The fax hit Mulder's desk at 4:35 Friday afternoon. By 4:45, he was
pacing outside of the A.D.'s office, waiting for clearance from Kim
to enter, the closest thing Skinner would ever get to his own air
traffic control.
After the last of the parade of suited Accounting types disappeared
down the hall, Mulder slid in front of the massive mahogany desk and
dropped the fax, fingers scorched like it was soaked in acid.
Skinner looked at the piece of paper in front of him. One bad still
from a surveillance camera, with a few sentences scribbled
underneath. Absolutely normal, run-of-the-mill crackpot stuff.
Standard fare for the head of the X-Files.
Except that the still photograph was of Mulder's ex-lover and worst
nightmare.
Alex.
Noon Saturday. Sculpture Gallery on the Mall. North-facing benches.
"What the hell game is that rat-bastard playing?" Skinner spoke to no
one in particular.
"Alex didn't send this." Certainty in Mulder's voice. Dead certainty.
"Not his style."
Jealousy prickled along the back of the larger man's neck. "And what,
pray tell, is Krycek's style?"
Mulder looked up from the photograph and flashed Skinner a gentle
smile.
::I'm here. With you. He's my past, but you're my future::
"Alex wouldn't be as indirect as faxing something to my office. He'd
just break into my apartment in the middle of the night and hold me
at gunpoint while he ranted and spoke in riddles. That's his style.
This," he tapped the fax sheet with his index finger, "is from
someone who wants to talk to me about Alex."
"Could be a set-up." Trying to keep the green haze out of his line of
vision, push the jealousy monster back into its little box.
"Could be, but I'm going."
"I'm doing back up." No room for argument.
Another heartbreaking smile. "I was hoping you would. Take me out for
breakfast beforehand?"
Saturday dawned clear and cold, but the low-pressure front promising
snow stalled over the Carolinas. The frost-thick grass crunched under
Mulder's feet as he walked across the Mall towards the National
Gallery. A few brave, intrepid tourists were making the pilgrimage
through the culture capital of the city, but the Mall was mostly
deserted.
In front of the Gallery were dozens of large pieces of sculpture,
arranged in a garden setting, complete with metal benches for quiet
seated contemplation. The Hirschorn Sculpture Gallery.
Mulder looked up at the sun, shining brightly through a cloud-free
blue sky, oriented himself north, and found a bench. 11:50.
11:55.
12:00.
12:05.
At 12:07, Mulder was seriously contemplating hieing himself somewhere
warmer—like the freezer section of his local supermarket. His butt
was frozen. His hands were cold. His ears were cold. And his contact
still hadn't shown up. Maybe it was a prank. Maybe it was a test.
Maybe he was getting frostbite...
A moment later, someone walked around the bench and sat next to him.
Young man, maybe 23 or 24. Face like an angel. Wavy brown hair,
perpetually threatening to fall in his eyes. High cheekbones, big
brown eyes fringed by the longest lashes Mulder had ever seen.
Sitting very still, but something about him was in constant motion,
monitoring the surroundings. This careful awareness of everything
that happened within thirty feet was at odds with the air of
vulnerability that radiated off him.
"Agent Mulder?"
"That's me." The young man didn't offer his hand. Mulder didn't
either.
"My name is Gabriel Cohen. Thank you for meeting with me today on
such short notice."
Words polite, but short. Clipped. Still monitoring. Trained to
monitor. Secret Service? Maybe, but more likely a product of the
police academy.
"You're a cop." Not a question, a statement of fact.
Gabriel looked startled, then pulled out a narrow black wallet and
handed it to Mulder, flipping it open as he passed it. Police badge.
ID. Detective Gabriel Cohen, NYPD, assigned to Major Case Squad in
the Bronx.
Mulder examined the photograph carefully. He wanted to examine the
man sitting next to him, but this was safer, less likely to spook.
Same hair as in the video. Same curve of the jaw. Same full mouth.
::Krycek, what the fuck did you do?::
"Big bald guy over there—is he with you?" Leaning over
conspiratorially.
Mulder glanced over to one of the benches on the far side of the
garden. Skinner was planted there, wearing his sheepskin coat,
reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee, not even sparing a
look in their direction.
Nodding. "That's Walter. He's my..."
::Partner? Lover? The best thing that ever happened to me?::
"It's none of my business." Closed off voice, but that haunting,
vulnerable look in his eyes. "You might as well call him over here.
That is, if you're convinced that I'm not an axe murderer."
"Relatively convinced, at least." Mulder smiled, a warmth that was
not reciprocated. He gestured to Skinner, who quickly folded his
paper and jogged over to join them. Mulder introduced them with a
minimum of words.
"It's colder than a witch's tit out here, Detective. Any way we could
reconvene this meeting in a warmer locale?" Mulder was clutching
Skinner's cup of coffee, trying to retain any bit of warmth seeping
through the Styrofoam. Skinner blew on his hands, stamping his feet.
Gabriel shook his head. "It's safer out here. Less ears. Anyways, I
won't take up much more of your time."
"I'm assuming this meeting has something to do with Alex Krycek."
Gabriel looked blank. "Who?"
Mulder sounded annoyed. "Alex Krycek. The man in the picture.
Detective, it's too cold to be out here playing games with you..."
Gabriel started to laugh, a dark, quiet sound, as he stared off
towards the White House at the far end of the Mall. "Figures.
Son-of-a-bitch lies to me about everything else. Why should he tell
me the truth about this?"
Skinner and Mulder exchanged a complicated look. This conversation
was spinning in a direction neither had expected.
"What name did he give you, Detective?" Skinner, in his best
'Let's-Wrap-This-Meeting-Up' voice.
The young man pulled himself up, looked Skinner straight in the eye.
"The only name he ever used around me was Rafael. Occasionally
shortened to Rafe. That was one of the things I came here to discuss
with Agent Mulder. I need information on this Alex..."
"Krycek." Mulder supplied the last name. "What information do you
need, Detective?"
Please, Rafe....please don't make me do this...
Jaw set in a hard line. "I need to know who he works for."
Another complicated look passed between Skinner and Mulder. "I'm not
sure what you mean, Detective..." Mulder started.
"Who pulls his strings. Who he reports to. What country's security
organization he does his dirty deeds for."
"Detective..."
Gabriel's eyes were wide, sparking with anger and just a hint of
fear. "Dammit, does Rafael work for the KGB or not?"
"The answer to that question is no, Detective." Skinner's command
voice. "Alex Krycek is persona non grata in the former Soviet Union.
If he showed up there, he'd be executed on sight."
"Then who? One of the other former iron curtain countries?" Voice a
little too loud, a little too intense. Scared. "Who does he work
for?"
"No one." Mulder, quietly. "He's on his own. Anything he's doing
right now he's doing for his own benefit."
Gabriel was up, pacing in front of the nearest statue. "That doesn't
make any fucking sense! If he's not doing this for the Russians, then
it's got to be someone. Why the hell else..."
"Detective." Gabriel froze at Skinner's bark. "Sit. Down. Now."
Gabriel complied, mouth closed, jaw clenched, face red with cold and
other darker emotions.
Skinner continued. "What dirty deeds in particular is Alex Krycek
doing?"
Gabriel looked away, at the frost-encrusted grass, at the few
dried-up brown leaves that remained, glistening in the cold sunlight.
One deep breath, then a hard swallow, as he pulled his courage
together.
Looking Skinner in the eye for the first time. "He's blackmailing me."
Skinner didn't break his gaze. "What does he have on you, Detective?"
Gabriel looked down, studied his feet for a moment, hands clenched in
fists under the leather gloves.
"He unearthed some irregularities in my background."
Skinner's voice went cold. "So you falsified your application to get
into the Academy. What were you covering up, Detective?"
Gabriel met Skinner's glare, glacial for glacial. "I falsified
nothing. I got into the academy the same way I got my badge—through hard work and a hell of a lot of sweat equity." Words spat
through clenched teeth. "I am a damn good cop and there is no way in
hell that I will let you, or Rafael, or anyone else steal that from
me." Turning away from Skinner towards the smaller man, starting to
stand up. "I won't take up any more of your time, Agent Mulder. Thank
you for meeting with me."
"Gabriel." One arm across his wrist, gentle hazel eyes on his face.
"Please don't leave. I want to help you, but I can't unless you talk
to me."
Gabriel stood very still, closed his eyes for a long heartbeat, took
several deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. Opening his eyes,
he blinked at the bright winter sunlight. "All right. I'll stay."
Soft smile. "Thank you. Now can we please go someplace warm? I'm
freezing my tokis off out here!"
"Can we please try this again, Detective?" Skinner, in what Mulder
recognized as his best contrite voice—the closest he would come to
an apology. "What is Krycek blackmailing you with?"
Gabriel looked around the small luncheonette, then back to his cup of
coffee, searching for answers in the swirl of creamer, white on brown
holding the solution.
Quiet voice. No inflection whatsoever.
"I'll spare you the gory details, and give you the Reader's Digest
Condensed Version." Long pause, while he stirred the coffee. "When I
was thirteen, I killed a man."
"Who was he?" Mulder, voice nearly as quiet.
"My father."
No one at the table said anything for a few moments, as the pie
arrived and coffee cups were refilled.
"I spent six months in Juvenile Hall. When I got out, I had a new
family, new name, new hometown. I haven't seen my birth mother or my
sister since then." Cold smile. "In four years, I went from ten
dollar blow jobs to graduating with honors and a scholarship to
Brandeis."
"Background checks don't go back past the age of sixteen, do they?"
Skinner, sampling the blackberry cobbler.
"Nope. Even if they had, they wouldn't have found anything
interesting. Gabriel Cohen has lived a very boring life."
"Who had the interesting life?"
"Dmitri Vassilev. But his juvenile records were sealed by court
order when he turned sixteen."
"Doesn't take much to unseal those records. A fifty slipped to the
right clerk at the right time, and they're all yours." Another bite
of blackberry cobbler. "By the way, what district do you work in?"
"Williamsburg/Crown Heights." A slight grin played around the edges
of Gabriel's mouth. "Where else would you put a cop who's fluent in
Russian, German, Hebrew and English?"
Skinner looked up from his plate and the remnants of his cobbler,
surprise written across his handsome face. "Fluent in four languages,
and a graduate of Brandeis? Hell, I can think of six departments in
the FBI that would be salivating over that resume."
Pain flashed behind Gabriel's brown eyes, and then disappeared.
Skinner did some quick calculations.
"That's why you're here in town, isn't it, Detective? That's why you
needed the answers to those questions. Somebody wants to interview
you."
Another deep breath. "Several some bodies. Two meetings yesterday,
another on Monday. That's why I need to know who pulls Rafael's
strings. If he is working for the Russians, I won't let myself get
within ten feet of classified information. I won't set myself up for
that kind of fall."
"What is he blackmailing you for currently, Detective?"
Gabriel looked away, stirring his coffee, fascinated by the cracks
in the linoleum countertop, pretending not to have heard the question.
"He's blackmailing you for sex, isn't he?" Mulder's quiet voice cut
through the background lunch rush chatter.
You're so beautiful like this, Gabriel—all open and wanting. Like
a debauched angel.
Long pause, then a sigh. "Yeah.' Almost inaudible. Gabriel ran his
fingers through his hair, pushing the bangs out of his eyes. "It's
such a fucking mess."
"Talk to me." Pleading. "I...we might be able to help."
"I don't know what he wants. I don't know why he's doing this, why he
targeted me. I have nothing—no access to classified information, no
leverage with anyone important. I'm pretty much your average nobody
cop. The only secrets I know are about my own department, and believe
me, Rafael knows way more police secrets than I do. He's let me in
on a few of them that would curl your hair. Hell—he knows my
schedule before I do."
Another deep breath, and a drink of coffee. "The first couple of
months were just...awful. Rafe would show up every couple of weeks,
always in the middle of the night. He'd beat the crap out of me, take
what he wanted, then leave me to clean up the blood and broken
furniture. I'd show up for work with black eyes, ligature marks,
bruises, you name it. No one ever asked, or seemed to notice. Even
the time he beat me so badly I ended up in the hospital with four
broken ribs..." His eyes went shiny, and he looked away, blinking
back the tears.
"Then I had the worst week of my life."
"What happened?" Mulder looked at him, head cocked, studying.
Calculating.
"On Monday, my partner, Chris O'Rourke, failed his random drug test.
On Tuesday, he got suspended. On Wednesday..." Hard swallow, teeth
clenched, mouth set in a firm line. "On Wednesday he put the barrel
of a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger."
When the roof door clanged shut behind Gabriel, the whiskey bottle in
his hand was full.
By the time the other man arrived, there were only two inches of
amber liquid left at the bottom.
Gabriel didn't know how many hours he spent up on that roof, watching
the moonrise, drinking, pacing, and screaming out his anger at the
gods. When the other man silently crept across the trash-strewn roof,
Gabriel was standing by the edge, looking down on the busy street
fourteen stories below.
The night air shimmered with thick concrete-reinforced city heat. The
sounds of car horns and occasional voices quieted by the distance to
a distant hum.
"...Just another fuckup in a long line of fuckups, Chris. But this
one you can't lie, charm, or sweet-talk your way out of. Not that you
won't try, I'm sure. You're up there right now, glad-handing St.
Peter himself..."
"Gabriel."
He froze. He knew that voice, knew the way it burned down his back,
pooling at the base of his spine.
"Keep your hands where I can see them, and turn around slowly."
::fuck fuck fuck fuck::
His revolver still tucked under his T-shirt. Backup in the ankle
holster. Neither close enough that he could get them out without
getting perforated. For only having one arm, the other man was a
crack shot. The E.R. had already dug two of his bullets out of
Gabriel's flesh.
Gabriel held the whiskey bottle to his mouth and quickly swallowed
the last dregs, wincing as it stung on the way down. Carefully,
unsteadily, he turned around, into the glare of the sodium lights.
Into the green-eyed gaze of his nemesis.
His controller.
His one-armed demon.
Rafael.
Gabriel didn't bother to hide the hatred in his eyes. "You
son-of-a-bitch." Carefully enunciated venom-filled voice more deadly
than a rattler. "You couldn't even wait for his body to cool before
you showed up to stuff my ass. I guess I should be grateful that you
didn't bend me over his coffin at the viewing."
No effect, not even a blink.
"Put your guns on the ground. Now. You know the drill."
"Go fuck yourself."
"Now, Gabriel. I won't give you another chance."
"Whaddaya gonna do, Rafe?" Words starting to slur. "Ya gonna kill me?
Shoot me in the heart and leave my body up here to rot? Nobody'll
find it for weeks." Walking slowly, trying to control the concrete
roof weaving under his feet, brown eyes locked on Rafael.
"You think you have the stones to shoot me, Rafe? I don't." One step
closer, then two. "Go ahead. Show me." Three steps. "Shoot me. Do it,
you cocksucking son-of-a-bitch." Four steps, and he was right in
front of the larger man. "Do it. Shoot me." Screaming, eyes wild. "Do
it! DO IT!"
Gabriel was prepared for the muzzle flash, for the sharp punch of a
bullet entering his chest. He was ready to bleed. Ready to die. He
wasn't prepared for the speed of the older man, tackling him,
slamming Gabriel's head into the concrete roof, then grabbing him by
the hair and slamming his head down again.
The blackness and the buzzing in his ears slowly receded, but his
back was still pressed up against something hard and uncomfortable.
When Gabriel finally pried his eyes open, he was sitting on the
filthy roof, leaning against the metal door to the stairway, his
hands cuffed behind his back.
::Arrogant fuck used my own cuffs on me. Again::
"That wasn't very smart, Gabriel."
Gabriel shrugged, making his head throb painfully. "What can I say—you never gave me much credit for brains." A quick check showed that
both his guns were AWOL, too.
Rafe pulled a nearby milk crate over and sat down on it, a few feet
in front of Gabriel. The gun he had been holding was no longer in
evidence—probably stashed somewhere along with Gabriel's.
"What were you planning on doing up here tonight, Gabe?"
"Dunno. Hadn't gotten that far in the process. Why the fuck do you
care?" Met the older man's eyes again. Egging him on. Daring him.
"Afraid of losing your investment?"
"I didn't follow you up here to 'stuff your ass', Gabriel. I came
here to make sure you don't do anything stupid, anything you'll
regret later."
Gabriel snarled. "Don't you dare pull the 'looking out for your
best interest' routine on me. You have the ethics and morals of a
cockroach, you psychotic piece of shit ..."
Rafael backhanded him. Hard. Gabriel's head impacted on the metal
door, and the night sky started to spin loosely in its orbit. He
could feel the blood trickling down his jaw from the corner of his
mouth, as he tried to breathe slowly and steadily through his nose.
"Behave, Gabriel."
"Or what? You'll shoot me again?"
"No. I'll just pistol-whip you into unconsciousness; since you seemed
to dislike it so much the last time I did it. Once again—what were
you planning on doing up here?"
"What the fuck do you think I'm doing up here? Less than twelve
hours ago, I buried my partner. Later that same afternoon, my chief
tells me that I'm now on 'Administrative Leave', pending a review
from the department head-shrink. Please check your badge and your gun
at the door."
Rafael just looked at him, handsome face completely expressionless.
Gabriel's voice dropped to nearly a whisper, eyes glued to the dirty
concrete. "I couldn't stand the way they were all looking at me—at
the viewing, at the wake, today at the funeral. Whispering behind my
back. His partner's a junkie who swallowed his gun, and now he's
about to do the same thing." Hard swallow. The inside of his mouth
tasted like old pennies. "I just wanted to be alone for a while, get
drunk in peace." He laughed, a harsh sound completely stripped of
mirth. "At the funeral, I overheard someone proclaiming that I am
destined to commit suicide. Seven years ago, my first partner hung
himself six months after retirement, and now my second partner blew
the back of his head off with a shotgun."
"What's so funny about that?"
"They got it all wrong. First my father, then you—I'm destined to
be someone's whore."
Another slap, this one with the prosthetic, knocked Gabriel flat on
the ground, nose hitting the filthy concrete. A moment later, he was
dragged upright by his T-shirt and slammed into the metal door,
plastic and metal forearm pressed against his throat. Rafe's face was
a mere few inches from his own, and Gabriel could clearly see the
anger in the larger man's green eyes.
"Don't let them do that to you." Hissing at him. "Don't let them
decide what your destiny is. Steal your destiny from the hands of
fate, if you have to. Don't. Let. Them. Win."
"Don't let you win, you mean."
A hard shake that made his teeth rattle. "For a smart boy, you can be
a complete fucking idiot about the really important stuff. I'm not
your enemy here. Right now, I'm the only one who's trying to keep you
alive. You need me, Gabriel."
::Yeah. Like I need another bullet hole in my skull::
The fist grasping his shirt and the forearm holding him upright
disappeared. Gabriel leaned heavily into the graffiti-ed door.
Quickly, sinuously, with a grace Gabriel didn't expect from someone
with only one arm, Rafael pulled his ever-present leather jacket off
and draped it over Gabriel's shoulders, covering his handcuffed arms.
Leaning over, whispering in the younger man's ear. "We're going to go
for a little walk down to my car now. Try anything stupid, and you'll
end up in the hospital."
"Where the hell are you taking me?"
"First, we're going over to your apartment so you can pack some
clothes. Then you're going to leave a message for your chief, letting
him know you've decided to go someplace quiet for a few days, get
your head together." Evil smile that made Gabriel's blood flow cold.
"You and I are going on a little vacation."
::Oh, shit. I am so fucked...::
"Why did you go up on that roof, Detective?" Skinner, digging into
his second piece of cobbler.
Gabriel shrugged. "I'm not sure. Maybe I would have swallowed my gun
that night. I won't lie and tell you that I didn't think long and
hard about it. After that weekend, though, everything with Rafael
changed. He stopped using me as a punching bag when he came over. He
started getting really....weird."
"Weird how?" Mulder was still watching the younger man with a
strange, intense look on his face.
Slow chuckle. "Bizarre shit. He'd still break into my apartment in
the middle of the night. But now, instead of beating me until I was
unconscious, he'd just cuff me to the bed and fuck me into the
mattress. Then he'd call and order Chinese food and feed me pot
stickers while he watched late night infomercials.
He got really possessive. I ended up in the hospital once, after a
bust went to hell in a particularly spectacular way. Nothing serious,
just a skull fracture and a bad concussion. He showed up in my
hospital room, made sure I was all right, then disappeared. Two days
later, when I got back to work, I found out that all three men we
apprehended died in lockup that night. They still don't know how it
happened. When I asked Rafe about it later, all he would say was that
he was the only person who was allowed to injure me.
Does any of this make sense to you, Agent Mulder? 'Cuz it sure
doesn't to me..."
"Actually, in a bizarre sort of way, it does." Another one of those
smiles that made Skinner melt. "Alex—Rafael—whatever the hell
he's going by this week—is trying to take care of you. Show you
how he feels about you."
Gabriel put his head down on the linoleum table for a long moment.
"You're kidding, right?" Peeked up. "You're not kidding. So this is
how a psychotic contract killer expresses his love?"
"Afraid so."
"Jes_s Chr_st on a pogo stick." More slow laughter bubbled to the
surface. "Rafael, you are the most fucked up puppy..." His pager
beeped, interrupting his reverie. Gabriel glanced at the pager
attached to his belt, and started sliding out of the booth. "shit—I
have to take this call. It's my chief. Thank you very much for the
information. I'll probably be talking to you again soon, Agent
Mulder." He grabbed his jacket and walked quickly to the pay phone by
the back door.
"We should have told him, Mulder." Skinner, eyes dark.
"How the hell was I supposed to bring that one up in conversation,
Walt? 'Oh, by the way, your Rafael sent us a video of the two of you
having sex while you were tied to a bed.' It just didn't fit in with
the feng shui of the afternoon."
Skinner reached over to rub the younger man's shoulders. "I'm not
blaming you, Fox. This whole situation is just a real mess. Krycek
sends us his own homemade porn, which we both figure is his attempt
to make you jealous. Now it turns out to be crime scene footage."
"He wanted us to tell Gabriel." Mulder turned halfway around in the
bench seat to face his lover. "He was using it to isolate Gabriel
even more from anyone who could help him. If we had told him, he
would have been mortified. Beyond mortified. He would have been too
humiliated to accept any assistance from us, which is exactly what
Krycek wanted."
"Possessive, violent, psychotic assassin in love. How fucked up is
that?" Resting his hand on top of Mulder's.
"I'm going to help Gabriel as much as I can. I managed to extricate
myself from Alex's web, and hopefully he can do the same, without
ending up bullet-riddled, or worse."
Walt smiled gently. "I knew you would. Somehow, I don't think we've
Gabriel
by Ganymede
