Without hesitation.
"Where?" More of the little-boy hesitant voice that went straight through
Skinner's chest wall and made his heart hurt.
Skinner took a deep breath, a quick prayer for courage.
"Alex, I did a lot of things while I was in Laos. Ugly, brutal, horrible things.
My subconscious, even after fifteen years, has still not come to grips with all
of it. I get nightmares a couple of times a week. I hate, absolutely hate, the
dark. When the lights are out, it's too easy for me to see things that aren't
there."
Another quiet chuckle from Alex. "Believe me, I understand. There are too many
things that hide in the dark."
Neither man spoke for a moment, lost in their own darkness.
"Sir?"
"Yes, Alex?"
"Thank you for telling me."
Alex could hear the 500 watt smile from the other end of the phone line.
"Anytime, Alex."
"No, I mean it. I don't know the first or the last thing about you. You, on the
other hand, have my entire life story sitting in a file on your desk. I think
you probably know things about me that I don't even know about myself."
Now Skinner's curiosity was peaked. "Like what?"
"Like..." Alex quickly sorted through his thoughts. "Like I don't know if I
graduated from college or not. The car accident happened three days before
finals my senior year. I never took any of them. I don't know if I got
incompletes in those classes or not."
Alex didn't have to elaborate on what accident he was referring to. Both men
knew that the car accident in question killed his adoptive father and fatally
injured his adoptive mother.
"I have some good news on that front, Alex. You did get your degree. You have a
Bachelor of Arts in Language Studies from the University of Chicago. You even
managed to pull off a high enough GPA to graduate Cum Laude. You got better
grades in college than I did."
"Wow. Damn. That's pretty cool. Not like it matters much—the diploma has the
wrong name for me to hang it on my wall. I just... wondered about it sometimes."
"Alex, are you trying to tell me that you never got your mail or anything that
belonged to Peter Cryder?"
Mouthful of bile, words dripping. "I'm. Not. Peter. Cryder. Peter is dead. He
died in the accident." Swallowing hard, trying to regulate his breathing with
little success. "After the funeral, I walked away with my truck, my laptop and
the clothing on my back. I haven't turned around since."
::Note to self, Walter—treat the subject of the Cryder's death like the buried
land mine it is::
"Alex, I'm sorry to be prying into an obviously very sensitive subject, but I
need to know—what happened to your parents estate?"
Another shrug, audible in the early evening twilight. "I don't know. I don't
care. Dead and buried along with them. It's probably out there somewhere,
accruing interest."
"You're serious. You really don't know anything about the probate or the
resolution of your adoptive parent's wills." The surprise was evident in
Skinner's voice.
"Sir, I'm sure that their attorney busted his butt trying to find me, without
any success. I've had no contact with anyone from Peter's life. So fucking what?
So I got their house. I will never, ever walk back into that house again. I
would burn it to the ground first." Throat tightening around his words.
Skinner listened to Alex's raggedy breathing for a long moment, giving Alex the
time to calm down, also giving himself a chance to organize his own thoughts.
"Alex, are you all right now?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry about that. I just.... I can't think about it. I expend a hell of
a lot of mental energy not thinking about it. If I think about it, I'll fall
apart, and I can't afford that right now. I don't think about them, I don't
think about Luis, I don't think about my childhood. I just shoot the thoughts
down if they stray too close."
"Sounds like you've gotten pretty good at thought-murder."
"That's me—a fucking assassin." Another short bark of laughter.
"Alex, I'm going to let you in on a little secret." Slipping into Deputy Chief
mode, dealing with a recalcitrant agent. "You are a very wealthy young man.
Your maternal grandparents owned property, businesses, and a large amount of
stock. When they passed away eight years ago, it went to your adoptive mother.
It now belongs to you. We're talking about a net worth of nearly a million
dollars here, Alex.... Alex? You still there?"
"Umm, yeah.... Just picking my jaw up off the floor. You did say a million
dollars, didn't you? One followed by six zeros?"
"Almost a million dollars, Alex."
"Shit. Whoa. Wow." Quiet laughter. "Tomas will never let me live this down. The
boy likes money the way the rest of us like oxygen. He's pissed enough at me for
walking out on him and Dio the other day in your office..."
"You've been talking to him pretty regularly, I'm presuming." Wheels spinning,
working out the logistics of getting a phone tap.
"Just about every day, sir. By the way, don't waste your time. All trying to tap
their phones would accomplish is pissing Dio off. Thanks to our paranoid
friends, their house gets swept for bugs more frequently than your office does."
"Stop reading my mind this instant, young man." Stern voice ruined by the
laughter that was bubbling up around the edges. "Take my word for it, Alex. You
really don't want to know what goes on behind this follicularly challenged
skull."
"Actually, sir, I do. I meant what I said earlier. I don't know anything about
you."
"Just ask, Alex. Provided it isn't confidential information, I'll do my best to
answer."
Long pause, as Alex tried to string the right words together. Skinner listened,
amused, wondering if Alex would have the courage to ask him about his sexual
history.
"Um, sir.... G_d, I can trip over my tongue in eight different languages.
Everything I'm trying to say either makes me sound like a Monty Python skit or
Miss Manners..."
"Alex, just spit it out. I've been working for the Justice Department for
fifteen years. I'm awfully hard to shock, or offend."
"O-kay. This isn't going to come out right, but what the fuck." Quick breath.
"Sir, have you ever.... have you ever had sex with another man?"
::He shoots, he scores::
Skinner laughed, entirely too pleased with himself. "Alex, I can say with some
degree of honesty that I have a great deal of experience in that area. Women
too, but primarily men."
"I... I didn't know, sir. I wasn't sure just how far in the closet you were. I
don't have a lot of experience in dealing with people who aren't completely out.
You'd have to be in a coma not to realize that Tomas and Dio are. That's the way
it is with most of our friends. I... I'm glad. I'd hate to think what would have
happened had I been the more... um... experienced of the two of us."
"Something like the blind fucking the blind?"
Snort. "You have such a way with the Queen's English, sir."
"Should I take it from your previous statement that you don't have a great deal
of experience with men, Alex?"
"Sir, in all honesty, I don't have a great deal of experience. Period. I've had
five lovers in my life—two men, three women. Granted, I was involved with one
woman for almost a year and a half. Would have married her, too."
"What happened?"
"She knew me better than I knew myself. Story of my life, eh, sir? We were to
the point of discussing receptions, and rings, and everything was great. Then
she sat me down and told me that she couldn't marry me because she knew that I,
deep down, wanted to be in a relationship with another man. She said that she
would rather call it off now than in ten years, after we'd been married and had
a couple of kids, when I realized who I was truly attracted to. That hurt. It
hurt a lot. To make a long story short, I got over it, and she was the one who
ended up introducing me to Michael, who became my first male lover."
::Liar::
"I don't think you knew this, Alex, but I was married for eight years."
Skinner's tone was dreamy, far away. "I married Sharon right after I got back
from the war. I knew. She knew. We had a comfortable arrangement. I had a
long-term partner for almost five of those years." Voice wistful, almost sad.
"He ended up being transferred to California. I still miss him. That was the
beginning of the end of my marriage."
"Hold on a minute." Trying to keep the shocked tone out of his voice and
failing. "Are you trying to tell me that your wife knew that not only were you
fucking someone else, but you were in a bloody relationship with another man,
and she didn't use your nuts as target practice?"
"Yes, Alex. She knew before I married her. I've almost always had more than one
lover at a time. I have.... We'll have to save that conversation for later, but
let me just say that I have very intense kinks. I don't necessarily expect the
person that I am in a relationship with to share all my kinks, but I do expect
them to understand that I will occasionally look outside for fulfillment."
"Probably a good call to save that conversation for later, sir. Just tell me
that your kinks don't involve live farm animals or dead circus performers."
"Let me put your mind at ease on those two counts, Alex. Can I take a turn at
asking the questions?"
"Umm, sure, sir. Shoot."
"Have you always been interested in both men and women? Or is this just a
relatively recent thing?"
Barrel of the gun digging into the soft flesh under his chin. Blood dripping
into his eyes from the gash in his forehead, where his head bounced off the
wall. Pounding and shouting from the other side of the locked door
" You should never have come back here, you cocksucking faggot. You should
have stayed dead."
The pain was back, tearing into Alex, tearing him in half. He didn't dare look
down, because he knew he would see his pants soaked in blood, and more blood
staining the seat of his car. He closed his eyes tightly, gritted his teeth,
fighting back the tears that threatened to fall.
::it's not real it's not real it's not real it's not real it's not real it's not
real::
"Alex? Are you still there?" Concern. Compassion.
"I... I'm sorry, sir. I have to go now." Alex quickly switched off the phone before
he could say anything more, say anything he knew he would regret later. He sat
in the front seat of his truck for almost fifteen minutes, knees pulled up to
his chest, until his hands stopped shaking, until he could breathe again.
Chapter Seven—Crickets and Early Morning Conversations
"I need you
Deputy Chief Skinner was so engrossed in preparing for the MacAllister meeting
that Kim had to say his name three times before it registered. She
looked... confused. Perplexed. Baffled even. Very unusual for his very competent
secretary.
"I'm sorry to bother you, sir, but there's someone on the phone."
Pause. Skinner sat behind his desk, waiting for the punch line that never
arrived.
"Is that someone on the phone asking for me, Kim?" Odd. Normally she wasn't this
unnerved by a simple phone call.
"I think so, sir. He's looking for, um.... Skin-Man." There was just a hint of a
smile around the edge of her mouth. He could tell she was biting the inside of
her lip to keep from laughing.
Only years of military training kept Skinner from wincing, looking away or
grinning. He felt the blush creep across his ears, kept his face still by sheer
willpower.
"I'll take it, Kim. If Agent MacAllister shows up early, let him wait."
::Bobby Sioux, one of these days.... ::
After the door closed behind his secretary, Skinner reached over and gingerly
picked up the handset, as if it was about to transform into a scorpion and sting
him.
"Skinner here." Aloof. Businesslike.
"Skin-Man! I haven't heard from you in a dog's age! What's up?" Deep voice,
strong Cajun accent, bellowing so loud Skinner was sure Kim could feel the
vibrations through the walls.
"Bobby, congratulations. Within twenty-four hours, everyone in the Justice
Department will be calling me Skin-man behind my back."
"What can I say—I have a gift for it. It's a dirty job, keeping you in line,
but someone's got to do it." Bobby was grinning audibly, and Skinner could see
him in his mind, flash of white teeth, permanent tan from the Louisiana sun,
brown/gray hair kept military crew-cut short more than a decade after his
retirement from active service. Bobby Sioux was the only man who had ever beaten
Skinner at arm wrestling, even though Skinner was more than four inches taller
and had fifty pounds on his former Sergeant.
"You live for this, don't you?" Skinner was smiling, almost in spite of himself.
"Hell, yes, boy! You may be Mr. Big-Shot FBI to everyone else, but to me you're
still Wally Skinner, green behind the ears PFC, who keeps dropping his gun and
his dick. Don't forget, I knew you when you had hair."
Skinner involuntarily groaned, ran his hand along his exposed scalp. "I'll have
you know that baldness is very in this year. Just look at Tom Cruise, shaving
his head. Women love that."
Hysterical laughter from the other end of the phone line. "That's a good one,
Skin-man. When was the last time you were on a date with anyone but your right
hand?"
Skinner tried for indignant, but got stuck at offended. "I'll have you know..."
"Don't even bother, boy. I believe your tall tales about as far as I can
drop-kick your lily-white Texan ass." Voice dropped in tenor, lost the laughter.
"Your message said you were calling about business. What's going on?"
Skinner shifted gears, put aside the Wally hat, put back on the Deputy Chief.
"Bobby, I need to know everything you know about Alex Krycek."
Bobby swore, fluently. Creatively enough to make a sailor blush. "That
son-of-a-bitch went after Alex again, didn't he? Is that what you're calling to
tell me?"
"Which son-of-a-bitch are you referring to, Bobby?"
"The motherfucker who kept Alex and Tommy on that island and tortured them.
Christien. If I had gotten my hands on him..."
"Bobby, relax. Luis Christien hasn't tried to kidnap him again. He's safe -
relatively speaking."
"Then why are you calling me? Since when is it Justice Department business? We
couldn't even get the Chicago PD to return our phone calls." Skinner recognized
the tone in Bobby's voice—righteous fury. Someone was threatening a member of
his family, and Bobby was not about to let it happen without a fight. This was
the Bobby Sioux of song and legend—lifer Sergeant, hell in a firefight and
even better in a bar brawl.
"It's complicated, Bobby." Malicious grin. "I'll try to explain it to you, and
since you're from Louisiana, I'll speak slowly and use very small words."
Bobby cursed. Again. In English, Creole and Vietnamese.
"When I get my hands on the son-of-a-bitch, I'm going to tear him limb from
limb. He was planning on selling Alex to the fucking Colombians! I am gonna make
him..."
"Bobby, I have some other questions for you. Sit down and shut up. You're not
helping me or Alex like this."
Bobby paused. For about two seconds.
"I don't know where the boy is, Skin-Man, if that's what you're about to ask. I
haven't spoken to him in almost two weeks. Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you.
The boy needs some space right now, some privacy. Cut him a little slack, Wally.
He's a good kid."
"I know he's a good kid, Bobby. I've spoken to him several times."
"Since he left on his little cross-country jaunt?"
"Yes."
Skinner could hear Bobby's arched eyebrows, feel his grin from twelve hundred
miles away.
"Do tell, Skin-Man. You got a thing for the boy?"
Skinner could feel his ears getting hot, and knew that they were turning red.
::Dammit, Bobby, how do you do that? You're the only person alive who can make
me blush::
"Not a... thing, precisely. Interested, yes. And I'm quite certain that he's
interested in me as well."
Skinner expected a dirty comment, a leer, some bad innuendo from one of his
oldest friends and former C.O. in Laos. What he got was something completely
different.
Bobby's tone was gentle, with an undercurrent of steel. Almost parental.
"Walter, don't you tell me you're planning on playing with the boy. I know the
games you like. He couldn't handle it. He's not strong enough yet."
Skinner huffed into the phone, insulted. "Give me some credit for brains,
Bobby. I live by three rules—safe, sane and consensual. Playing with Alex
might be consensual, it might even be safe. Sane? No way in hell." The seductive
purr Skinner had used on Alex two nights earlier was back. "No, I have other
plans in mind for him, Bobby."
"Just be careful with him, Walter. As much as he may try to hide it, he's
broken, and the glue hasn't set yet. Don't be stupid, all right, Tex?"
Skinner put on his best offended dignity. "I'm hurt by your insinuations. When
was the last time I did anything stupid?"
::How about making plans to take one of your subordinates to an S&M club? Would
that count?::
"Skin-Man, where would you like me to start on the list? Five minutes off the
plane in Charlie territory.... "
Merlin was not having a good week.
He flew all the way from D.C. to Northern California to track down Alex, only to
have his cover blown less than a block from the Romanek's house. He then had to
deal with the humiliation of his boss, and object of his latest full-blown
infatuation, notifying him that his cover had been blown because he was "too
noticeable in Armani" and suggesting more low-key clothing might be an
appropriate investment. His partner, JJ, made a snide comment about dragging him
to Sears for suitable stakeout wear.
Now Merlin was back in his cubicle at the Justice Department, working late on a
Friday night, catching up with paperwork, and making up excuses to avoid doing
his expense reports. His weekend loomed large and empty in front of him. None of
his regular basketball buddies were available. JJ was too busy with his newborn
daughter and wife still on the mend from her emergency C-section less than three
weeks earlier to play. Agent Otsuko was on assignment in Kansas, and Jimmy was
on vacation.
::Looks like it's my videos and me this weekend. Great. fucking wonderful.::
Merlin gave up on his expense report at 8:15, and slowly made his way out to the
parking garage, nearly deserted that late on a Friday evening. As he approached
his car, he noticed... something... stuck under the windshield. Something colorful.
A careful look around the secure parking garage revealed absolutely nothing out
of the ordinary—security cameras in every corner, lights, and cars. When he
got closer, he realized that it was a piece of bright-red paper, with something
printed on it. An ad of some sort, he theorized.
::This is a secure facility. How the hell did someone get in here to leave a
note under my windshield?::
A few more steps, and he grabbed the red sheet and looked at it more closely.
It was the latest flier from the 411, listing all the upcoming events for this
weekend. On the back, in black marker, was scrawled "11:00. Friday Night. Second
Floor. Room reserved under Sergei."
Merlin knew he was wearing a shit-eating grin, but he didn't care. Let the guys
who watch the surveillance videos wonder about him. His week was looking up.
Merlin finally made it back to his house at 3:45 AM—late even for a confirmed
night owl like himself. The endorphin rush had finally worn off, and the
prickling stings along his back and ass, he knew from experience, were just
hints of the pain that would hit the next day. He unbuttoned his shirt and shed
it on the way upstairs, leaving it draped across the banister. The shoes
decorated the top step, but his pants made it to the final round and survived
all the way to the bedroom, where they were unceremoniously dumped on the floor
next to the overflowing laundry basket. He collapsed face-down on the bed, and
was asleep before he could pull the covers up.
Whispers in his dreams.
I want to eat you up, boy, devour you, take part of me with you when I go
Rough sandpaper-velvet whisper by his ear. Merlin could still feel the man's
heat behind him, the hair on Skinner's chest and belly brushing the bruised and
battered skin on Merlin's back, the familiar tension in his arms from being
restrained above his head, the roughness of denim against the vivid stripes on
his ass.
It hurt, it hurt and it felt so good, it had been so very long since anything
had felt this good. Skinner, his boss, who poured just the right mixture of
pleasure and pain, voice like the devil himself and a swing on a suede
cat-o-nine-tails like an angel. Skinner, the consummate professional within the
walls of the DOJ building, who knew just which buttons to push, knew just how to
make Merlin scream, and cry, and finally come harder than he had in years.
Make it hurt, sir. Please. I need it
His own voice echoing, burning inside his head. Skinner and his whip and that
gaze that never wavered, that gaze he could feel through the blindfold. Skinner
who knew just how to take him apart, piece by piece, and refit him together
afterwards, breathing words into his skin, words of caring, words of comfort,
words of....
Crickets?
Merlin fought his way up through the layers of dream-gauze, squinting as the
late-morning sunlight through the bedroom window burned his eyes. That infernal
chirping was still going on, pausing every few seconds to catch its breath
before continuing it's irritating song. He tried to open his eyes into the
sunlight, realized the error in his judgment, and tried to locate the sound by
feel. His hand brushed a small, slim object that seemed to be vibrating in time
with the chirp. Resisting the urge to pitch it into the nearest wall, he palmed
the cell phone and brought it to his face, eyes still closed.
::That does it—first thing Monday morning, this new cell phone gets returned.
It sounds like a demented cricket!::
"Mulder here." Sounding as sleepy as he felt.
"I hope I didn't wake you, Merlin." Man's voice, soft, friendly. Different voice
than in his dreams. Alex's voice.
"Alex." Instantly awake. "Is everything all right?" Concern evident in his
voice.
"Ya, relatively speaking. As well as can be expected, considering I'm still on
the Colombian's 10 most wanted list. But that's not why I called." Voice
quieter, deeper. Conspiratorial. "I have questions, Merlin. And you're the only
one who has the answers."
Merlin ran a hand through his sleep-spiked hair, rolled over on the bed, and
winced audibly as the cool sheets came in contact with his bruised and battered
back. The events of the night before came back with a rush, as Merlin felt the
first flickerings of arousal.
Please fuck me, sir. Please. I need you inside me
He forcefully brought his mind back to the matter at hand.
"Sure, Alex. Shoot. I'll answer if I can."
"How did you know I was heading to my mother's house? Hell, I didn't even know
where I was going until I was halfway there."
"It just made sense, Alex. It's the same place I'd go if I found out that
William Mulder wasn't my father."
"You'd go to my mother's house?" Trying to keep a straight face, and failing
miserably.
"Alex, I don't know what's wrong with you, but I bet it's hard to pronounce. No,
you doofus, I'd go to my mother, and ask some hard questions." Slipping back
into Shrink-Mode. "Did she give you the answers you were looking for?"
"Jesus Christ, Merlin, do you charge by the hour?" Laughing voice. "If you send
me a bill after this call, I'm going to show up at your house and bitch slap you
into next week."
"You go right ahead, Alex. I'll be right here waiting."
For a moment, the only sound on the line was Alex breathing, chewing on his
lower lip.
"Merlin, can I ask you a personal question?"
"Umm, sure." Hesitant. Not sure where the conversation was going and not certain
he wanted to be along for the ride.
"You're into pain, right?"
::What the fuck? How the fuck?::
"Alex? I'm not saying it's true, but why do you want to know?" His voice came
out much squeakier than he intended.
::Alex, you're really weirding me out here. How the hell do you know what I was
doing last night?::
"Curious. Trying to figure something out in my head. I've been wondering about
it for a while. I mean, I could have asked the terrifying trio, but they would
probably taken it as a sign of interest, and that's dangerous."
Merlin took a couple of deep breaths, fortifying his courage. "The answer to
your question is yes." Trying really hard not to squeak.
"What does it feel like?"
Impossibly long, impossibly thick, frictionless, agonizingly slow in and out,
strong hands holding bruised skin, sharp spike of pain making the pleasure even
sweeter....
Merlin realized that he was still lying on the bed, naked, when his dick took an
interest in the proceedings. He glared at the offending body part, which had
absolutely no effect.
"It hurts.... at first. But it's not about the pain, at least for me. It's about
letting myself be vulnerable, letting someone else be in control. When I'm in
that zone, I don't have to do anything, don't have to be anyone. All I have
to do is let it happen. Be in the moment. Surrender to it. With the right
partner, it can be really, really amazing." Merlin was grinning like a maniac,
didn't care.
"Were you looking for me to be that right partner?" Hesitancy in his voice.
"No. Alex, don't get me wrong. I want to fuck you so hard you forget your own
name. But I know you're not into S&M—hell, right now I doubt you're into sex.
Have you even had sex since you escaped?"
"Yeah." Bitter laugh. "Complete fucking fiasco."
"Alex, even if you were interested, I wouldn't play. I don't think you're in the
right headspace to be domming—or subbing for that matter. It's still too soon,
and you're still too raw. I'd be concerned about your self-control, on either
end. The last thing a sub wants to be thinking about during a scene is whether
the dom is going to flip out and lose control. And the last thing a dom wants
during a scene is a sub having flashbacks to previous abuse. That is what this
is all about, isn't it? What Luis did to you?"
Alex rested his head on the thick, cast-iron canopy bedpost. His shoulders and
back ached from fighting uselessly against the restraints. His hands were almost
numb, tied over his head to the cross-pieces of the canopy, spread as far apart
as they could go without dislocating anything. The metal bar his head was
resting on ran down his sternum, bisected his stomach, and continued to the
floor. The canopy was ancient, sturdily built, and incredibly heavy. It neither
budged nor creaked when Alex fought like a wildcat to get out of the restraints.
That was why Luis had bound him there, standing up, arms spread over his head,
crucified, for his punishment to come.
There was no sound in Luis's bedroom, save Alex's ragged breathing, but Alex
knew he was still there. Alex could feel his presence. Watching, right out of
eyeshot. Waiting.
The noise cut through the still salt-flavored air, a quiet, sharp sound. Leather
on flesh. Alex twisted his head around so hard his neck protested, desperate to
see his tormentor, see what he was in for, but Luis was standing out of visual
range. Intentionally.
Neither man spoke, unwilling to break first. Just the sound, repeated slowly,
like a drumbeat, mocking the rapid staccato of Alex's heart.
The carpeting in Luis's bedroom was thick enough to muffle the sound of
footsteps. That was why Luis chose this room for the punishment. Alex didn't
hear him approach. The next thing Alex felt was leather, slowly, sensuously
sliding across his back, from shoulder blade to hip.
Alex flinched, tried to pull away, but the metal bar against his sternum held
him in place, and his bound arms anchored him. The necklace was pulled tight
enough to bite into the skin on Alex's neck, the implicit threat clearly
understood. Another long, slow slide of leather along his back, across his ass,
ending at the top of his legs. Alex fought back a shiver, as the rough edges
teased his skin. A belt, he was guessing.
Then it was gone, along with the constriction around his throat. Alex closed his
eyes and breathed, slowly, deep breaths, trying to slow his racing heart.
Dark, quiet voice whispering into his ear, breath warm on his neck, raising
goose bumps. Dangerous voice. Deadly voice.
"I warned you, Kitten."
Alex tried to shake his head, register a protest, but cool fingers gripping his
jaw tightly enough to cause pain stopped any further movement.
"I told you not to try to escape. I told you that actions have consequences.
Well, these are the consequences I promised you."
Little fear-jolts were detonating under Alex's skin. He held very, very still,
trying not to tremble.
The voice was back, sending shivers down Alex's spine. This was different than
before, when his father would lash out at Alex with anything handy. This
was... more controlled. Luis wasn't in a drunken rage, throwing fists, lamps, or
whatever was within arms reach.
Luis was calmly, calculatingly going to hurt him.
"For this infraction, Kitten, you get ten lashes with the belt. And you will
count them. If you refuse, or if you stop, it will keep going until you comply."
The hand remained on his jaw for another long minute, warm breath on his neck,
just.... waiting. The coils in Alex's stomach were turning tighter and tighter,
until it was almost impossible to breathe. Alex squirmed, shifted his weight
restlessly from one foot to the other. Quiet chuckle in his ear, and then,
nothing.
Alex froze; trying desperately to follow Luis's movements, track his sounds.
Would he get any warning? Would the belt whistle before it hit? Would Luis say...
A burning streak of fire across his shoulders, forcing the air out of his lungs,
pushing him into the metal bar.
"Count, Kitten."
Alex bit the inside of his cheek, clenched his eyes shut, stood very still.
Silent. Mute refusal.
Another line of fire, this time along his ass. Alex cried out, involuntarily,
then forced his jaw shut tightly. He wouldn't give his tormentor the
satisfaction of knowing that he was in pain. He had learned that lesson too well
many years ago.
"Count, Alex." Voice velvet over sandpaper.
Still, silent. Resolute.
Another lash along his lower back, this one stronger than the last two. Tears
were welling up in Alex's eyes, threatening to fall. Coppery tang inside his
mouth. The pain radiated through his pelvis, down his legs, merging with the
pain in his back.
"Count." Snarling.
Alex let out a small, breathy whimper. There was no way in hell he was going to
win this game, and he knew it.
His lungs wouldn't work, wouldn't let him get enough oxygen in.
"One." Barely more than a whisper. Alex rested his head on the metal bar.
His skin was on fire.
"Two."
Streaks across his upper thighs, making him gasp, nearly falling, painfully
pulling on his shoulders and arms as he stumbled.
"Three."
The tears were slowly falling, dripping onto the bed.
"Four."
Forcing himself to breathe, forcing his lungs to work, long, slow, shallow
breaths.
"Five."
Impossible heat burning him, melting his bones, burning like acid.
"Six"
He couldn't tell where the blows were landing anymore.
"Seven."
The pain was consuming him, eating him alive.
"Eight."
He couldn't fight it anymore.
"Nine."
Lost.
"Ten."
"That is what this is all about, isn't it? What Luis did to you?"
"Not even close, Merlin. I haven't thought about that in months."
Chapter One—Paranoia Roams
when streetlights throw crosses through window frames
paranoia roams where the shadows reign
—Marillion "That Time of the Night"
erlin's patience lasted on the long cab drive from the DOJ, into the bar, until
the beers arrived.
Right away I made my choice
**Ring** **Ring**
Staring out at the great divide.
I could go East, I could go West
It was all up to me to decide
—Bob Seger " Roll Me Away"
I'm looking in
I can see through you
See your true colors"
—Staind, "Outside"
soon to be divorced.
I helped her out of a jam, I guess,
But I used a little too much force..."
—Bob Dylan,"Tangled Up In Blue"
I don't need an excuse.
I've got some time on my hands—
You are the one to abuse."
—Days of the New, "Touch, Peel and Stand"
FROM: MKANTWEAPONS2@hotmail.com
RE: the state of the state
upon my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair...
And you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt"
—Nine Inch Nails "Hurt"
to bring me to my knees"
—Staind "Outside"
