TITLE: Bentropy Eight
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:
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 Eight
by Mik
"No."
He didn't even give the photo a second look. He just met my eyes confidently and denied all knowledge.
Skinner and I had put a lot of effort into cropping and enlarging the screen grab image so only Krycek's empty, expressionless face was visible. I would have appreciated if the jerk behind the counter had given it a little more than a token glance. But this guy had Bureaucrat stamped all over him in bright red letters and he wasn't even going to admit that there might be a person behind that piece of paper.
"Thanks for your time," I sighed, not meaning a word of it, and reached across the counter for the photocopy.
Skinner stayed my hand with one of his while he flashed his badge with the other. "Perhaps, if you took another look..." he suggested in a gentle voice that was not really gentle at all. "A closer look?"
The man, Mr. Jennings, was the only one who had been with the agency long enough to have any memory of a young Alex Krycek. He gave Skinner's badge more study than he had afforded the picture and then with the air of one having been greatly put upon, pulled the paper back to his side of the counter. He let his eyes drop to it and then up to mine. "No," he repeated.
"Krycek," I coaxed, my fingers on the other edge of the paper so he couldn't push it back. "Alex Krycek."
I think that shook some dust loose. There was a flicker of something behind his emotionless blue eyes. His lips pursed together tightly, however, as if to prevent any words from getting out. Skinner saw it as well, and leaned forward enough to violate personal space. "That name reminds you of something?"
"I'm not saying it does," Jennings answered quickly. "And it doesn't matter, regardless. Our agency does not give out confidential information regarding minors...regardless who is asking," he added reproachfully.
"Then he did come through this office," I said, feeling a rush of something...triumph perhaps. It had been a long dry spell and even the spittle of his indignation was welcome. I schooled the grin from my face and looked at him expectantly.
"That, sir," he said coldly, "is confidential."
"Surely not after all this time..." Skinner said with his best Bureaucrat-to-Bureaucrat smile. "Can't you at least give us an idea of how long ago..."
Jennings shoved the picture back to me, wrinkling it against my fingers. "Nothing. The records are sealed."
I wanted to reach across the counter and grab him by his uglier-than-anything-I've-ever owned tie but Skinner stopped me with his confident smile. "For the moment," he murmured. "But I won't have any trouble getting a court order to change that. Why don't you save us both some time and tell us now?"
"Because you don't have that court order yet," Jennings pointed out.
Skinner's smile didn't falter, but his eyes went black. "Give us a little time and who knows what kind of court orders we'll come back with." He nudged my arm. "Agent."
That seemed to spook our Mr. Jennings. "We're a private agency," he hollered after us.
"And therefore not as likely to be protected by government red tape," Skinner answered as we reached the door.
Jennings could not let us have the last word. "More than you think, Mr. F.B.I., since it was your agency that sealed the records."
Skinner and I exchanged looks. What the hell did the Bureau know about Alex?
Skinner regained his confident smile and nodded to Jennings, pulling the door open and letting me precede him.
I was bouncing on my toes as he came around the corner behind me. "Call someone...you must have strings to pull." I was practically tugging on his sleeve like a five year old who had spotted Santa at Macy's. "Get those records -"
"Easy, Agent, easy," he murmured, putting a hand on my shoulder.
"Damn it, Skinner, don't 'easy, Agent' me. I know you've got -"
He was turning me bodily, so that I could look down the stairwell and into the parking lot. From a side door of the building, Jennings was marching out to his car.
"What the hell ..." I muttered, shrugging off Skinner's hand. "I wonder where he's off to in such a hurry."
"Want to find out?" Skinner offered.
I dug for my keys. "Why, yes, I do," I answered.
"How long has it been since you surveiled someone in a vehicle?" he asked as we nudged and bumped each other trying to get down the stairs.
"Not as long as it has been for you," I retorted, trotting out to the asphalt. "I was still at Quantico the last time you tailed someone."
The look on his face was enough to make me wonder. About a lot of things. "You think?" He reached for my keys.
I didn't have time to analyze what the look meant. I shook it off. "Stop arguing." I pointed toward my rental. "Get in. He's getting away."
Skinner snatched the keys from my other hand. "Then let's go get him."
I've ridden with Skinner before. It's never a pleasant experience. The man truly believes in total concentration on the driving conditions. No radio, no conversation. Usually just his rigid posture, five point eye movement, and safe operation at all times. I personally would have been on sidewalks, mowing down pedestrians and cutting off metro buses. Not him. He proceeded only at the safest speed and didn't even blink when our Mr. Jennings started accelerating and changing lanes.
"Shit," I said with some feeling, "he's made us." I fumbled for my cell phone. "Call someone. Get some backup."
Skinner turned on his signal, checked over his shoulder and eased into another lane with all the urgency of a cat in a sunbeam.
"Skinner...damn it, Walter!" I hit the dashboard in frustration. "Can you forget you learned to drive from an elderly Presbyterian woman, and follow the bastard?"
"I will not endanger lives, Mulder," he told me curtly and turned the corner more delicately than that same cat stalking dust bunnies.
"I will fucking endanger yours if you don't..." I stopped and scanned the street ahead. "Damn it...where is he?"
"Two blocks up, second lane," Skinner answered evenly.
"Then catch up to him," I commanded.
The light ahead turned yellow. Skinner could have sailed through it, hell, he had the authority to boss the intersection if he wanted to, but he gently braked and brought the rental to a stop. And Mr. Jenning's car disappeared in the traffic ahead of us.
I sat there fuming. A million words my mother would slap me for saying started a log jam in my throat. The only sign that Skinner might be disappointed by this turn of events was a slight tapping of one fingertip on the wheel. "Well, we lost him," I managed coldly.
He sighed. "We had no probable cause to pursue him, Mulder."
"No? What about him haring out right after we threatened to get the records unsealed? That sounds like probable cause to me."
"Which is why you never rose above Special Agent." He twisted his hand in front of me, showing me his dependable Timex. "It's twelve twenty...perhaps it was merely his lunchtime and we delayed him so he was rushing to make an appointment."
I pushed his hand away. "So, why did you even bother to point him out to me?"
He lowered his eyes. I swear color came up on his cheeks. "Because it didn't occur to me before now."
"I don't believe you!" I shouted. I reached for the car door and looked back at him. "You don't want me to find him, do you?" I pushed the door open, not waiting for his response. "I need some time alone." I climbed out just as the light changed, and had to stand still a moment to negotiate traffic to the curb. I could hear him call my name, but I ignored him and hit the sidewalk and started to walk. I had no idea where I was, or where I was going but I saw people in business suits, carrying briefcases, so I knew I'd find a Starbucks someplace, and that was just fine with me. The walk would give me time to let off steam.
The bastard. Why was he even bothering to put on an act? Why didn't he just say 'fuck you' and walk away when I told him how things were? And why did I tell him? Why did I confess things to him I hadn't even admitted to myself?
Before I was forced to contemplate answers to any of those questions, I found a Starbucks. I ordered a coffee, bought a paper and slumped in an uncomfortable teak chair that was meant for dainty little students and secretaries and others under five feet five. Feeling belligerent toward the entire world, I hooked another such chair with my foot, and dragged it close enough to get my feet out of the aisle. Ignoring the annoyed glares of people in line who saw their last hope for a place to sit down disappear when I appropriated a footstool, I buried my nose in the paper, and ground my teeth. Damn it, damn it, damn it.
A few moments later, the chair was jerked out from under my feet.
Crumpling the paper down I started an angry protest, only to look up and see him settling down, a huge, frothy mug in one hand, a plate with two pastries in the other. How does he do it? I wondered, feeling compelled to sit up straight in his presence. He's bigger, bulkier than I am, and he doesn't look ridiculous in these chairs. "You found me," I muttered.
He shrugged and pushed the plate toward me. "It wasn't hard. You didn't know how to get to Jennings until we get the court order, you don't know how to get to Krycek without him..." he paused, "...the only thing left was coffee. Fortunately, I only had to case three Starbucks to find you."
I glowered at him. Who gave him the right to know me so well? I shifted the glower to the plate. "What's this?"
"Maple oat scone. One thing they do well, universally. Help yourself." He took a healthy bite from one of the thick brown triangles.
I looked at his cup. "What's that?"
He chewed and swallowed, looking satisfied. "That, Agent, is four shots of espresso and steamed water, with one inch of nonfat milk foam."
I glanced at my doubled paper cup. "A foamy Americano," I murmured.
He arched a brow. "Yes."
Was there nothing left of my life that wasn't in a file in the Bureau archives? "Why ... how ..." I stopped. "Who told you?"
"Told me?" He took another bite and a small sip of coffee. His tongue flicked over his upper lip for traces of milk. My eyes followed his tongue. "I heard someone order one, once." He paused, as if trying to recall whom. "Anyway..." he shrugged, "it sounded good. And it was. Have you ever had one?"
I turned my cup slowly so that he could see the marking on the side of the cup.
He smiled. That's all he did.
I smoothed the newspaper out in front of me, wondering why I still felt agitated, but the agitation seemed to have changed in scope and source. "So, what do we do now?" I asked the sports section.
"We have our coffee, go back to the hotel and make a few phone calls, then meet up with your friend at the bar."
His behavior throughout the day, underlined by that air of supreme confidence, irritated me, and yet, there was an underlying sense of comfort there, a sense that Daddy was here to take care of things, and now everything will be all right. And that irritated me even more. I refused to show interest in anything but how the Dodgers were once again playing themselves out of a pennant. "Oh? Who are we calling?"
"Try the scone, Mulder, it's good." He nudged the plate toward me. "We're going to see about getting those records unsealed. It's going to take a court order, I'm sure, so we need to get that taken care of right away. And I'm going to see if we can make a case for surveillance of Mr. Jennings."
I looked up sharply. "What happened to no probable cause?"
"We don't need probable cause to surveil, Mulder," he said around the last of his scone. "He admitted knowledge of Krycek."
I broke off a piece of my scone and sniffed it. "How are we going to sell surveillance of a guy we think is going to lead us to a guy the world believes you already made dead?"
For the first time he didn't look so confident. "I don't think it will be a problem," he answered carefully.
I sat back in that too small chair, but ignored the way it pressed uncomfortably against my back. Things were starting to become less and less murky. "So, you were aware he was out here," I concluded. "When I didn't go where I was supposed to go, you came out here to see if I'd connected with him."
He pursed his lips and looked into his cup. "Yes," he said heavily.
Damn it, I knew it! "And I'm supposed to trust you to help me find him?" I challenged, throwing the piece of scone down on the table.
He surprised me. He met my eyes. There was heat in his. "Yes."
"Why should I believe you?"
The heat didn't cool. "Because you need to find him." He pushed the plate toward me again. "You need to find him to find out you don't really need him."
I felt that heat all the way down my spine.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Mulder."
I'm not sure when I fell asleep. I vaguely remember stretching out on one of the beds while Skinner sat on the edge of the other, making phone calls without bothering to share outcomes with me. Every time I asked him what was going on, he'd put up one hand, frown as if he was hearing something he didn't like, and mutter something like, 'Well, you can fix that'. So, I fell asleep.
"Mulder?" His hand was firm and warm on my shoulder. I felt his weight as he sat down beside me. "Mulder ... wake up."
I turned, snorting, and rubbed my nose. "Huh?"
"Come on, Sleeping Beauty. We got the records unsealed." Even in my foggy mental state I was aware that he was pleased with himself. "They'll be serving the subpoena before close of business today."
I felt a little charge of adrenaline and started to move. "Let's go -"
His hand kept me down on the bed. "No, we're letting the local office handle it ... better that way. Nothing ex officia." His hand squeezed. "We'll be getting a look at the records in a couple of hours."
I rolled onto my back and looked up at him. He looked a lot bigger from this angle. My heart was still settling down, and I was still trying to get parts of my brain to wake up, so I looked at him, stupid and silent, and wondered what the hell I was supposed to do next.
He did it for me. He leaned down and kissed me. It wasn't one of those kisses that sends alarms to all your extremities, but I still had to struggle with an urge to hang on. Fortunately, my brain was too muddled to actually send direction to my hands, so they stayed at my sides, and I did nothing but let him kiss me. Well ... that and go up in smoke inside.
He broke the kiss after a minute, and sat back. He wasn't looking so pleased. He avoided my eyes. "I shouldn't have -"
"No, it's okay." I got word to one of my hands and it kind of flopped on his arm and stayed there. "Really."
He looked down at my hand. His mouth was doing that tense thing it does when I've pushed him beyond all reason. He looked over at the phone on the table between the two beds. He sighed. He looked at me again. "He's going to hurt you, you know."
I nodded. "I know."
He sighed again. He looked down at the bed covering, and tugged on an errant thread. "But you have to have that pain, don't you?"
And there it was, my universal truth. Krycek needed me to wound him physically, but God knows I needed Krycek to drive that stake through my heart one last time. I swallowed back uninvited tears. "Yes."
He worried at the thread for a moment, 'til it broke in his big hands. "Then, I guess I might as well have some of my own." He kissed me again.
This time he held me down. This time he invaded me, sucking, swallowing, biting, consuming. I didn't struggle. I gave in to him. Let him put his big body over mine, let his determined tongue search my mouth. I think I even moved against him, encouraging him. I wasn't sure where we were going, and why I was willing to go along, but I wasn't resisting. I was ready to take the wheel, set the sails, aim for the stars.
His hands came around my face. "Do you know," he demanded raggedly against my mouth, "how much I want to do to you?"
I don't know when I started clutching his shirt, but at that moment my hands stilled against him. His words terrified and electrified me. "I...don't..." And yet, I did.
"I know, I know." His mouth was fixed just under my ear. "I shouldn't be doing this," he muttered, his hands going for my collar. "This is crazy."
I felt the buttons of my shirt go, popping between us. I felt his hands on my chest. I squirmed and grasped at him and tried to form the right words but my mouth was too busy groaning with pleasure.
He pushed my shirt open and pulled back just enough to look at me. He shut his eyes hard. "Out of my mind," he assured me and swooped in for another assault on my mouth, his fingers pinching and twisting my nipples, making me scream against him.
It was the hurt that made me think of all the nights Alex had been under me, taking whatever I delivered, the sound of his pain laced pleas for more going right to my balls. I could feel his erection against my thigh and knew that I was giving him that same sense of sexual power. I twisted away from his kiss. "No."
"No," he repeated and shifted slightly to the side, still holding me down, but making my body more easily accessible to his hands. He pressed one palm over my crotch and rubbed against my erection. "I won't hurt you," he whispered harshly. "Ever."
"S - Skinner..." I was pushing my hips up to his hand even as the rest of me was trying to pull away from him. "Don't you un...under...ohhhhh, don't."
He held me still. He lifted his eyes and met mine, and the madness was gone. "I won't hurt you," he repeated firmly. "Until you want me to."
- END Eight -