The truth was a game they played in the dark, an Atlantic City shell game.
Keep your eye on the Lady, turn the cards over one at a time.... One for
lust, one for the terrible, killing gentleness that Alex and Mulder seemed
to have invented just for themselves, a third for the truth. Now which was
which? Keep your eye on the Red Lady.
"Tell me where you grew up."
"Warrensburg, Missouri."
" That's bullshit."
Alex made a buzzing sound, punctuated by two fingers kneading deeply into
Mulder's nipple. "That one's true."
"I thought New York was true...."
"I sound like a New Yorker to you?"
"No, it's just that you're such a bitter, skanky whore. How was I supposed
to picture you in Smallville?"
He laughed his scratchy, satisfied little laugh, and bit Mulder's nipple
gently. "I grew up a stone's throw from Whiteman Air Force Base. If the
Cold War had ever gotten toasty, you'd have seen the first mushroom cloud
over Warrensburg. Very strategic military location."
"Which is why you picked it to grow up in, of course."
"Well, of course."
"I can see you as a junior double agent. The secret decoder ring you found
in your Cracker Jacks really worked...."
"I wasn't a double agent. I was a Cub Scout."
"That, I can't see."
"My father was."
"A... double agent."
"Yes."
"That one's... true."
"Right. That one's true."
"You know my name."
"Tell me—oh, Jesus, oh, Alex—tell me. Tell me your name...."
Quick breaths, raspy and uncontrolled; Alex was noisy when he got fucked,
but he rarely gave himself away with sound while he was fucking Mulder.
"Alex."
"True—no, not true—dammit, give me more, Alex, more, give me, give
me... more...."
"Aleksander."
"Yes!"
"Aleksander Izydorovich—my father called me—he liked the patronymic,
the other was too American. Alexander Krycek—on my birth certificate,
Mulder, that's true. Part of my father's cover. Had to pretend to be
escaping from Russia, had to pretend he loved being here, give his kid an
American name. Part of the fucking paper trail. Alex. Alex Krycek."
"Alex. Alex. Alex fucking Krycek." Wild laughter, so close to the edge
that he was hysterical with it. "Alex!"
Alex closed his eyes so hard that it made his head hurt, feeling the bed
quiver underneath him, Mulder grinding down on him from above. "Alex," he
murmured, letting his voice fall into a conjuring synchronicity with
Mulder's. "Alex—Alex—Alex."
"Naw, Mulder," he said lazily. "'S just you. Your ass is that
wonderful." He twirled his finger inside the ass in question, just to watch
Mulder's eyes roll back.
"Fuck you. I meant—women. Do you like women, too?"
"Depends on what you mean by 'like.' I've fucked women; I get off on it and
all that, sure. Past that... not really."
"So... you're a bisexual misogynist?"
"You got it."
"But you like men. I mean, really like."
"Well... no. I don't really like anyone."
"Love...."
"Never been."
"That's not true."
"This again?"
"Liar."
"Hell, yes. Just not about this."
"You're here, aren't you?"
"Mulder, you're letting me fist you. Damn right I'm here."
"I'm letting you be in love with me. You'll be here until it kills you."
Alex kissed him once, bruisingly, and then concentrated on getting the
fourth finger in.
It was the one question that came back again and again. Alex couldn't shake
him loose from it, not with the most demanding porn movie positions he knew
and not with the richest, most symbiotic intimacy. Alex turned his face
deeper into Mulder's neck and tried to think.
"My father was too valuable an agent for the USSR to lose, so when the Air
Force pegged him as their security leak, the KGB scrambled together an
alternate version of events. They set me up to look like the spy. I had
some... connections to people on the bad side of legal; it was easy to
believe, even without the evidence the KGB manufactured. I was twenty, I
was on the edge of being arrested for fucking treason, I had no one to go
to. He showed up out of nowhere and said he knew the truth. That he would
make sure I was cleared of all charges, if I came to work for him. I owed
him everything."
Mulder stretched, the muscles in his back rippling sensually against Alex's
chest. "I like that one. That's very sympathetic."
"Yeah." Alex yawned. "I thought it was pretty good, too. For the spur of
the moment."
"It's not true, though."
"No. It's not."
"How do you keep getting here? Aren't you supposed to be guarded?"
"My guards and I, we have an understanding."
"You know, you can only feed a man so many horse tranquilizers before he
starts to notice something is up."
"That trick only works once, Mulder. Twice, maybe. It's not a long-term
solution."
"What's a long-term solution?"
"Blackmail. Extortion. Bribery."
"For example."
"Yeah. For example."
"You're going to leave the mother of all OPC reviews in your wake, aren't
you?"
"I've noticed that coming into contact with me tends to reveal a lot about
who a person really is."
"So what does it reveal about me?"
"Not all truths fit neatly into words, Mulder. Wouldn't hurt you to
remember that."
"Same reason you do it. I wanted to believe in intelligent life from other
solar systems. I asked a lot of questions, I was smart and fairly
personable and too ambitious to be completely ethical, and I attracted
attention. He promised me the truth, after I'd proved my loyalty. Go easy
on the pepper, there—Jesus, you're disgusting. Here, let me. They
asked me to do a lot of little things; it didn't seem too nefarious. I was
in over my head before I realized the danger of it. And then, well.... You
don't just resign."
"None of that's true. There's more to it than you're telling me."
Alex smiled without much humor, and tasted the potato soup. " All of
that's true. And there's more to it than I'm telling you."
"You tried to seduce me when we first met."
"You think?"
"Was that your idea or theirs?"
Mulder's thighs quivered slightly as Alex straddled his lap, but his face
remained admirably blank. The man really had missed a calling in espionage.
"Mine, tovarish. All mine. I wanted you so fucking bad...."
"That's a lie," he said roughly, but the roughness was sorrow and not anger.
It did something unpleasant to Alex's chest.
"Okay. It is. The truth is... they figured you were as good as done in
terms of the threat you posed. Mulder, my assignment wasn't even about you.
They sent me to find out who, if anyone, was listening to you—who might
try to step up after you were gone and carry on your work. I wasn't sent in
to seduce you, beautiful. I was sent to seduce Skinner." He made a wry
face. "I never took orders well."
He was frozen, no quiver, hardly a breath to distinguish Mulder from the
chair he sat in. "That's... true," he said, sick with grief.
"Aw, babe," Alex laughed, kissing his cheek, "you are the single most vain
person I've ever met. It kills you to think this might not have been all
about you, doesn't it?"
"I'm supposed to like knowing that my life got ruined so that I could be
brushed aside and you could move on to a more important job? A more
important... man?"
"Fox. That one's not true. I made it up."
A few beats of confusion—which lie to believe? Mulder relaxed
fractionally. "You are an asshole. "
"But I'm one hell of a good liar, aren't I?"
"You're a sick fuck, and one hell of a good liar." Mulder pulled his head
down with one hand and worked the other inside Alex's boxers, and Alex
wasn't sure if there was more dizzying cruelty in the fist tight around his
cock, or the tongue that blocked his own from slipping into Mulder's mouth.
"You have to answer, though," Mulder reminded him as Alex gasped his way
free of the kiss.
"The answer... I don't know. I don't fucking know, Fox, okay? I can't
remember. That was so goddamn long ago...."
The steady, stripping hand on his cock didn't break rhythm as Mulder
searched his face for confirmation. "Okay," he finally said, and he gave
Alex a hesitant half-smile. "Okay, I believe that. That's true."
"Yeah. That's true."
"Why?"
"Because he's my father."
"Bullshit! I don't believe that!"
Alex ran a comforting hand down Mulder's cheek, flushed with exertion.
"Okay. Okay, it's not true."
"That's not even funny, Krycek!"
"Okay. I'm sorry. It's not true...."
II: WALTER
The truth was a poker game; Walter had felt extremely out of his league when
he was first promoted out of the field and into administration, until he'd
realized that if you could play poker, you could play politics. Because the
nature of the game was that you knew what cards you were holding, beyond a
shadow of a doubt, but you could never know until it was all over whether it
was a winning hand or not. You could only act as if you knew, which in real
life was called having the courage of your convictions, and in poker bore
the more nakedly honest name bluffing.
Walter Skinner was a very good poker player, and a pretty damn good AD, too.
All things considered.
This was a mixed blessing, and Walter was sure they both understood that.
He nodded once, shortly, and chose the better part of valor in keeping his
jaw tight and his mouth closed.
Spender glanced around for the ashtray that had always been in Walter's
office, and when he found it missing completely, he smiled. More than
anything, Walter hated it when his minor acts of defiance amused the
bastard. Spender knocked off his ash in the dish of mints on the table.
"The truth is, I'm not entirely surprised. Our last encounter ended... with
some hard feelings. You're not wholly comfortable with the idea that I own
you now; I wouldn't have expected you to be. You're a good man, Mr.
Skinner. I appreciate your frustration."
"I'm touched." And owned more deeply now than ever before. The last thing
Walter had wanted was favors from this man—and now his very life was a
favor. From this man. Frustration didn't begin to cover it.
"And," Spender continued lightly, almost happily, "I'm capable of taking
into account the fact that you haven't been acting entirely on your own
behalf. Then again... you never do, entirely, do you? That's what makes you
unique, Mr. Skinner. You are a coward on your own behalf, and surprisingly
brave when the opportunity to... support others presents itself. I daresay I
don't know another man quite so uniquely suited to law enforcement as you
are. Excellent career choice."
"Not that I do a lot of law enforcement anymore," Walter reminded him, not
bothering to disguise his bitterness.
"Yes. That must be difficult for you." Spender didn't try any harder to
disguise his lack of sympathy. "If it makes you feel better, however, I do
admire you."
Walter's throat tightened suddenly, and his stomach made some slight move to
rebel. Because it... did make him feel... not better, but.... Christ, was
he such a weak, worthless—nothing, so empty that he could find it in
himself to feel grateful for anybody's compliments? When did wanting to
be a good man, wanting the world to respect him, turn him into a dog, belly
to the ground and taking scraps from any indifferent hand? No wonder he was
a pawn. He didn't even really have Spender to blame.
"Harder hearts than yours have melted under the light of Fox Mulder's halo."
There was a little contempt in the old man's dry voice, but a little bit of
something else, too. Amusement? Sympathy? "It would be pointless to deny
that I have my own soft spot for the man—and his family."
Mulder. Jesus, how was he going to break this to Mulder? All their hopes,
their revenge that had finally seemed so reachable. Walter had pushed him
into this, against Mulder's hard-earned cynicism. Walter had made him
believe that they had a weapon, and now they had nothing. Now that Spender
knew what was going on, Krycek was probably already dead, and without his
testimony, most of the evidence they had could be made to look like
something other than what it was.
He had, in short, jerked Mulder around and given him nothing. It wasn't the
way Walter would ever have treated him intentionally... and it wasn't very
likely to get him any closer to discovering what Mulder's compliments would
sound like, filling up and echoing off of the emptiness inside him.
"But," Spender said briskly, standing up, "as you know, I've been out of
town, and I have a great deal of business to put in order. I'll be back
when I have more free time, and you can catch me up on all the FBI's doings.
In the meantime, you can save me a little trouble and deliver this."
The envelope he threw down on Walter's desk on the way out the door was
small and cream-colored, and had Alex Krycek's name on it. Inside there was
a folded notecard, and Walter recognized the thick, jagged handwriting all
too well. It said only, Welcome home, Alyoshka.
So Walter walked right up to him and cuffed him hard on the side of the
head, hard enough to jar Krycek's glasses lopsided and send the chair almost
over on its side with the forceful shift in weight. Krycek managed to jump
free without being tangled in the chair, but instead of standing up like a
man, he stayed down low, crouched to the floor and staring up at Walter in
shock.
"I'm putting you under arrest, you sneaky son of a bitch."
"What in the fuck has gotten into you, Skinner?"
"You sold us out." He didn't really know if it was true or not. He didn't
really care. "Spender's back in Washington, and he knows everything. Now
how did that happen, Alyoshka ?" He threw the envelope at Krycek, but the
boy had gone suddenly stiff and pale, and he didn't even seem to notice it
bouncing off his chest.
"Don't call me that," he managed, and it sounded uncomfortably like begging.
In fact, the whole scene was making Walter profoundly uncomfortable; when
he thought of Alex Krycek, he thought of blood and fists and the wild edge
of danger, but this man at his feet was—different. Both older and
younger than Walter remembered, fine-featured and barefooted, glasses and
book discarded beside him and one arm missing. He looked like someone's
grad student son. He looked like someone who knew a lot more about
homelessness and hunger than anyone should have to. He didn't make Walter
feel all right about taking out his aggressions this way... damn him to hell.
"Just—where did you hear that name?"
It took Walter a moment to focus back in on the meaning of Krycek's words,
and even then he found it simpler to ignore them. "You're working for him,
aren't you? Aren't you?!"
"No! Jesus fucking Christ, Skinner! I'm not, I swear! I don't know how
he found out—he's got a lot of contacts. Nobody could possibly know who
or where they all are at all times, not even me." Abruptly, Krycek lowered
his face into his good hand, and Walter felt like he should turn away from
the sudden scene of brute misery—Alex Krycek, every part of him crippled,
put in one last corner by the men who made their careers by moving younger,
more daring men like himself wherever they could best be used. Men like
Spender. Men like Skinner. He'd tried to fight back, and gotten his bluff
called. Walter knew how that felt.
"Let's go, son," he said gruffly. "I want to get you into a holding cell.
It's going to take a hell of a lot more to keep you protected now."
"Don't even fuck with me like this," Krycek barked out from behind his
hand, his voice rough with panic, or grief. "You can't protect me. What
the fuck are you good for? You can't—help me —"
It was so true that Walter couldn't even take offense. He reached down, and
although Krycek jerked his arm away once, Walter got hold of it the second
time and pulled Krycek to his feet. "I wish.... Shit, it doesn't matter
what I wish, and you and I both know it. I'm going to do what I can for
you, and we'll both just have to pay the piper, one way or another. There's
no way out for either of us, not anymore."
Krycek's eyes sparkled dangerously, and he stepped menacingly closer to
Walter, who held his ground. "I am not going to die this way. Not now.
I fucking well have things to do, Walter. You have to let me go."
"You're joking."
"I'm deadly serious. If I can get out of the country—today, now —I
can shake this off."
"You sound pretty sure."
"Are you kidding me? This is my job; I know how to move without being seen.
Put me in one place, I don't care if it's Fort fucking Knox, and he'll find
me, and he'll kill me. Let me move, and I can take care of myself. It's
that simple."
Maybe it was that simple. For a moment, Walter was jealous. What would
that be like, to have a life with room to move? "I can't just... let you go,
Krycek. You're in too deep for that."
Without warning—as if any kind of warning would have been sufficient to
protect him from the shock—Krycek put his good hand on the back of
Walter's neck and leaned in to kiss him with rough, demanding sensuality.
It was unreal, impossible, unacceptable—and it felt better than anything
had felt in months, maybe years.... Totally outside his conscious control,
Walter's hands settled in the younger man's thick, soft hair and ground his
mouth implacably closer. With his eyes closed—the soft pelt of hair, the
narrow and graceful length of his back—it could have been....
But it wasn't. It wasn't. And the very thought of how Mulder would look at
him, if Mulder could see him now, all but allowing the man he hated most to
whore himself to Walter in order to weasel out of paying for his crimes....
Walter pushed him away physically and used his best distant-thunder voice to
push him away more fully. "Boy, don't you believe for a second that you can
buy me off that cheaply."
The words seemed to sting a little, from the way Krycek's eyes narrowed.
"You fuck. I trusted you, and you're setting me up to die. Now tell me
who's selling out whom? We had a deal!"
"The deal's off! You don't have anything I can use anymore." It was cruel
and Walter knew it, but he sure as hell wasn't the one who'd made Alex
Krycek's bed. You crossed the wrong men, you died, and that was the nature
of the game. There was no reason now for Walter to shield him from the
inevitable. No reason at all. The boy should've gotten out of the kitchen
years ago.
Amazing, resilient little rat—he tried again, arm around Walter's
shoulders, lips brushing Walter's ear as he spoke. The blood was leaving
Walter's brain so quickly it was dizzying. "Let me sweeten the deal,
Walter. You don't know what you've got here; you don't know who I am."
"I know who I am."
Krycek chuckled, and licked slowly along the shell of Walter's ear, then
blew gently into it. "I used to fuck him, Walter. I was
Spender's... prize... possession. Does that shock you?"
"You're lying."
"Come on. You didn't really think I was just another ops nobody, did you?
You've seen some of the tips I gave the Bureau; you think those came out
of a Cheerios box? He was grooming me as his successor. He wanted to give
me everything. He adored me. And I learned how to ask the right
questions... and when. I learned how to make him crave the chance to answer
my questions...."
Walter forced himself to swallow. "And this has what to do with me?"
"Well... the way I see it, we have a lot in common."
He snorted, and it served the dual purpose of expressing his disdain and
covering temporarily for the fact that his breaths were coming harsher and
harder. "Oh, you see that, do you?"
"You and I, Walter, we hate him more than anybody. More than Mulder could
on his worst day. I did everything he asked me to do, and somehow I still
ended up with fuck-all—and you, well, he's made your whole life into a
joke, hasn't he? Assistant Director of the FBI, with your six-figure salary
and your posh office and all that beautiful, useless power. You should be
somebody, Walter. You should be a force to reckon with. But you're not.
He has more power than you and I can imagine; he rules the whole fucking
world, and he knows it, and he feeds you off the crumbs."
"Is this going anywhere?"
"Don't play dumb with me, Skinner. You wanted me from the second you laid
eyes on me, and you want me now. Think about it... just ask yourself, just
for one second, what it would feel like. To fuck me... knowing that for
once, you were the one stealing what should be his, right out from under
him?"
"Should you be his?" Walter growled, and he couldn't keep his head from
dipping lower, his tongue venturing out to flick against the thin skin of
Krycek's pale throat.
Krycek laughed, and then he sighed. "Have you ever known him to let go of
anything? Ever? I was his, once. He might kill me, but he'll never stop
wanting me back. And you could be the one who has me...."
"Who buys you, you mean. I assume this is a quid pro quo?"
"I just wanna get the fuck out of this worthless city, Walter. That's not
so hard to understand, is it?" Krycek laughed again, dangerously. "And,
shit, if it's the whore thing that has you bothered, you've got no one but
yourself to blame. I'd have done it for free, Walter, any time. You
shoulda fucking asked."
In spite, in spite, in spite of... everything... it was impossible not to kiss
him again, not to try to kiss him bloody, son of a bitch, rat with blood on
his claws, dangerous thing, a man who'd been bold enough to try to play
bigger men than Walter Skinner... and God only knew how close he'd come to
pulling it off. Walter found himself down on the bed, and when Krycek's
mouth pulled away and he got a good look at his new situation, it made
Walter's cock throb and his hand come up of its own volition to knot tightly
in the front of Krycek's shirt. Krycek was on top of him, half crouched and
half coiled, a subtle and controlled movement rubbing his groin against
Walter's over and over, while his green eyes shone with bitter, feverish
confidence. He looked like some corrupt Renaissance devil, here to feast on
Walter's tarnished soul, here to crush the breath slowly out of him, here to
make him come until he died screaming and on fire....
Harder, more desperately, Walter found himself grasping at the tense arch of
Krycek's whipcord-muscled body, his hips jerking up to be stopped by the
agonizing pleasure of meeting hard hipbone, hard-on.... "Jesus," he heard
himself gasp out, and he was being kissed again, his mouth raided by a
tongue that was by quick turns both carelessly selfish and soothingly kind.
Walter was fighting for air now, finding it all sucked away by that wicked
mouth—slickened, sensual lips and the high arch of cheekbone under his
thumb, hair just long enough to wind his fingers into, fine-boned, beautiful
grad student, feline, mysterious, resilient, full to brimming with every
kind of sly surprise.... "Fox," he mumbled, lapping at the faint texture of
stubble on his jaw, bucking up hard. "Fox...." Walter tightened his arms
around his lover's shoulders, and felt the tension there like a steel
spring.
He was so agonizingly close, and when he thrust and made contact with
nothing, Walter's eyes flew open, stunned by thwarted desire and the sudden,
confused flurry of motion and grasping. An evil click cleared away
Walter's confusion, and for a moment his concentration was focused with
perfect purity on the barrel of the gun. Slowly, awareness expanded
outward, and he watched Krycek crawl backwards off of him, Walter's own gun
leveled precisely between his eyes.
Shit. Shoulder holster. Shit.
Krycek smiled at him, but the expression was shaky, a hasty facade. "Get
up. Get up. " Walter obeyed, and Krycek kept suspicious eyes on him as he
backed toward the overturned chair and crouched down to pick up Spender's
envelope. There was something chillingly professional in the way he juggled
the gun and the envelope and the notecard within; not for one second did
Walter catch a hint of an opening. Krycek read the card, then balled it up
in his fist and threw it back on the floor. "I really hate that old man,"
he said conversationally.
"Boy, if you shoot me—"
"Relax, Skinner. Nobody's shooting anybody—I hope. But I am getting the
fuck out of here. And I'm taking the gun, and if I have any reason to
believe that you've done something that pisses me off, you don't even want
to know where this gun is going to turn up next. I'd start bulletproofing a
nice little portfolio of alibis, if I were you."
"You leave this room, and I can have the whole FBI out after you with a
phone call."
For a moment, Krycek looked tired, and old, no kind of boy at all; Walter
wondered how he could ever have made that mistake. "Yeah, but you're not
going to. Because deep down, you don't want me dead, and you don't want me
captured. You know that would make Spender happy, and you'll take any
chance you can to keep him from being happy. So you're gonna let me go out
that window, and you're going to stay here for about... twenty minutes, and
then you're going to leave, like nothing's wrong. I'll be over the Atlantic
by the time Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern out there think to check in on me
again. This—" Krycek drew a rough circle in the air with the gun, "—is
just the excuse you need to do what you wanted to do all along. You're
going to look back on this later, and take comfort in the fact that
somebody got away."
And since that was probably exactly what was going to happen, Skinner wasn't
left with much to say. He said nothing.
Krycek pulled the drawer loose from the nightstand by his bed and dumped its
contents into a nylon bag. Getting his coat on with one arm while trying to
keep his gun at the ready seemed to present a logistical problem even for a
professional, but he managed.
He paused at the window, and quirked a strange little smile at Walter, full
of an irony that Walter didn't understand at all. "You have a thing for the
truth, Skinner? I've got one for you. Next time you see him... tell him I
don't fuck anyone just for favors anymore."
"That's not a conversation I can really see myself having with my employer."
And the smile deepened, sharpened; it was almost alight with ferocious
playfulness. "Oh, right. Tell Spender, too."
Walter stayed for twenty minutes. Then he left, like nothing was wrong.
III: ALEX
The truth was a chess game. Not because it was a rich man's game, or
because it was easy to learn and took a lifetime to master—although that
was all true, too. No, it was a chess game because even though every time
you sat down to play you never knew how the game would go, you were still
always moving the same pieces in the same patterns. You couldn't even begin
without the Bishop, the Rook, the King. And so Alex Krycek was never
surprised anymore when the same things and the same people kept coming back
into his life. And back again, and back again. Bishop, Rook, King.
"No. Not while he's in this house. You said you wouldn't let him come
back again!"
"Oh, honey," his mother sighed. "You won't even tell me what happened to
your arm?"
He'd forgotten all about the sling on his arm. "It's nothing. Happened
playing football; the coach says it'll be fine in a few days."
"Maybe you should... maybe you should take it off."
Alex opened his eyes in surprise. "Mom! It won't heal right if I do that.
Plus, it'll hurt like a bitch if it's not supported."
"I know, but if your father sees.... You know he thinks the game is too
dangerous anyway. He won't let you play if he thinks you'll hurt yourself
permanently, and I know how you love it. I just don't want you to lose
this, Alyoshka. It makes you so happy.... Take it off at dinner. Just for
dinner, so he won't see it."
So many things they couldn't let Izydor Krycek see. The possibility that
any foolish and wasteful game could ruin his only son's chances of being
accepted into the KGB when he was old enough. The man in the kitchen, who
had replaced him while he was too busy being a patriot to notice.
"It's not right. I don't want...." How could you argue something so basic?
Alex didn't even have the language to argue with her, not with his mother.
They had always been friends, a secret underground, living under Izydor's
rules but secretly considering themselves better than he was. He was a
grim, fanatical man, vicious and pragmatic, and his wife and son were
utterly different from him. All his life, Dasha and Alex had only had each
other; they went to movies and Rolling Stones concerts together, she taught
him card tricks and bummed cigarettes off of him and teased him about girls.
She sang him to sleep in Russian, she cracked him up with her accented
Lucille Ball impressions. She was his best friend, the only one who could
ever understand who and what he was, where he came from. Where he was
supposed to be headed. They never argued. They cooked and they laughed
until their whole bodies hurt and they kept each other's secrets. They were
everything for each other.
At least, until Mr. Spender arrived.
"Come out and say hello, Alyoshka. He wants to know how you've been."
"Screw him. He shouldn't even be here! You said —"
"Please. Please, Alex. He's still my friend, even if you've decided to
hate him."
Hate.... He didn't think he hated Mr. Spender. The man had traveled so
much and knew so many things, and he told Dasha and Alex stories without
ever giving the impression that he was talking with women and children. He
was polite, with a dry sense of humor, and a sort of elegance to him that
reminded Alex of the movies, not real life at all. He used to take Alex to
baseball games in Kansas City and read the short stories that he wrote for
English class, and his advice on Alex's fastball and on his prose was
critical, but gently so; what really mattered was that he was taking it all
seriously, taking Alex seriously. And although it took a few years, Alex
got old enough to understand the serious looks that passed between his
mother and her friend when he leaned close to light her cigarettes for
her, and then... and then he didn't know what to think.
He had no loyalty to his father, who was a drunken asshole and had spent his
life making both his wife and son unhappy. Mr. Spender, on the other hand,
did his best to take care of both of them, to fill in as Alex's father,
to... be there for Dasha, to care about her when her husband so plainly
didn't in the slightest. That should have been good. Alex should have been
happy.
But it wasn't... right. He couldn't explain it any better than that; he was
fifteen, and he was a straight-A student. He spoke three languages
fluently, he'd read every book in the high school library, he liked science
and poetry... but emotions were often obscure to him, his own and other
people's. Alex didn't know when he'd started to resent and mistrust the man
he'd once thought of as a better father than his own, but it had entered his
heart, and now when he saw Mr. Spender sitting at his kitchen table, back
again, the only word that flashed like fire through him was enemy.
She kissed his cheek, and the strong scent of her heavy lipstick and her
cigarettes was infinitely comforting. "Please, Alex. I can't be alone.
You know my headaches are getting worse, and you're getting too old to be
around the house all the time—you have football, and friends, and it
won't be long before you're gone. You know, you know I love you more than
life, more than anything in the world, and I'd die before I'd hurt you,
Alyoshka, you know that. But it's so hard for people like us. All the
secrets. I just need someone I trust."
Alex answered her in Russian; his father always complained that Alex's
accent was an embarrassment, but Dasha was always pleased to hear her own
language in her son's voice. "I don't think we can trust him. I don't know
why—but I think he's going to—ruin everything for us."
She kissed him again, harder. "No, no, Alex, don't think that. He cares
about us. He wouldn't let anything hurt you, any more than I would."
This family, Alex thought, is fucked up beyond belief. But for his
mother's sake, he just nodded.]]]
There were excellent reasons to visit Mulder, beyond the selfish and stupid
ones. Mulder was high as a kite on him right now, stoned out of his mind on
the unexpected combination of finally getting laid for the first time this
decade, the ego boost of deciding that someone was in love with him,
and... well, and whatever it was that, underneath it all, he really could and
did feel for Alex. Mulder would probably help him escape; Alex could get
money, at the very least, and maybe a cover story of some kind that could
help buy him some time, divert his enemies off in the wrong direction.
Bullshit, Alex told himself, and he smiled a little in the evening
darkness. That one's not true.
There was only one good reason to waste valuable time with a stop-over at
Mulder's apartment. One last kiss, one sweet good-bye scene, Mulder, you
were right, I've loved you for years....
Fuck that. Fuck that. All of this had started with Fox Mulder, but it was
bigger now. Alex had responsibilities that he couldn't just blow off
because of his personal life. So he kissed Mulder goodbye behind closed
eyelids, and he wondered if he'd be forgiven again, next time the two of
them met.
The voice inside Alex that always sounded like his father, vicious and
pragmatic, said, Wrong time, wrong place. First, you get yourself out of
this alive, and then you worry about Mulder. Just get on that goddamn
plane, and then you can brood about him, have wet dreams about him, write a
fucking operetta about him. Doesn't matter. But you save yourself
first.
Alex wished he had a counterbalancing voice in him, a voice that would say,
Alyoshka, my baby, it hurts so bad, I know. I know, honey.
But for whatever reason, whatever flaw in his nature, he'd never carried
Dasha's voice in his head. She had left behind a son when she died, which
should have ensured her immortality, but it didn't. She was simply gone,
and had been since Alex was eighteen years old, and there was no voice left
in the blackness of Alex's heart to counsel him in anything but fanaticism,
violence, and sacrifice.
Aleksander Izydorovich fingered the plane ticket in his coat pocket, lying
alongside the gun, and he kept his eyes closed until they were out of
Alexandria.
Spender didn't answer immediately. "An old friend. Elizabeth Mulder."
That name again. Alex set the picture back down with a slight shake of his
head. At this rate, he was going to be fucking sick of Fox Mulder before he
ever met the guy.
"Are you nervous?"
Alex shrugged. "I've played Iago in summer stock. Don't see how playing
him in the Hoover Building can be any harder."
His host chuckled raspily. "Of course. I do forget how talented you are."
"Look. Thank you for dinner. Thank you for the job. But this is going to
start getting old before long; if you want to fuck, let's just do it." Alex
tried to sound as bored as possible; he always preferred, if possible, to
make his partners think that sex was a matter of extreme unconcern for him.
Much more alluring than just coming out and saying, Hey, some people drink,
some people snort coke, I get laid. It makes me stop thinking for a little
while, which I really love, in fact I really sort of need it really fucking
bad, because I have it all together on the outside, and inside my head it's
just one long goddamn nightmare, so take me home... please.
He hadn't expected Spender to look at him with those hurt, innocent calf
eyes. Treacherous fucker—what was up his sleeve? "Alex. I'm afraid
you're... terribly misunderstanding me."
"Give me a break. I'm not some stupid virgin, okay? You're into me. I can
tell. I'm fine with it. That simple." If it was that simple, why was he
standing at this angle, seeing Spender out of the corner of his eye, but
unable to turn and face the man?
Spender reached out and put his cold fingers, with their loose, old-man
skin, around Alex's wrist very gently. "It isn't simple at all, I'm afraid.
Alex, look at me." He did, slowly. "I am... into you—is that what the
young people are saying now? Yes. But not like this. I know it doesn't
mean much to your generation, but it still matters to me—behaving like a
gentleman."
" Gentleman ?" Alex repeated, amused and appalled. Who even used that
word anymore?
"I told you I would look out for your interests, and I will. I owe you
that. I owe it to your mother."
Alex jerked his hand away. " Don't. "
"I will. I have to. I cared about her, and I cared about you. You may not
believe that, but I won't agree with your cynicism just because you don't
enjoy facing the idea that there are still people in the world who don't
want to use you. Not all men are your father, Alex."
"Sure they are. You sure as hell are. You show up in my life again after
seven fucking years, and you want me to do a job for you. You might as well
be my father! You want me because I was bred and born to covert ops,
because I've been lying with every other breath since the first word I ever
spoke. You're right; I'm good at it. I'm fucking great at it. I'm going
to lie for you, and you want me to think I should feel grateful because
you're giving me the chance to do it. If you don't think that makes you
exactly like my father, then you didn't know him very well."
It was a relief when Spender kissed him, and then Alex groaned in
frustration, because it wasn't a real kiss. Just Spender's soft, dry lips
lingering against his, making it harder and harder to stay angry. There was
nobody left in the world who touched Alex without fighting or fucking him.
"I used to wish," Spender said quietly, his mouth still hovering close to
Alex's face, "that you really were my son—that the two of you both were
my family. If I'd known you would grow into such a fascinating man, I would
have been very much comforted. I think... I've become quite glad you're no
relation to me."
Alex leaned in to kiss him again, but a hand on his chest stopped him. "I
don't... what the fuck do you want?"
He brushed Alex's cheek with the back of his fingers. "Everything,
Alyoshka. Everything, in its proper time."]]]
And in proper time, he took almost everything.
IV: MULDER
The truth was a game of Russian roulette. Click... click... click. You hung
on. You hid your fears. You waited for the killing shot.
Click... click... click....
"Oh, Jesus. You asshole. " In sheer frustration, Alex threw the copy of
Premiere that he'd been browsing over in the back of the airport gift shop
at Mulder. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"You'd have gotten away with it," he said dryly, "if it hadn't been for
those meddling kids and their dog." An employee appeared to check out the
source of the noise, and Mulder flashed his badge without even looking at
her. She retreated fast.
"Skinner called you?"
"I found the message... at your safehouse. Skinner knows where you are?" he
blurted out, at exactly the same time that Alex said, "You were at my
house?"
They stared at each other for a moment, until Mulder snapped one handcuff
ring around Krycek's good wrist. "You and I are going to talk."
click
Mulder could see Krycek's eyes on every clock they passed as he was escorted
out of the airport and into the parking garage. His plane was leaving in
nineteen minutes; the ticket was in his pocket. Capetown, South Africa.
Krycek was also carrying a passport, an FBI badge, eleven hundred dollars in
cash, and a gun that appeared to be federal issue.
click
"Take this off of me, Mulder." He rattled the chain that connected him to
the handle of the car's back door.
"Like hell. I'm sick of you running off."
"Mulder... listen to me. Listen." He'd seen those green eyes in every shade
of desperation; Mulder knew the look. "I only have one hand, okay? I need
it. Shoot me if you have to, but don't fucking tie me up—I can't take
it. Okay, Mulder? Jesus Christ—take this off of me !" His voice was
scaling upward in thin, barely controlled panic.
"All right! All right." He unlocked the cuff, and Mulder saw genuine
relief, quickly muffled. He shook his hand out a couple of times to restore
circulation.
click
He'd told himself a hundred times that he had to find Alex Krycek for
professional reasons, and that their... relationship wasn't a factor. Not
today. He'd told himself that if he could find him, he'd get some fucking
answers out of Krycek, nothing more.
Of course, he hadn't even asked any questions yet, because he was still busy
with the kissing. Alex was right—coming into contact with him did
reveal a lot about a person.
Krycek's fingers were scrabbling to get a grip on the shoulder of Mulder's
leather jacket, but they were shaking, too, and he didn't seem able to make
them function correctly. Mulder pulled him in closer, until Alex just gave
up and locked his whole arm around Mulder's neck, and he seemed to need this
kiss with every inch of his body.
click
"Why? Why the fuck should I?"
"Because I'm in love with you."
Alex nuzzled the sensitive skin of Mulder's stomach as he pushed the t-shirt
up out of his way. "You're not. No, you're not...."
"I am. Why the fuck do you think I would have let things go this far if
I wasn't?"
"Because you trust me. Because you're a god. damn. idiot."
The cold metal of the gun against his bare skin made Mulder jerk
convulsively. He blinked twice, forcing his vision to solidify, and then
the cold metal of Alex's eyes as he knelt over Mulder in the backseat of
Mulder's own car made him shatter.
click
"You don't think?"
"You care about me more than that. I know you."
"No, you don't, Mulder. I keep trying to tell you that. You really don't
know me, and neither does your Cancerman, and neither does Walter Skinner,
and neither does anyone else alive. So don't think you can tell me what I
will and won't do, because you don't know what's at stake here, and you
don't know who I am."
click
click
Mulder said nothing.
"One piece of advice, though. You should never, ever fucking trust
me... but Walter Skinner's in love with you. Stick with him. He won't let
anything hurt you." Alex's voice broke slightly at the end of that
sentence, and suddenly he was back on top of Mulder, pressing one starved
kiss to his lips, one to the side of his throat, one to his stomach as he
snaked his way back out the door again, grabbing for his bag in the
floorboard as he went. He was gasping the whole time, saying, "Be careful,
tovarish, take care of yourself. I'll come back for you, I swear."
He slammed the door this time, and Mulder could see him through the window,
but only for a moment. He jammed the gun in his pocket, he checked around
him reflexively, and he broke into a run. Mulder put his arm up across his
own eyes.
click
Game of Kings
by Hth
I: MULDER & KRYCEK
"What's your name?"
"Are you gay?"
" Why?
"Why?"
"I have decided, Mr. Skinner, to allow you to live."
Krycek was sitting in a chair reading when Walter entered his room within
the safehouse and locked the door behind him. Generally speaking, Walter
Skinner wouldn't have hit a man who wasn't even standing up to face him, but
the pain and the frustration were almost a conscious presence inside him,
needing to be allowed out, and it was pitifully easy to exempt Alex Krycek
from the human race, or at least from that large part of the human race that
was covered by the rules of honor. When you stopped and thought about it,
it was really Krycek who'd exempted himself from all honor and all rules,
many years ago.
[[["Alyoshka... honey?" Her voice was timid and husky, and Alex wished he'd
locked the door, but he couldn't stand to send her away. She was touching
his forehead with her cool, manicured fingernails, and she was the only
person in the world who had ever touched Alex without fighting him.
"Alyoshka, talk to me."
The cab passed through Alexandria on the way to the airport, and Alex
slumped down in the backseat, leaning into the corner and inspecting the
torn vinyl on the passenger seat in front of him, keeping his eyes away from
the windows. He didn't know where exactly they were, and he didn't want to.
He'd pretended to speak only Russian, but for some reason that hadn't
slowed his cabbie down very much; the guy was still talking to him. Hell,
he was probably thrilled once he realized that occasional pauses for Alex's
response weren't necessary.
[[[There was a picture of a woman on the mantle, and for one awful instant,
Alex thought it was his mother. It wasn't, though. "Who's this?" he asked,
picking it up.
"Alex Krycek, I'm placing you under arrest."
"Alex," he whispered, as Krycek pushed him onto his back with his
prosthetic hand, the real one fumbling with Mulder's button-fly. "Alex, you
can't just run out on me. Not now. Look, I know this place, in
Pennsylvania. You can stay there. I swear, it's as safe as anywhere in the
world. You've got to quit running, Alex. Sooner or later, we'll have to
come up with a better way. Let me help you."
"You won't shoot me."
The gun dug painfully into his stomach as Mulder wound his fingers in Alex's
hair and pulled him down, pulled him closer. It quivered for a moment, and
then slipped, until it was lying flat between their bodies as Mulder kissed
the sum of his fears and his trust into Alex, tonguing them into his mouth,
speaking in heat and in the time that they didn't have. Alex sobbed once,
and Mulder caught the sound and devoured it, and kept on kissing him.
Alex kicked the door open and scrabbled backward through it; he was still
the one with his gun at the ready, but you couldn't tell by his eyes.
"Sorry, gotta cut this short," he said, and his voice was manic, mechanical,
flashing and fragile. "Plane to catch."
