"Well, when you do, let us know, so we can forward his vital
statistics to the Frisco PD when it'll actually do some good," Scully
said snidely.

"No!" Krycek exclaimed. "I mean, he moves a lot. I want to bring him
down while he's still in Frisco. The minute Kapustcha's name hits the
airwaves, Smoky will send him out of the country-- and you'll lose
him."

Mulder smirked. "You mean there'll be no way of us knowing where he's
gone, which leaves you twisting in the wind if he's nabbed elsewhere."

"Yeah, well, I have enough problems with Smoky as is, OK?" Krycek
whined defensively, not mentioning that he wanted Kapustcha to fry for
killing Derek.

"Then we do the next best thing," Skinner said at once. "We'll send
the Frisco PD such a detailed profile it will practically lead them to
Kapustcha's door. If anybody asks, 'Spooky Mulder' will have struck
again. And, in the meantime, Krycek can try to think up some scheme to
make Spender cut his losses once and for all. OK?"

Krycek nodded, the look of gratitude on his face radiating almost as
many candle units as a klieg light. 

Skinner felt as if his pants had shrunk. He cleared his throat and
folded his hands in his lap to hide the evidence of his arousal.
"Ahem! So, what can we tell them?"

"Aside from his name?" Scully asked. "All the other information on his
driver's licence: 6'2", 280 lbs, in his early 50's."

"Physically fit," Krycek added, "in order to dominate all those
younger men --and man-handle the corpses."

"What about a limp --you said you knee-capped him?" Mulder asked.

Krycek shook his head. "He has problems with it locking up on him
occasionally, but nothing really major. He still dances regularly."

"Right. Frequents dance clubs, gay and straight," Scully wrote. 

"Moved into the area about four months ago," Krycek added.

"What kind of work does he do for the Consortium, anyway?" Mulder
asked.

"He's currently in charge of stock piling Olien vaccine and
coordinating the research on other biological agents for use against
shape shifters and greys," Krycek said.

"So he's a molecular biologist?" Mulder guessed.

"A virologist," Krycek amended.

"OK. So he's a respectable professional, probably in the medical
field, with multi-national ties, who divorced in '93 --it probably
wasn't final till '94, though. Doesn't consider himself gay or bi,
likes to dominate docile acquaintances, is probably not having sex
regularly."

"What kind of car does he drive?" Skinner asked.

"Says here, a '99 Mercedes 380 coupe, silver," Scully answered,
reading the DMV report.

"Drives a luxury sports car," Mulder said. "And has access to a van or
SUV which he uses to transport the bodies. And he targets gay
prostitutes between 5' 11" and 6'1", 180 to 220 lbs, brunet, green
eyes, mid to late thirties, with no history of transvestitism, but
with fine features."

"Sounds good," Skinner said.

"Yeah. What would be even better, though, is to set out some
irresistible bait," Mulder said. "What about it, Krycek? You willing
to work on the side of the angels for once?"

"What?" Krycek stared at Mulder for a long beat, then he sprang out of
his chair and sprinted up the stairs to the bathroom, where he
promptly retched.

When the heaving noises and flushing ceased, but Krycek did not make a
reappearance, Mulder smirked. "There wouldn't happen to be a window in
that bathroom, would there?"

"No," Skinner answered. "And, even if there were, he's eighteen
stories up."

"Then you'd better check your closets," Mulder said unkindly, "'Cause
I don't think he's coming back down."

Skinner sighed noisily, but got up, nonetheless. "We'll see about
that." He walked upstairs and glanced in the bathroom.

Krycek was huddled on the tile floor in front of the toilet staring
glumly into the white porcelain bowl. His eyes flicked to Walter as
the AD eased inside and slouched, bracing his arm against the rim of
the matching wash basin.

"I guess there's no such thing as a free lunch, after all," Skinner
quipped as he tried to gauge Krycek's mood.

Krycek snorted with amusement despite himself, then covered his eyes
with his hands. "Leave me alone, Skinner."

"I wouldn't be a very good host, if I did," Skinner said.

"Didn't stop you from handcuffing me to a balcony all night in near
freezing weather!"

"Yeah, well.... I apologize for that, but, I really did have a good
reason for doing it, at the time," Skinner said, not wanting to admit
that he'd thought nearly freezing his prisoner was better than
punishing that tight, puckered hole with his cock, that the thought of
raping Krycek had fueled his fantasies for months afterwards. It had
also filled him with self-loathing and shame --and confusion. He'd
never wanted to rape anyone before, let alone a man. And while  he
could recall butt-fucking a few Gook boys in 'Nam, he'd passed it off
as having too many drugs, too much testosterone, and not enough
available females.

He'd never once, in the twenty-three years since, had sexual thoughts
about another man...until, if he were being completely honest with
himself, the X-Files landed in his lap. Suddenly, his fantasy plate
was full of alluring, forbidden flesh: Mulder, *and* Scully, and a
certain too green to be true blue-flamer by the name of Alex Krycek.

It was amusing, in a way. The night he'd picked up the hooker who'd
ended up dead in his bed, he'd actually been cruising for another kind
of meat. Luckily, he'd chickened out and gone to the bar instead. He
didn't even want to contemplate the kind of trouble he'd have been in
if the prostitute who'd ended up dead in his bed had been male.
However, he did wonder if Mulder would have been quite so quick to
come to his defense.

Skinner had never acted on his fantasies, of course. He was much too
disciplined to have broken the trust of his agents by sexually
harassing them --and he had to admit a few of his fantasies were
mental payback for outrageous behavior on his agents' parts. But the
rape fantasy was strictly  --as all rapes were, in the end-- about
power. He could almost sympathize with Kapustcha.

Almost. 

What he *did* do was silently thank God he *had* locked Krycek on the
balcony. Because he would have never forgiven himself for visiting
such horror on a former rape victim --triple agent or not. Moreover,
Krycek may have forgiven him for sucker-punching him and leaving him
on the balcony, but Skinner was pretty sure he'd never have forgiven
--or resurrected-- his rapist.

"You have every right to be scared," Skinner said softly. "The man's a
vicious killer, and you're his fantasy victim. It's no wonder you
don't want to get within two states of the guy, and it's no big
surprise you want him dead --any sane person would. Watching him skate
on two separate charges must have been sheer hell. It took a lot of
guts for you to bring this case to my attention. If Spender found out
you turned us onto this guy, you'd probably have another contract out
on your life. But you *did* tell us about Kapustcha, and, if you want
to walk away, no one will blame you."

"Mulder will."

"OK. No one with an ounce of compassion would blame you," Skinner
amended.

"Mulder's not interested in compassion; he's only interested in
catching Kapustcha," Krycek said. "And he's right. The only way to
insure no more innocents are killed is to use me as bait. He's
probably downstairs right now figuring out just how long he can let
Kapustcha play with me before he risks losing him."

"Mulder wouldn't do that!" Skinner defended.

"Sure he would. You all would. You *all* think I deserve to die... It
would sure make *your* life easier."

"I don't think you deserve to die," Skinner said with surprising
conviction for a man who had wanted just that only days ago.

"What?" Krycek snorted "You hear one sorry sob story and you go all
marshmallow in the knees? Poor Orfink boy."

"That's not why," Skinner said, barely suppressing a laugh. "Though I
admit it didn't hurt," he confessed. "No, call me Molasses, but I've
just figured out we're on the same side."

Krycek looked up at him suspiciously. "I'm not disabling the
nanocytes, no matter what."

"No reason you should," Skinner said reasonably.

"...I don't suppose you'd prick your finger so I could see what color
you bleed?"

Skinner laughed. "It's really me, Krycek."

"It doesn't sound like you," Krycek said.

"Yeah, well, any differences in pitch can be attributed to my finally
pulling my head out of my ass," Skinner said lightly.

"OK! That's it! I'm going to wake up, now," Krycek said and he
pinched himself. "Ow!...I'm still here."

Skinner chuckled heartily. "So it seems."

"You're still cheerful."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm in Hell."

"No, you're in my bathroom."

"I want to throw up."

"Well, this is a good place for it."

"I don't know if I can do this."

"Vomit?"

"Act as bait."

"You don't have to, Alex. You can go downstairs and waltz out the door
and never look back. I wouldn't blame you a bit."

Krycek shook his head. "Mulder's right. Even escalated he only kills
twice a year. He just killed Derek. Without me to trigger him, there's
a good chance business concerns will move him out of the area before
he feels the need to kill again. You'd have no way of knowing where he
went, which means I'd have to tell you and, if I did that, I might as
well pin a bull's-eye on my back.... If I'm going to end up dead
anyway, I may as well die making sure you get Kapustcha, right?
Just...promise me you'll kill the son of a bitch, no matter what."

"I promise," Skinner said solemnly.

"Even if I'm not around to make you?" Krycek asked, his voice
wavering.

"Word of honor: he's dead meat," Skinner vowed.

Krycek dry heaved into the bowl, yellowish bile the only thing left in
his stomach. He rested his head on the rim. Skinner thought for a
moment, then eased the rest of the way down and rubbed circles on
Krycek's back with his palm.

"Come on, let's get you downstairs and into the kitchen. A nice glass
of buttermilk will fix you right up."

"Buttermilk?" Krycek echoed skeptically. 

"It's very soothing," Skinner told him. 

Krycek threw a final glance into the toilet bowl, flushed it one more
time, then stood.

"Rinse out your mouth," Skinner instructed.

Krycek paused, then rinsed out his mouth at the basin. 

Skinner nodded and led the way downstairs. 

Krycek dogged his heels till they reached the foyer. Then, while
Skinner continued on to the kitchen, Krycek stopped to stare at the
front door. He peeked into the livingroom, locating Mulder and Scully.
If he was quick, he could reach the door, open the lock, and flee
before they could catch him. His shoulders slumped. He shuffled
forward instead. "OK, Mulder. I'm in," he said.

Mulder looked up to catch Skinner's beam of pride as he thrust a glass
of something at Krycek, who looked as hang-dog as a body could without
his face dripping clean off his bones. He took the glass hesitantly,
sniffed at it, and sipped cautiously. He made a face as if the stuff
wasn't exactly what he was expecting, yet wasn't all that bad, either,
and took another, larger gulp.

"That must have been some pep talk," Mulder remarked.

"Not at all," Skinner denied as he patted Krycek on the back. "Alex
wanted to help."

Mulder smirked. "Yeah, right." //That's why 'Alex' looks so green
around the gills.//

"Now that Krycek's aboard," Skinner continued, "we'll have to readjust
your profile and come up with a cover story for him."

"Why's that?" Mulder asked.

"Because I don't want them thinking he's F.B.I. He isn't, and he
shouldn't have that kind of authority. Besides, he's more valuable and
more vulnerable than any random agent could be. I want the PD to know
that and protect him accordingly, without alerting the Consortium that
Alex is helping us out. Using Krycek's name would be as ruinous as
using Kapustcha's," Skinner explained. "He's to be a civilian victim
who volunteered to help us catch his assailant --which is exactly what
he is-- but we'll need to concoct an assault scenario that won't give
his identity away."

"Hah!" Mulder rubbed his hands together gleefully. This was going to
be fun. "He'll have to have photos in his crime jacket, which means he
has to have been an early victim, before he stopped biting his
victims--."

"--So we can use the photos from his second assault," Scully
interjected.

"Right. But we'll have to modify his story," Mulder said.

"Why?" Krycek asked.

"Because you really *are* the object of his fixation, but you can't
have been assaulted twice or been abducted off the street. Both those
facts are too close to the real you to use without giving the game
away."

"Oh," Krycek nodded. "In that case, since Princeton was my bailiwick,
not his, you'd better move the assault to Baltimore."

"Hmm...yeah, OK," Mulder reluctantly agreed. "As for your new
identity," he smirked, "I say we name you: Percival Tucci.'"

"Percival?" Skinner repeated.

"Tucci?" Scully questioned.

"It's perfect!" Mulder insisted.

"Whatever," Krycek sighed. Let Mulder have his petty revenge.  

"Percival Tucci, male prostitute, picked up at a dance club--"

"--Make it *Groupers,*" Krycek interrupted. "That was a dance club in
the day. It's closed now. No way to check."

"OK. *Groupers* it is," Mulder accepted. "He picked you up, took you
back to his motel room, had you put on the dress and etc. You fellated
him, he fucked you, you figured it was over, went to reach for the
cash on the dresser, and he hit you with the chloroform. You woke up
in his dungeon, same as the second abduction, you got away, the cops
found you --no, you would have led them back to his lair and there
would have been too much forensic evidence...you went home...you had a
roommate, he found you in the shower, you were hysterical, he took you
to a hospital, the doctor called the cops but it was too late, you'd
washed away the evidence and you had no idea where you had been. No
crime scene, no trace evidence."

"And we can add Kapustcha's eye color to his description," Scully
said.

"Anything else we can add without being too obvious?" Skinner asked.
They all thought a moment, shook their heads. "That's it, then."

"What does Percival do for a living nowadays?" Scully asked.

"He could still be a whore," Mulder said.

"With one arm?" Krycek questioned. "No way. I'm not into rough trade.
Kapustcha scared me straight."

"So, what does a one-armed former whore do in his old age?" Mulder
queried.

"How about a mini mart clerk?" Scully suggested.

Mulder smirked. "How about a choreographer? How're your plies,
Krycek?"

"How did he lose his arm?" Skinner asked.

"Car accident," Mulder and Scully said together.

"Motorcycle accident," Krycek amended.

"OK, how about a bartender?" Skinner suggested.

"At a gay club?" Krycek queried.

"I was thinking more like a weekender's biker bar," Skinner said.

Krycek brightened. "I like that."

"I thought bikers hated gays?" Scully said.

"No, weekend bikers are business men," Skinner told her. "They're a
lot more genteel than your average Hell's Angels type biker gang."

"But could he handle mixing the drinks with one hand?" Mulder asked.

"If I can manage thug work for the Consortium, I can manage
bartending," Krycek said darkly.

"Yeah? So how *did* a cum slut like you manage to become a covert
assassin? Enquiring minds want to know." Mulder asked.

"Enquiring minds can go fuck themselves raw," Krycek retorted.

"C'mon, Alex, you can tell us," Mulder urged. "There's no way we could
hate you more than we do already."


"Promises, promises," Alex muttered. He drained his buttermilk then
held the glass in front of his eyes to watch the tiny globs of butter
clear a path through the thick milk coating the tumbler's sides.

"Come on, Alex. Whore to assassin is quite a stretch. Don't you want
to impress us with your 'rags to riches' rise to power?" Mulder
goaded.

Alex set the tumbler on the coffee table. "Be careful what you wish,
Mull-dahr," he intoned. "I had been working for the Consortium for
three years, planting bugs, doing surveillance work, low tier stuff,
when they decided that one Fox William Mulder needed a new keeper,
someone to watch his back, keep him out of trouble, steer him away
from sensitive areas. So they sent me to Quantico and told me to learn
all I could about you."

"I had you pegged as a plant," Mulder said smugly.

"Yeah, you have *everyone* 'pegged' until your dick gets interested,
then your gonads convince your paranoia it's over-reacting and you
start *pegging* us in lots more interesting positions," Krycek
sneered.

"Shut up, Krycek!" Mulder growled.

"Hey, you wanted to know," Krycek insisted. "See, what the Well
Manicured Man --I always called him The Butler-- figured, is between
Phoebe Green and Diana Fowley, you must have lost any interest in
'pegging' women, 'cause you were treating Scully like she was your
maiden aunt. He knew all about your dalliance at Oxford --with your
roommate, Richard?"

"I said, that's enough!" Mulder warned.

Skinner growled at both of them, but when neither paid heed, he put a
restraining hand on Mulder's arm and readied himself to make a full
grab. Mulder didn't even notice.

Krycek smirked and continued. "He told me that there were better ways
of controlling you. And sex *was* my speciality. I had you purring
like a kitten inside three months. If that freak Duane Barry hadn't
popped his cork, we'd've been picking out china patterns by now!"

Mulder roared and leaped over the coffee table, fists flying, breaking
through Skinner's restraining arms like they were finish line tape.
Krycek let Mulder land a few punches, before he scrunched down into
the chair, planted a foot into Mulder's mid-section, and heaved him
backwards.

Mulder landed butt first onto the coffee table, which collapsed under
him, sending leftover dip, salsa, chips, crackers, coffee mugs,
glasses, sugar, and creamer flying in all directions.

Skinner, surprised by Mulder's ferocity and Krycek's initial failure
to defend himself, rose up and snagged the soggy-bottomed agent on the
rebound, directing him upstairs and into the bathroom with an iron
grip on the nape of his neck.

Krycek sat up and yelled the conclusion of his narrative to their
receding backs. "When Old Smoky found out his little baby was banging
his former rentboy, he pitched a fit and planted the butts in my car
that blew my cover 'cause he couldn't stomach the idea of us playing
house! But he couldn't very well discipline me for doing my job --and
so well!-- so, since I'd managed to pull  he trigger on Augustus Cole
he 'promoted' me --and that's how a cum slut like me becomes an
assassin! That," Krycek added with a disgruntled mutter, "and fag of
all scut work." He looked at Scully, who was eyeing him
disapprovingly.

She huffed in warning, and Krycek, taking the hint, curled up into his
chair like a kicked puppy licking his wounds.

It hadn't taken Spender long to concoct a scheme to kill his
troublesome agent, despite the fact that Krycek had done everything 
asked of him. It was that betrayal which had awakened the awful beast 
of vengeance-at-any-cost within his breast, that had motivated him, 
and kept him alive and scheming despite a steady stream of humiliating 
set-backs, mis-calculations, and plain bad luck. He had been new to the 
game of treachery, then, but The Butler's tutelage and the seasoning of 
time had made all the difference, as the Elders at El Rico Air Base had 
learned.