Empath 
By Sonja Blue

Alex stared at the broken starling on the forest floor, his eyes
tracking the line of ants from the little bird's empty eye sockets. The
ants made a thin black line over the pale frosted ground and to the
roots of a wide red barked tree, where the ants' nest resided. Looking
back at the fragile chest of the starling, Alex felt as if his own chest
was as hollow as the bird's.

In his hand he held a letter which was one of the causes of his hollow
feelings. The letter was from his lover of three years, he had written
to tell him that on a business trip to Florida he had met a woman and
had fallen instantly in love with her in a matter of days. The wedding
was scheduled within the next month, and he hoped that he would feel
happy for him.

Alex crunched the letter into a ball with his fist and threw the
crumpled paper over his shoulder with a careless flip. Turning his tall
figure around in an abrupt twist that made his long fringe whip at his
own eyes, causing a sting. He walked in a brisk stride back to the
house, paying no attention to the crisp crunch of bird bones as his boot
came down onto the starling.

'Maybe I should take a trip to Florida and kill the bastard', Alex
grinned at the image of Greg's face if he were to shove a gun at it.
Greg had no knowledge of Alex Krycek's life as a lackey for the
consortium. He probably even thinks that Alex had never held a gun in
his life. Alex had told Greg on there first meeting that he was a sales
rep for a publishing house, and that is what Greg thought he was doing
for the entire three years he had known him.

So it was not the greatest love of his life and he was never really
faithful to Greg, but Greg was faithful in the entire three years and he
was a comfort to Krycek, somebody that was always there for him. Now
this letter informing Alex that the relationship was over left him in an
emotional lurch. He was hoping he could forget all about another man,
someone he could never have, in Greg's arms.

All because of Fox 'Bloody' Mulder, what on earth had possessed him to
kiss the neurotic twit on the cheek like that? Alex could not even
convince him self that it was a quick brotherly peck, he had hovered
over Mulder for a second too long with that kiss. For fuck's sake, he
could still recall the feel of Mulder's warm flesh on his lips.

The sudden shrill ring of his cell phone interrupted Alex's morose
thoughts. He retrieved the phone from the pocket of his jeans and
flipped the phone open with a flick of his one and only wrist. "Krycek",
his voice was a sharp bark.

"I have an errand for you" answered the voice on the other end with a
clipped British accent.

Eight minutes later Alex was putting the cell phone back in his pocket.
Entering the back door of his widespread cabin that was well hidden away
in the middle of nowhere to collect the things he was going to need for
the 'Errand', Alex's expression was what one would call thoroughly
pissed off. 'Just great! I have to rescue one beautiful, neurotic twit
of a FBI agent' he thought to himself.

Fox Mulder had got himself captured by a renegade faction of the
Consortium; they were currently holding him prisoner until they decided
what to do with him. Krycek's job was to quietly slip Mulder out of
their facility with out alerting any other government authority about
the presence of the renegade faction. Apparently the faction still had
its uses, just as Mulder still had his uses.

~~*~~

Pointhurst Pharmaceutical Facility Texas

Fox Mulder once again searched around his cell, fruitlessly looking for
any likely way to escape the glorified prison cell he was currently
occupying. The room had no windows and no door handles. As prison cells
went it was pretty decent as it had a small bathroom with shower, toilet
and was also stocked with toiletries. So he was able to keep cleaned and
shaved, actually that seemed to be the only thing that he could do in
the last approximately one and a half days since he had awoken in the
room. To say that Fox Mulder was bored would be an understatement.

Hopping up onto and making himself comfortable on the hospital like bed
with the ominous wrist and leg restraints that was in the center of the
room, Mulder thought about how he got there in the first place.


Four days ago Mulder had just started a three week vacation that was
forced on him, someone had noticed that Mulder had not took out any
vacation time for quite awhile. Day one of vacation had been dreadful,
after trying to catch up on some books he had always meant to get around
to reading at some point and then after that did not really get his
interest he watched some of his porn videos. Unfortunately the videos
left him bored as well. When it was finally at the point where he was
just lounging back on his leather couch with a beer and channel surfing
the daytime television programs he came across an old repeat of 'Oprah'.

The episode's topic was sleep terrors and other sleep disorders. It was
Dr Misha, one of the guest experts on the sleep disorders that caught
Mulder's attention. Dr Misha was a stocky man in his late fifties with
grey hair and grey short trimmed beard. Dr Misha had mentioned that he
started in the field of sleep disorders when he was stationed in
Vietnam, which reminded Mulder of the previous case relating to the
subject. A feeling of excitement was stirring within him, he had that
sure feeling that there was something there well worth looking up,
Mulder's hunch-o-meter was buzzing.

One hour later after some internet searching and a call to the Lone
Gunmen, Mulder had the current details of Dr Robert Misha, where he
lived, what type of car he drove and most important who he was employed
by which was Pointhurst Pharmaceutical. Dr Misha worked at the
Pointhurst Pharmaceutical's facility in Texas. And he still treated
people with sleep disorders. Mulder rang up and made an appointment to
see him about a little sleeping problem he was having and gave his name
as George Hale 'It is my vacation, I don't think I need to make this
official' he thought to himself as he lied to Dr Misha's receptionist.

Four days later, Mulder found his thoughts going around in circles.
Being reminded of the original case relating to sleep disorders brought
fresh thoughts of Alex Krycek to mind, it was while on that case that he
had first met Krycek. Which brought to mind the last time he saw Krycek,
when he had kissed him on the cheek. He could still feel the impression
of Krycek's lips on his cheek whenever he remembered that moment and he
thought about it a lot, even dreamed about it. In his dreams Krycek not
only kissed his cheek, he did more.


Just remembering Krycek's odour, he was pretty whiffy when he last saw
him, was already making his balls tight. Mulder pressed the heel of his
hand into his crotch and groaned in frustration as what followed desire
was guilt for feeling this attraction. Guilt because he was having
fantasies about a man that deserved his hate. It had been like this
since that night Krycek had given him a lecture, told him to get his
head out of the sand and then kissed him. Something would remind him of
Alex Krycek and then the yearning and desire would follow, which would
then be squashed by his guilt.

Mulder found that his body had unconsciously folded up, he straightened
out and leaned back against the bed's metal back frame, fussed around
with the pillows to get comfortable. As he was doing this the door to
his cell opened to reveal Dr Misha, who entered the room followed by two
huge beefy orderlies. 'Shit, this is not good' Mulder thought to himself
as he saw the purposeful expression on the doctor's face.

Mulder's eyes widened when he saw the large hypodermic needle with the
green liquid in it's plastic casing, which was in Dr Misha's hands.  "I
hope you are comfortable Mr Mulder," he was not really interested in
Mulder's comfort.

"The accommodations would be much better if you had supplied a TV"
Mulder's voice was cool, his face blank. But his body was tense.

Dr Misha displayed a little smile, "I really don't think you are in any
position to be making any demands" Mulder noticed the quick glance that
the doctor gave to the orderlies.

Mulder leapt off the bed and made a beeline for the bathroom, not the
cell door because that was the position the orderlies were coming from.
Like two huge locomotives the orderlies were on him before he made it
half way to the bathroom, not that the bathroom would have been a haven.

The orderlies had his squirming body manoeuvred over to the bed and had
him flipped onto his stomach. In his peripheral vision Mulder could see
Dr Misha moving closer behind him, he then felt cool air on his bottom
as someone pulled his sweatpants down. It was probably Dr Misha. The
orderlies had their hands full trying to keep Mulder still. Mulder then
felt the sharp sting as the needle was plunged into his side, "Fuck,
that hurt you fucker! You gonna pay for this you motherfucker!" Mulder's
voice was hoarse and squeaky with fright.




TBC

Thoughts? Ideas? A kick up the bum? sonjablue@optushome.com.au