TITLE: Bentropy Fourteen
NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: ccmcdoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: M/K
RATING: NC-17. M/K/? This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. So, if you don't like that type of thing - STOP NOW! Forewarned is forearmed. Proceed with caution. Of course if you have four arms you can throw caution to the wind, or perhaps lend one to Krycek.
SUMMARY: Entropy - chaos. Bent - not straight. 'nuff said.
ARCHIVE: Only with my permission.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist...
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: This is after everything, the season in the shower notwithstanding.
KEYWORDS: story slash angst Mulder Krycek NC-17
DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Alex Krycek, and all other X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from their use...unless you count cheap thrills. Other characters belong to me...or someone else but they left them at my house so I'm playing with them.
Author's notes: I happen to think I have a great beta. I happen to think everyone knows who my great beta is. But I am dreadful about giving her credit for all her hard work. Shame on me. Thank you, Susan...the greatest beta in all betadom.
If you like this, there's more at https://www.squidge.org/3wstop
If you didn't like it, come see me, anyway. Pet the dog.
Bentropy Fourteen
by Mik
"No."
I looked at him. "I'm afraid so." I scanned the parking lot, looking for cars that didn't look familiar. I don't know why I thought I'd know, but I looked all the same. The pleasant looking complex of faux Mediterranean buildings suddenly seemed like a fortress, or a prison. Anyone who wanted to take Peyton hostage could easily defend his position from three large windows at the front of the unit, and if he so chose, he could have a clear shot, not only of anyone coming up the stairs, but the pool area, where on that blistering August evening, a dozen kids were splashing around. A hostage taker's paradise. I could only hope that Peyton had not come back home.
I looked at Skinner. He was thinking the same thing. I could see the distaste and alarm in his eyes. He turned his attention to me. "You slept with him?"
I had to shake my head like a cartoon character. That was the last thing I expected to hear from him at that moment. "I've already told you about that. And if you'll pardon me for saying so, Mr. A.D., Sir, this really is not the time to get into it."
"I didn't realize..." he stopped and shook his own head. "You're right. It's immaterial at the moment." He leaned forward, peering up through the windshield to get another look at the complex. "Where does he live?"
I pointed. "The end unit. He's got a clear shot at everything."
Skinner made a face. "Do you have your gun?" he asked me. My respect for him increased a hundred fold at that moment. There was no discussion about backup. Skinner wasn't trying to be a superhero, just sensible. Bringing S.W.A.T. into a citadel like this could only result in a bloodbath.
I indicated my ankle. "My personal weapon. It's a Smith and Wesson. .32 caliber. It will do the job." I gave him a hapless smile. "This is probable cause, isn't it?"
"Since when has that ever bothered you, Mulder?" He was checking the clip on his Sig Sauer. "Any other weapons?"
I shifted a hip to get into my pocket and pulled out a rubberized folding knife. "This." I smiled at the irony. "Souvenir of my Hostage Rescue training." I let the 3.2 inch blade flick open. "Also Smith and Wesson. Shall we go?"
On another day, maybe in another life, Skinner would have wanted to take a closer look at the thing. It wasn't fancy. It was just serviceable and mean looking; with a Teflon coated serrated edge it could cut through almost anything, from steel reinforced rope to human bone. Instead he nodded and we went for the car doors.
We tried not to move in an aggressive or furtive manner, in a way to draw attention to ourselves. We walked to the back of the building and surveyed it. No windows, no exits, no stairs. It was either going to be in the front, or through the roof. Turning back to the gate, I felt Skinner's hand on my arm. "I need to know this now, Mulder. No matter what we find inside, are you prepared to defend yourself, give me backup, protect innocent lives?"
The question should have cut deep, but the truth was, if facts were different, I'd want to know those very things about him. "You mean, am I prepared to shoot Krycek?"
"No, I -" he stopped. He breathed deeply and shook something off. "Yes. Are you?"
"I'll never be prepared to do that," I confessed. "But I know I can if I have to." I looked up the stairs. "How are we going to do this?"
He nodded across the greenbelt. Mr. Jennings was just reaching the stairs. "Maybe we can stop it before it becomes anything." We both started to run.
Jennings saw us coming and started an ungainly assault on the stairs, slipping and scrambling. Even with his head start, we had him overtaken in the corridor, three units away from Peyton's door.
He slid to the floor, kicking and squawking. "What do you want now?" He snapped his teeth at Skinner, as if to bite him, while he was being jerked into handcuffs.
I patted him down. "No weapon."
"Weapon?" he repeated, still kicking. "Of course I don't have a weapon. Who do you think I am? Who do you think you are?"
"What are you doing here?" Skinner asked. "Why did you come here?"
"That's none of your business," he grunted. "You know, this isn't a police state, yet. People are still allowed to come and go in relative privacy and freedom."
"That's true," Skinner agreed, hauling him to his feet. "Now, why did you come here?"
"What if I don't tell you?" he challenged, jutting out his chin. "What will you do, beat me up?"
"Oh, just give me a reason," I said wearily. I reached out to right his glasses which were sitting askew on his nose and he snapped his teeth at me again. "You bite me, you asshole," I assured him, "and that's all the reason I need."
"Why don't we take this inside before someone thinks you're assaulting this man, and calls the police?"
I jerked around, recognizing the voice and yet, not. I didn't recognize the weapon right off, either. It took me a moment to see that he was holding a Walther P99, a particularly ugly, blunt nosed .9mm. With its sixteen round clip capability, it didn't take much convincing on my part to come along quietly. Even if Jennings joined forces with us and we all rushed him, he could do a lot of damage before he was incapacitated.
He seemed to understand what I was thinking and he smiled tauntingly. "You know me better than that. Do you really think this -" he gestured lightly with the gun in his hand, "- is all the insurance I've got to keep myself alive?" He backed up a step, without even bothering to look behind him, utterly confident that he was in control. "Now, come inside. All of you."
The early evening shadows moving over his face made it an almost demonic caricature when he smiled like that, and his eyes seemed darker and more intent than I remembered. I moved, more to stay close to him than to comply with his direction. I suppose Skinner shuffled Jennings along behind me just because I did move. I know I wasn't acting rationally. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing and, in some state of emotional shock, I was stumbling along dumbly, watching for some sign it was just a bad dream.
As we stepped inside, Jennings seemed to come alive again, and started screeching with new fervor. "I don't understand what's going on. You told me to meet you here. I don't know who these two are. I didn't bring them -"
"That's enough." His voice cut like a wire garrote. Then he smiled again. "You did very well, Mr. Jennings. Exactly as hoped." He backed up enough to keep us all in his line of fire before shifting the gun ever so slightly toward Skinner. "You. If you'd be so good as to remove those handcuffs?"
My eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness of the apartment and I looked around. Nothing had changed. It was still cluttered. The computers were still stacked on every available surface, but the screens were all black now, as if their work was done. Everything was wrong. I felt a flutter of panic in my gut. Something bad had happened. Very bad.
"Something bothering you, Fox?"
I jerked back to him. He'd never called me that. It sounded so foreign from his mouth. "Don't -" I bit off the knee jerk protest. "In point of fact, there is." I took two steps toward him before he leveled the gun at me. "I SAW you. You were dead. Or very close to it. How the hell -"
He was shaking his head at me. "You saw want you wanted to see, Fox. You were walking down memory lane. You were going over everything that had happened and me in that alley was just one more thing on your list. He used it to spur your romantic interest. I used it to spur your drive to find him."
"How did you -"
He shrugged. "Mich was very obliging to me, recounting the incidents of eight years ago. I had learned enough about you to realize that, unlike most psychologists, you do your best work when personally involved. I had to make you believe I was in mortal peril if you didn't find him. It's amazing just how bad a few light taps with a piece of metal can make you look, without doing any real damage."
"You son of a -"
"Easy, easy, now, Fox." He was giggling at me, the bastard! "Don't do anything stupid, or your friends here might get hurt." He gestured with the gun again. "Step back, please. And Mr. Jennings...would you be so kind as to relieve them of their guns before either of them gets any heroic notions?"
Mr. Jennings just stood there. "I don't understand..."
"You walked into a trap, Jennings," Skinner said darkly. He sent me a look that might almost have been apologetic. "And led us in right behind you."
"A trap?" he squeaked. "What are you talking about? I just wanted to warn him...and he said..."
"This is getting tiresome," Peyton said sadly, pushing between Jennings and myself. "You disappointed me, Fox. I did expect you hours ago, when you found out I'd left that hospital." He tugged my gun from my hand sharply. "Well, no matter. You're here now." He backed up, tucking my gun into the waistband of his jeans. "Now, Mr. Jennings, would you please get Mr. Skinner's gun?"
Jennings was blubbering. "I had no idea. I was just trying to protect -"
"Your motives are unimportant, Mr. Jennings," Peyton said, taking Skinner's gun from Jennings' trembling hands. "All that matters is results. You've succeeded in your task." He looked back to me. "You've brought him here. Now you've outlived your usefulness." He turned his hand just long enough to fire one round through Mr. Jennings and into the wall behind him. Jennings lived long enough to stare at him, aggrieved and indignant, before sinking back into the sofa where only a few nights before I'd ridden Peyton like a supermarket pony.
I felt that late breakfast rushing toward the back of my throat. I whirled on Peyton. "You bastard." I didn't lunge only because his gun was now aimed at Skinner's head. "You didn't have to kill him."
Peyton's smile was a travesty of that angelic grin I'd liked so much. "Why not? What use would he be to me now? He is like....batteries." He shrugged and smiled. "You don't keep batteries around when they no longer function, do you, Fox? No. You throw them away."
"Bastard," I repeated, through clenched teeth.
Skinner surprised us both by moving to a chair and dragging it around to straddle, drawing Peyton's line of fire away from me. "I hope you don't mind," he said as if he really did hope Peyton minded - a lot. "It's been a long day. Unless you want to just shoot me, although I doubt it since you went to such efforts to get us here. I have to assume our batteries are still charging."
Peyton seemed to appreciate the humor. He showed teeth as he smiled. "Oh, you are still very useful, Mr. Skinner. More than you realize." He kept his eyes on Skinner even as he addressed me. "Which of you has the keys to your car?"
I felt as if he'd shot me. No. I wasn't going to just drive off and leave Skinner there as his hostage.
Skinner lifted a finger. But not the one I would have used.
"Give them to Fox, please."
"Peyton, what the fuck is going on?" I demanded, while Skinner dug for the keys.
"I learned a great deal about the virtues of patience in doing research, Fox," he told me, nodding toward the bank of darkened computers. "Now, take the keys nicely. I've learned that if you wait long enough and keep your eyes and ears open, you find out everything you want to know." He moved around behind Skinner again, affording him another straight shot at both of us, and his Walther P99 had the capacity to go right through Skinner and make me sting, at that range. "I want to find Alexei Krycek as much as you do, Fox."
"Stop calling me that," I hissed.
"Fox, you wound me," he said with a fake pout. "After all we've meant to one another."
"What do you want?"
He smiled again, clearly triumphant. "Krycek. Dead. Oh, and I mean actually dead this time, Mr. Skinner, or you would have collected that purse instead of me."
"You ... wait a minute ..." My brain was close to exploding. "You were hired to kill him? By whom? Why?"
"Questions. Questions." He chuckled to himself. " I spent weeks trailing you around, you know. I knew you'd find him for me. When you abruptly switched destinations and returned to LA, I thought you'd heard from him and he'd waltz right into my sites if I stayed close to you. But too late I realized you didn't know where he was either. And your change of venue was setting off alarms in official places. I had to act fast. I knew Mr. Jennings' agency..." the son of a bitch actually paused to genuflect in the direction of the body, "had some kind of contact for him but I had no leverage to get it from them. However, with the proper nudge from me, your Mr. Skinner provided all the leverage necessary."
"I'd anticipated his assistance to email the agency as a member of a privacy coalition, warning them that the Federal Government was going to use Krycek's file as a test case to unseal juvenile records. He kept me updated on every single move. When he called me today and told me you two had compelled him to turn over the contact information, I urged him to meet with me so we could strategize a recourse, hoping you would follow him. And you so thoughtfully obliged."
"What. Do. You. Want?" I repeated.
"I told you. Alexei Krycek. Dead. And you're going to make that happen."
"No," I said with conviction, "I'm not."
"Yes," he nodded toward Skinner, "you are."
"No," Skinner said with just as much conviction, "he's not."
"Oh, don't be so noble, Mr. Skinner. It doesn't become you." He moved a little closer, tipping his head forward, in an almost conspiratorial manner. "Look, you want him, don't you? Of course you do, and believe me, recent experience supports your desire." He leered at me. "Let's blow off the smoke from that old flame, Krycek, and get you a clear field. Besides, Fox..." he smiled that evilly angelic smile again, "even if you could cavalierly kiss your boss and almost lover goodbye, I don't think you could be so bloodless about a complex full of families. Hmm? Could you?" He looked at Skinner. "What do you think? Could he?"
What was it he'd said about other precautions? He didn't give details. But I could supply plenty if I gave it any thought. Backup snipers, explosives, biological contaminates...the fucking bastard. "What do you want me to do?"
"Bring me Krycek. I'll trade you. New lover for old. You bring me Krycek in twenty-four hours, and without being stupid and bringing in the police, or your Mr. Skinner and several innocent people chosen at random will die."
The panic was back, threatening to drown me. "How am I supposed to find him? Haven't you been paying attention? I don't know where he is. I've been looking for him for a week, and I haven't even gotten a sniff, except to be brought back to you."
"You'll find him," Peyton said confidently. "I know you will."
"Where?" I asked desperately. "Give me a fucking clue."
"How should I know? Didn't I say you do your best work when you're personally involved? You can't be any more personally involved than you are right now." He made a gesture of impatience. "Go on now. Clock's ticking, Fox."
I gave Skinner one last look. I tried to say a million things. I think he got nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred ninety nine of them. I reached for the door and looked back. "What about him?" I asked, indicating the now defunct bureaucrat?
"He'll be fine for a day," Peyton answered cheerily. "I'll just turn up the air conditioning."
"Don't bother." I yanked the door open. "Your heart's plenty cold enough." I slammed the door hard behind me.
Despite his very explicit instructions, I sat in the car for several minutes weighing nonexistent options. Oh, sure, I could do exactly what he told me not to do and go directly to the police. The place would be swarmed, bullets would fly, and I would ultimately beat Peyton but Skinner would be dead and given the way that apartment complex was arranged, a lot of other, innocent people could end up dead as well.
Pounding on the wheel with my fist afforded me no great comfort or release. Practically feeling his eyes on the back of my neck, I started the car, and pulled away from the building, certain I was leaving Skinner behind forever. It was an unspeakably helpless sensation as I pulled out into the main stream of traffic. I didn't know how to accede to his demands, and I didn't know how to stop him carrying out his threats. What made him think I could find him any easier now than I could before? A week of searching had been fruitless and I'd had both his help and Skinner's. Now I was on my own.
I truly was on my own, and for the first time since I'd walked away from the Bureau, I had to accept just how alone I was. I didn't know where Scully was, and even if I could find her in the next twenty-four hours, I had no guarantee she could or would help me. The gunmen were gone. My family was gone. I'd never really had a lot of friends. No one inside the Bureau wanted anything to do with me now. Skinner had been my one ally and I'd left him in the crosshairs of one of the coldest, ruthless sons of bitches I'd ever encountered.
Impulsively I pulled up next to a small hardware store, and went inside.
I took my purchase back to the motel, and dumped it out on the bed. I pulled the drapes apart with a jerk, and dragged the bed table over in front of the window. I opened the package of tape and spread a big X in the window, just like old times. "It's a long shot," I told myself, turning on the lamp, "but it's all I've got."
I went to the bed and stretched out, willing myself to relax.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It took longer than I had expected, which surprised me, because I really didn't think I had any expectations anymore. But it was fully dark when I woke to the sound of something being slipped under my door. I jumped up and jerked the door open, but the corridor outside, the parking lot beyond, even the street were all deserted and silent. I backed up, picked up the envelope and shut the door. It was addressed to M. F. Luder I tore it open.
It read: Behind you.
I turned around slowly, every hair on my body standing up, in terror and tingling anticipation.
- END Fourteen -