Chapter 2

I leave the elevator and walk tiredly to my apartment, barely able to keep my eyes open. I unlock and open the door and find myself face to face with a hypodermic needle. A gloved hand covers my mouth before I can protest and I'm pulled inside with barely a whimper. My assailant soon reveals himself, though he keeps me in a tight grip, with the point of the needle against my jugular.

"Well Fox, welcome home." Krycek whispers, his voice as smooth as honey and twice as sweet.

My overnight bag is ripped from my hand and my holster relieved of its weapon before he uses my own handcuffs to secure my wrists behind my back. The needle never moves an inch during the procedure, which is completed in under a minute.

"I'll have to demand a refund from the pest controllers. They said they had exterminated all of the rats." I try to put as much force and hatred into my voice, it being the only weapon I have left.

Krycek just laughs and pulls something out of the pocket of his leather jacket. It's red and slightly shiny and very familiar.

"I brought you a homecoming present," he says, throwing the item at my feet.

It's a red Speedo... my red Speedos. I recognize the repaired elastic, tied in a knot in the back. They had gone missing about six months ago from the change rooms at the Hoover gym. After searching my locker, office and apartment without success, I had bought a new pair, but they were never as comfortable as the old ones. It had been on the day I had met Duane Barry, an event I'm never likely to forget. In a hurry to get to the crime scene, I must've left the bathers in the shower. I hadn't thought about them when I returned to D.C, having other, more serious, issues on my mind, like finding my abducted partner.

Having them turn up in Krycek's possession isn't too much of a surprise. I remember the look in his eyes as I climbed out of the pool, how they traveled up and down my body blazing with lust and carnal desire. I had suspicions from the first time we met on that sleep-deprivation case that he was gay and that he wanted to get to know me better. He was and still is in good shape although his dress-sense was atrocious back then. I know now the cheap suit and bad haircut was all part of the disguise of the greenest-of- green agents straight out of Quantico. Eager young Alex Krycek, believer in extreme possibilities and defender of Spooky Mulder. Black leather and tight denim jeans are a much better look on him, not that he'll ever hear a compliment from these lips. But I just wasn't interested in either a new partner or a lover at that stage.

"What exactly do you want, Krycek?"

"A strip show would be great," he leers as he pushes me towards the couch. "But unfortunately time is short and we have places to go, people to see."

He injects the contents of the hypo straight through my sweatshirt into my upper arm and then shoves me backwards onto the worn leather. I feel the burn of the liquid as it enters my bloodstream, wondering what the hell he just pumped into me.

"What the fuck was that?" I manage to get out before my whole body begins to tingle then go numb. Whatever it is it's fast acting. A minute later, I'm paralyzed. My body is frozen but it doesn't seem to be affecting my ability to think, see or hear.

"That was a nerve block, just a little something to calm you down." I feel anything but calm at the moment but have no way of communicating that with him. He kneels at my feet and removes my running shoes and then unzips my jeans. They're quickly removed along with my boxers, leaving me exposed and helpless. He places the red briefs around my ankles and pulls them up, his hands never loosing contact with my immobile legs.

You can add feeling to the list of things this drug doesn't affect. I can feel his leather-covered fingers stroking my skin, slowly and sensuously, reveling in the power and absolute control he has over my body. Krycek looks me in the eye the whole time, his arousal and lust clearly showing in his emerald eyes and swollen crotch.

He leans forward to raise my hips so he can slide the Speedo into position, covering my slightly parted lips with his own, his fleshy tongue exploring the inside of my mouth, his dexterous hands fondling my balls and cock (thank god it's as unresponsive as the rest of me) under the disguise of settling them in the bathing suit. If I had any mobility left, I'd bite his fuckin' tongue off, but I can only lie here as his hands and mouth caress my body.

A beeper quietly buzzes. Krycek pulls back and licks his lips. He replaces my jeans quickly, after removing the key to the cuffs from the front pocket, before pulling another needle out of his pocket. Christ, does he have a fucking drug-store in there, I wonder as he once again injects something into me.

"Just a little wake-up juice, Fox. The second dose has to be administered within 30 minutes to counteract the nerve toxin. As long as you're a good boy and co-operate, we'll be where we need to be in plenty of time."

I can feel my body slowly coming back to life but with a heaviness that makes even the smallest movement difficult. He certainly has this little escapade well planned, giving me the illusion of control that's totally false. For all I know he could take me somewhere remote and just dump me. The remaining nerve toxin will probably ensure I can't call out or even crawl for help. But somehow I know that's not his objective, that he has something else planned and there's not a damned thing I can do to stop him.

As he's pulling me to my feet, my phone rings, cutting through the silence that had descended on my dark apartment. After three or four rings, the answering machine kicks in, my voice echoing in the room.

"This is Fox Mulder. Please leave a message."

My hopes rise a little when I hear the caller, only to plummet when I hear his message.

"Mulder, this is Walter. Just ringing to let you know I won't be able to make it tonight. Blevins wants to go over budget reports in the morning and I'm way behind. I guess I'll see you Friday night at our usual place. Love you."

He hangs up, the note of regret in his deep voice unmistakable. I had totally forgotten about our date,(if you can call two guys watching a ballgame and eating pizza a date) the exhaustion from mine and Scully's latest case making me wish for nothing more than a hot shower and twelve hours uninterrupted sleep.

Skinner and I had become closer during the months that Scully was missing, closer than was safe for either of us. I had tried my best to remain detached and distant, pouring all my energy and time into searching for Scully. I didn't want anyone else to become a target for Them to use against me like they did Scully. I avoided Skinner as best I could, using any case, no matter how trivial, just to get away from the Hoover building and away from his warm, chocolate-brown eyes, so full of concern for me and my dilemma.

Sure, he had probably disobeyed his superiors when he re-opened the X-Files, but with that cigarette smoking bastard having taken up residence in Skinner's office, I couldn't be certain whose agenda Skinner was following. I so much wanted and needed someone to trust, someone to confide in, but all I could see around me were either potential betrayers or potential victims. I couldn't decide whether Skinner was the former, latter or possibly both.

I think Skinner leant more to my side of the fence by the end of that meeting, especially after he discovered that Krycek was AWOL. I tried my last card, asking what he could do about it after he told me I should let it go. Let the bastards who had abducted Scully go free and unpunished? I would have rather died than let that happen and I did my best to convey that to him, not really thinking he would go as far as giving me back my beloved files. He not only did but also gave me the emotional support I was too afraid (or maybe just too stubborn) to ask for in the next three months.

It started out just two men hanging out, shooting pool and playing one-on-one at the Y. I'm pretty sure Skinner's intentions were pure and noble in the extreme-- beat my ass on the court to take my mind off my problems and recharge my batteries. And that's how it went for the first few weeks until a particularly nasty fall twisted my ankle and he ended up dragging me up the stairs of a tiny motel into a rent-by-the-hour room and fucking me senseless. How that fall lead to the most mind-blowing orgasms of my life, I'm still not sure and, to be perfectly honest, I don't care. All I know is that he saved my sanity if not my life by not letting me pull my usual Houdini routine from the emotional and physical intimacy he was offering.

I just hope the enormous risk he took and still takes is not in vain, that this short message (that I'm playing over and over already in my mind) won't be the last time I ever hear his voice.

Friday is three days away. Will I be missed before then? I don't think so. Scully's taking a much needed vacation to visit her brother and his new wife in San Diego and will be gone for two weeks.

I had told Walter I would be taking a few days off myself. He had looked at me and asked if I was sick or anything. He knows I'm not one for vacations, with no close family or friends to spend my down-time with. I replied that an old college friend had called me about mysterious messages that were appearing on his computer. He lives in Salem, Massachusetts, in a house that had been built before the infamous witch-trials of 1692. Being a professor of English Literature he recognized the syntax and sentence structure as reminiscent of late 17th/ early 18th century English. He was almost positive it was a prank by one or more of his students, but as he knew of my interest in the paranormal wanted my thoughts on how the students could access his personal computer without his knowledge. The writer, Lukas, claimed to be living in Ken's house and writing on a strange glowing screen that had been delivered by someone or something called 2109. Ken played along with the joke for a while, replying to the many questions Lukas asked. Then strange chalk messages began appearing on the stone floor of the living room that Ken was in the middle of renovating, scaring the living daylights out of him and his girlfriend. Anyway, I needed a break so I told him I'd drive down Wednesday morning but had to be back in DC by Friday afternoon. When I don't show up in Salem tomorrow, Ken will probably assume I got called away on an urgent case. I don't think he will raise any alarms. I've had to cancel previous visits on very short notice, sometimes not calling to apologize until days after.

So Walter won't be expecting to see me until the truck-stop that is our meeting place on Friday night. He will probably phone me after waiting half an hour or so. He should then either drive up to his cabin, thinking I might have gone up there early or drive back to Alexandria to see if I'm still at home. There will be nothing for him see at the apartment anyway. Krycek picked the lock to gain access, there's no visible sign of any struggle and he wore expensive looking leather gloves, so no prints will be found. That won't stop Walter going over every nook and cranny with a fine tooth comb, bless his heart.

By the time I realize that I'm in deep shit with no hope of a quick rescue, Krycek has me out of the building and into a car, an old Ford I think. He lays me down on the wide back seat, my face towards the back, the smell of old vinyl and dust thick and suffocating. He secures my cuffed hands to a seatbelt with rope and ties my bare feet to the handle of the door behind the driver's seat. He affectionately ruffles my hair, places a quick kiss on my sweat-covered cheek and covers me with a smelly old blanket. I'm hidden from view with no way of seeing where he is taking me or alerting anyone that I've just been kidnapped.

END OF CHAPTER 2

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The case Mulder talks about involving messages appearing on computers in based on a real event that took place in the mid-80's in Wales and is detailed in the book "THE VERTICAL PLANE" by Ken Webster.

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 3