He ruthlessly cut that thought off and numbed himself to the pain.
Thinking about and mourning her could be done later, if he
survived. He had more pressing concerns right now.
He stared at the towering wall of thick black thorns and
intertwining stems in front of him. They rustled and twitched
despite the stillness. The answers could be found in the center of
that mess, where the FBI headquarters building could still be
found. He hoped he could hack his way through before night fell.
Mulder stood in the quiet street surrounded by useless cars and
focused his thoughts inward. To get what he needed, he would
have to believe. Remembering how the prince had fought his
way through a similar obstacle in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, he
imagined a sword and shield and started to feel them in his hands.
He thought of their look, heft, and even smell. In two minutes he
held a silver sword in one hand and large shield in the other. He
couldn't let himself think of how silly he must look in his jeans, T-
shirt, leather jacket, and sneakers while carrying medieval
weaponry for fear of breaking his conjury. Only a moment's doubt
could destroy his work, force him to start over, and each try
weakened him.
He had no idea how to use a sword, so he wielded it on the thorns a
bit like an ax, while using the shield to protect his other side.
Despite all his efforts to avoid thinking, to just do and be, he
couldn't help himself. The tragedies of the last few days waited
too close to the surface.
Five days ago, something had struck that had made the most
panicked speculations about the Y2K bug look mild by
comparison. Almost all machinery had failed, leaving people
without power, heat, water, or phones. Cars and subway trains had
simply stopped, stranding untold numbers of people far from
home, while planes had plunged from the sky. Hospitals had lost
all patients who needed mechanistic help to live, yet were
overwhelmed by the thousands more who hobbled in, desperate for
medical care and shelter, only to find overworked doctors and
nurses, working by candlelight, able to do only the most basic of
triage with their dwindling supplies. Only the simplest machines,
those not dependent on electricity, still worked at all. With
communications dead, no one even knew if it had claimed only
D.C. and its surrounding areas or the whole world.
Then, supernatural creatures had appeared and taken over.
Demons, the Sidhe, trolls, shapeshifters, and other things that
should not have existed began to attack and feed on a populace
completely unprepared for them. Scully herself... Scully had been
torn to pieces one night by something she hadn't even believed in.
She'd died with a look of outraged confusion frozen on her bloody
face, unable to believe even to the death that her logic and science
had betrayed her.
The suicides and riots that had followed had been horrible, with
terrified people turning on themselves and others. Humanity had
been knocked back centuries in just days. The survivors huddled
in their homes armed with guns and crude weapons and went out
only occasionally during the day to barter for things they needed.
At night they set up watches and tried to ignore the summoning
bells, hoof beats, and ululating shrieks of the Wild Hunt.
Some people who were open to it, like Mulder, discovered that
they had new abilities in this world. Mulder, as long as he
believed and kept his mind focused on what it wanted, could
conjure objects.
Once, his new "power" would have fascinated him. Now, he'd
trade it all to get Scully and the world back the way they should
have been.
He tried to keep his mind focused, but his grief and rage kept
interfering. Scully's death reverberated like a shock through his
heart. He raged at the deaths, the terror, the losses, the memory of
the Lone Gunmen looking with despair and disbelief at the now
useless computers and communications equipment of which they'd
once been masters. He tried not worry about the feeling that he
had been called here.
He felt the sword and shield wavering in his distraction, with the
thorns ready to rush in with almost sentient malevolence. To
reinforce his conjuring, he thought back to the movie he'd gotten
them from. When his mind summoned an image of the Lone
Gunmen as his three good fairies, he had to fight off the giggles.
He'd created the Sword of Truth and the Shield of Virtue. The
inevitable wry thought about him being the Sword of Truth
strengthened him, but when he associated Scully with the Shield of
Virtue, his mind reeled at the knowledge that she was gone
forever. That association started to destroy the shield.
Mulder gasped for breath as he fought to maintain it. Between his
struggle to preserve his weapons and to hack his way through the
thorns, he was tiring fast. His body felt like a lead weight, and he
didn't know how much further he had to go.
Suddenly, a weight landed on his shoulder from above. A glossy
raven regarded him with a surprising intelligence. It stroked its
soft head against his sweaty face, tickling him with its feathers,
before dropping behind him.
"There's an easier way to get in, you know," a familiar, husky
voice whispered in his ear.
Then something knocked Mulder out.
Alex looped the handcuff chain around the curved metal spine of
the office chair before fastening the open cuff on Mulder's left
hand. In this pose, Mulder, still out cold, could have been asleep
with his head thrown back. Surely he'd napped in this office
before. Alex hoped he appreciated the irony of being incarcerated
in his former basement sanctuary.
The long line of Mulder's exposed neck called too strongly to be
ignored. Alex nuzzled it and caught the smells of everywhere
Mulder had been in the last few days overlaying the agent's own
scent. He smelled fire too, maybe a day old. It seemed that
Mulder had overcome his phobia to save his life against the
creatures that had similar fears. Good for him. Alex could make
out weariness, despair, even a tinge of madness. And in it all, the
scent of the change, like young spring grass and hot metal. Mulder
must have been using his nascent ability for a few days now; that
would make many things easier.
The new, enhanced senses that had come with Alex's change had
opened the world in ways he never could have expected.
Sometimes the deluge of sensory information distracted and
seduced him, but he didn't want to go back to the way he had been.
He couldn't even imagine it anymore.
Alex's new left hand stroked along Mulder's cheekbone. It and the
arm it was attached too still didn't match his right perfectly—the
skin looked as fresh and perfect as a baby's and was still too
poreless—but he'd gotten better and closer every day over the past
five. His shapeshifting became stronger and easier with use and no
longer tired him out as badly as it once had. A good thing, since
keeping the arm meant being perpetually shifted.
Alex gave the chair back a playful push just to watch Mulder and
his seat spin. He made unconsciousness unbearably sexy, but he
had to wait. Alex had business.
Alex took the stairs after an instinctive turn toward an elevator that
no longer worked. When he got off at his floor, he smirked at one
of the work crews, made up of enslaved FBI employees. They
slowly and painfully cleared debris away under the watchful eyes
of their work boss, who looked demoralized himself. It seemed
that the man had some conscience, but probably not enough of one
to ruin his own deal with the new regime to free or mobilize his
fellow agents.
Puff had killed most of the people in the building who'd had any
spine. A shame. Walterbear would have been useful to Alex's
plans, but he'd been too obvious a threat and executed
immediately. Puff had Skinner's head on a pike near his nest.
Even Fowley might have been an asset, but her being both
dangerous and a woman had caused such cognitive dissonance in
the minds of the old boys' club that they'd offed her just for peace
of mind.
Thus Alex had to take his allies wherever he could, as usual.
He stopped at the end of the floor and gazed out into the huge open
space that made the building a shell of its former self—literally.
Jeff, who stood at the edge, noticed him immediately. "Krycek's
back, sir."
In the midst of the ruins, a huge gray shape stirred and raised its
giant head. On all fours with its head held high, it occupied a
space of five floors; its first change had destroyed seven floors and
created the crater it nested in now. Smoke redolent of brimstone
curled from its nostrils. "I hear that someone attempted our
perimeter," the creature who'd once been the Cigarette Smoking
Man said. Despite his immense size and threat, his voice remained
the reedy shadow he'd had as a man.
Alex looked to Jeff, who raised only one eyebrow slightly. That
slight movement said that Spender hadn't told Puff anything of
value, so their alliance still held, and Alex could say anything he
pleased.
"Someone tried to escape one of the interlopers by hiding under
the thorns. A total failure, of course. He's dead now," Alex said.
"I heard you brought someone inside."
Alex directed a subtle but sharp look in Jeff's direction. A slight
headshake indicated that Daddy had picked up that information
from someone else. Alex reserved judgment, but he didn't trust
Jeff for a second anyway.
"You said I could play as long as it didn't interfere with my work,"
Alex answered.
The dragon looked irritable. "You get to play... Jeffrey, when is
the next cattle car coming? I'm hungry..." He somehow sounded
frightening and pathetic at the same time.
"Soon," Spender said. "You should give some thought to trying to
get out on your own and—"
"You have no idea what kind of pain I'm in, boy! Don't make me
demonstrate on you!" he roared. The stench and force knocked
Alex and Jeff back. At least Old Smoky no longer incinerated
people by accident.
Spender had been so taken aback that he'd lapsed into invisibility
again. Sometimes Spender's scent became fainter, as if he started
to disappear altogether. He concentrated himself visible again and
said, "That won't be necessary, sir."
"Good." Then Puff curled in on himself to go back to sleep,
muttering curses against Strughold and his incompetent Nazi
wannabe-sorcerers, though not in those exact words.
Jeff looked pissed. No doubt Daddy's promises of power hadn't
mentioned playing gofer and majordomo to an angry and a
mentally unstable dragon. Alex had been surprised to learn that
Spender wasn't the gullible Daddy's boy he'd seemed; in fact,
since the onset of the Change Jeff had survived and cemented his
place in his father's organization by putting together a rather
credible internal spy network. Alex played on that discontent as
well as Spender's network and position with the old... thing for his
own ends.
Once they'd made their exit and walked to one of the zones in
which Spender claimed it was safe to talk, he asked, "How has
Mulder manifested? I know he can create things, but how does the
talent work?" He smiled at the look on Alex's face. "There's a
reason why you need me here."
Alex resisted the urge to flatten that pretty mouth with his fist. It
made no sense to get pissed off at Spender for exhibiting the very
thing that he'd hooked up with the man for. "I'm not sure how it
works."
"Then how are you going to handle him?"
Alex grinned. "The way I always have."
When Mulder came to, he nearly flipped the chair over trying to
get up. Once he had himself balanced again, he figured out how
he'd been fastened to the chair and started to work out a plan to get
loose. His captor had taken his gun and three knives, but Mulder
could at least conjure a key to get the damned cuffs off.
He quickly realized where he was. He wondered how the hell that
weasel Spender could keep the place so clutter-free until he saw
the full basket under the paper shredder. His rage almost brought a
wave of conjured fire with it, which was not a good idea. It
cheered Mulder a bit that he could still smell scorch, the lingering
ghost of the office fire, beneath the scents of new carpet, furniture,
and paint. //Let the little bastard always have the sense memory of
how he came by all this.//
Mulder created and sculpted a little bit of metal in his hand,
shaping it by trial and error at the cuff's lock. Tension and fatigue
kept making him fumble, so he calmed himself by disparaging
what that treacherous brown-noser had done with his office. His
hand and talent worked more smoothly as the part of his mind that
usually worried instead sniped at how spotless the room was. It
looked like no one ever worked in it. //Maybe he and Diana don't.
Maybe they just pretend they're getting anything done. Probably
suits the old bastard to have things that way.//
Mulder's concentration broke when Krycek walked in. The key-
in-progress disappeared. Mulder went still and tried not to look as
bitterly angry and disappointed as he felt.
"Is it good to be home, Mulder?"
"I'd have to redecorate first."
"Still a smartass. What the hell made you think you should chop
your way in here and take on whatever big, bad thing you found?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"I do, and it's pathetic." Krycek moved closer.
"Like hell." Mulder turned the chair a little away so the bastard
wouldn't notice his hands. //If I get him talking, I can pretend to
listen and work on the key.// He'd memorized the last key shape,
which had been close to what he'd needed.
"I knew this guy who gave up on living but didn't believe in
suicide, so he made a list and—"
Mulder sighed and tried to jiggle the key in the cuff lock as
surreptitiously as he could, but couldn't resist saying, "Checked it
twice? Krycek, I don't—" Krycek gripped Mulder's chin to stop
him from continuing. Mulder squirmed at the sudden feel of claws
brushing his skin.
//What the hell has he become?//
"This is important, Mulder. So he made a list of all the people he
wanted dead and went after them one by one, hoping one of them
would off him but not helping them too much. He got through
all thirty names still alive. When he gave it some thought, he
realized that he didn't want to die anymore."
"And what's your big lesson? `If you kill all the people you hate,
your life will be happy?'"
"That's always a good lesson to learn, but no. You don't even
realize what you're doing, do you, you stupid fuck? You set off
after the Syndicate hoping they'd put you out of your misery, so
you wouldn't have to feel guilty about outliving Scully."
"That's not—"
"They don't need you badgering them about putting everything
back the way it was. Yeah, the aliens don't want to colonize this
world as it is now and have gone dormant, but the Syndicate isn't
particularly thrilled with the side effects. For one thing, that
miscast spell turned them all into dragons."
"You're fucking kidding me."
"If only. Do you think they like that? Aside from that, they lost
most of their data and all of the genetic material, ova, and
incubating clones. All that stolen alien technology is worthless
now. They're not happy people, and they're working 24-7 to find
a way to fix things. You can't help them decipher those texts any
faster. You're also in the wrong country. The German faction did
this, and only they have a hope in hell of changing it, if it's even
possible. How are you going to cross the Atlantic with things the
way they are now, Mulder?"
Mulder reshaped the key a little and felt the lock starting to give.
"So what are you suggesting?"
Krycek moved in so close that Mulder could feel long, thick lashes
and hot breath brushing his skin. It did strange things to his own
breathing. He felt a pull...
"It's a dangerous, new world out there, but the right people could
take advantage. My shapechanging and brains with your talent
could net us a comfortable living. We could watch each other's
backs."
"What a surprise. You're turning on your masters."
"I have to get the hell out of here. The walls are closing in, and
dealing with Puff the Magic Dragon every day is seriously
sharpening my homicidal impulses to a fever pitch. I want out."
The cuff opened, and Krycek twitched as if he'd somehow heard
the tiny click. Before the other man could react, Mulder
unwrapped the chain from the chair and leapt from his seat,
knocking his former partner over. He ran for the door.
Something snagged the back of his jacket and pulled him back
hard. Mulder ricocheted off a wall, taking down a framed picture
of Clinton with him. He lashed out with his still-cuffed hand and
heard Krycek growl as the metal cuff hit his face. Then the whole
world spun, and Mulder was pinned against the wall with a heavy
weight holding him from behind. He felt his nose bending, so he
turned his head a little, giving him a partial view of his captor.
Krycek panted a little, but his eyes crackled with excitement.
Mulder felt heat and hardness against his ass and went still. //Oh,
shit. Here we go again. Not again...// But it wasn't quite the
same. He felt high and thrilled and ill and hard and on fire...
"You can't change anything, Mulder. What's lost is gone forever.
There's so much you could gain, though."
The struggle had pulled Mulder's jacket off one of his arms, so he
could feel Krycek shifting behind him even if he couldn't see it.
Soft fur, sinfully sensual, preceded tickling feathers. The
sharpness of claws or talons teased his shivering skin. But
Krycek's face remained mostly the same, though his eyes
sometimes went canine dark or feline slitted... And he didn't stop
smiling, showing sharp teeth.
Repulsion warred with an almost mind-devouring desire. Mulder's
body melted in sluttish abandon against its captor's even as his
mind tried to regroup its defenses. //This isn't me!// Krycek
growled low and soft in his throat in appreciation of the obvious
surrender and spun Mulder around. The kiss that followed dragged
Mulder's mind down into defeat. He couldn't think under the rush
of emotion and sensation. He could hear colors, see the harshness
of Krycek's panting breath, taste their mingled excitement.
It all moved so fast. He didn't know when his hands had started to
roam Krycek's body or when the talons leaving light, raised marks
on his skin started to make him buck into the other hand that
stroked his bared cock. Somehow he'd ended up on his back on
the desk. He'd lost his jeans, briefs, and sneakers somewhere
during the riptide. The cuff on his right wrist kept his jacket half
on and his shirt mostly on, but the rest of him had been exposed for
his former partner's delectation. Krycek stroked and nipped,
clawed and kissed. He begged for it all and more.
He couldn't separate their motions from one another; it all felt too
good, too right. Something seemed to stroke his whole body. He
felt power rushing and prickling over his skin and almost thought
he could change shape himself, resculpt himself into something
different... Deluged, he couldn't find the room for terror or shame.
When slick fingers stroking inside him were followed by Krycek's
cock, his mind blanked out completely. It was ecstasy and light
and heat and perfection. He just moved and experienced it all.
Orgasm felt like flying to the sun before dropping off the edge of
the world.
Mulder came to with Krycek still draped on him. When he looked
into dazed green eyes and a blissed-out face, he felt a little better.
//It wasn't just me out of control there. He's as gone as I was.//
Krycek murmured endearments into his skin.
Fear couldn't overwhelm the flooding sense of connection and
well being he had. //What the hell happened to us?//
Krycek's kiss tasted like peppermint and blood. Looking feral and
sweet, he rolled over and put his clothing back on, then mussed
Mulder's hair. "Do you need a little time to think it over? It can
be intense the first time like this."
The last statement made no sense to him, but Mulder nodded
anyway. A thumb that, oddly enough, didn't seem to have a callus
stroked his lower lip. Krycek said, in a voice that sounded almost
loving, "You'll be fine. You just need a little time to put yourself
back together. I'll give you a few minutes."
When Krycek walked out, Mulder closed his eyes, tried to figure
out what had happened, and fought down the soul-deep urge to go
after the bastard to see if they could do it again.
Jeff waited and brooded. He didn't like any of this, but he
especially didn't like the plan and Alex's prominent place in it. It
already had too many variables that could screw him over even
before you threw an opportunist like the assassin into the mix.
Also, he had to show his commitment to the plan first by hiding
Alex's scouting forays from his father while he had to trust that the
other man really was thinking of ways to get him out as well.
Trust was a sucker's game.
Alex Krycek walked out of the room looking like sex itself. Hair
mussed, lips kiss-swollen, he moved with a swagger that charged
the air around him. Then he stopped and said, "Jeff, I know you're
there. You might as well turn off the invisibility."
Jeff let himself be seen. He kept forgetting that Alex used senses
other than just sight to "see" people. Being... what he had become
couldn't foil Krycek's enhanced sense of smell. //I have to stop
thinking I know him. I don't. He's dangerous, unpredictable, and
prone to side-jumping. Keep that in mind.//
But he couldn't help smiling a little. //I have secrets too...//
Jeff didn't know yet whether having Mulder here would hurt or
help his plans, but he did see the effect the bastard had on Alex.
//He means something to you, doesn't he? Is he a meal, a
possession, a mate? All of the above?//
"You said I'd get my share of the spoils," Jeff said. "I want you to
know I'll hold you to that."
Jeff knew that, no matter what he'd said, Alex intended no such
thing, but the words had the intended effect. Alex snapped at the
bait. "Like hell. Mulder isn't `spoils,' he's mine, and I'll be
damned if I let one of your revenge fantasies ruin him for me."
Jeff moved closer to Alex. "You know that Mulder has already
started to change. I wouldn't have to rape him, not with the Call at
work."
"He doesn't understand yet—"
"And you want him to think that the feelings he has now are
completely because of you. Smooth, Alex."
"Aren't they? He's wanted me forever, you know. The times he
had me just made it stronger." Krycek bared his teeth. His change
had made him more feral, but sensuously so. "Jealous, Jeffy?"
They all but breathed one another's air. Jeff had never thought
he'd ever be so drawn to a man, but, hell, he hadn't expected any
of this. The Call drew the changed together so strongly that
resistance wasn't an option; they never even thought of it at the
time. And the sex... the sex was like nothing he'd ever
experienced before. Trying to describe it was like trying to
describe color to a person who'd never seen it before.
With the Call, sex was power, pleasure, connection, completion, a
high, a song, breath itself... It drowned out thought. It let him
touch the edges of Alex's wild power and self, let him experience
the feeling of the shift and all the strengths that came with it. He
wondered what Alex thought of the taste of his ability, to be
overlooked and effaced...
Jeff knew that Krycek played on the Call's charge, used it to
entrap, as he had used his own sexuality before. It still worked—
Alex Krycek had only become more fuckable after his change—but
the Call had a double-edge. He ensnared himself as well.
They devoured one another in the hallway just outside Mulder's
//my// door, exchanging fevered kisses that brought them closer
but never close enough. Even as Jeff let the delirium take him
over, he knew that Alex would betray him sooner or later and
found that inevitability a comfort in an ever more insane existence.
Krycek would be reliable in his unreliability, and the world would
continue to turn...
Jeff had always wanted things he could never have or keep. He
was used to it.
They stroked and ground against one another, lost in the rush. Jeff
let Alex's wild power wash over him. It felt so good that it hurt. It
always amazed him that the flood of pleasure, the ecstasy, didn't
kill him. The scent of Mulder still clinging to his lover maddened
and aroused him at once. His grip turned tighter and harsher, and
Alex laughed...
The two arms, one natural and one... not, still freaked Jeff out
sometimes. It stunned him that Alex had relearned to use it so
quickly, but maybe it was like the other changes. The instinct for
flight or running on four legs seemed to be integral to the shape,
and Alex just picked it up. Just let normal thinking slide away in
favor of being. Maybe the arm too remembered what it should
be and how it should work. The thought almost made him recoil.
If only the Call could obliterate Jeff's mind completely instead of
partially. His thoughts flew screaming around like panicked birds
trying to escape a glass house, beating themselves against the
windows in an effort to get free. Then Alex bit his neck in orgasm,
and that last bit of overload emptied his mind and his cock at once.
They leaned against the wall, breathing hard and trying to slow
their hearts. As Alex tongued Jeff's ear, he asked, "Anything
happen while I was gone?"
Jeff tried to think past what Alex was doing to him. "I tried to go
through the wall."
"And?"
"It wouldn't let me through, tried to rip me to pieces. The thorns
kept slashing at me. It seems that Dad doesn't want me to leave."
Jeff had debated telling Alex this now, but had finally decided that
the assassin would be much more pissed off if he found out when
they attempted the wall for the actual escape. At this point, Alex
still had to pretend that he wanted to get his ally out as well.
//Alex still needs me. For now.//
"How does the wall decide who will pass, Jeff?"
"Dad muttered something once about thought patterns. The wall
only lets ones it's `programmed' to recognize pass through. It
accepts yours, but not mine."
"You have to stop thinking?" Alex smiled.
"I don't know. It lets animals through with no trouble."
"It passes me through, and it let me bring Mulder. He was
unconscious at the time... The thorns started to twitch near the
end, though."
"You're going to knock us both out and carry us through at a run?"
"We'll figure out something." Alex looked back at the door. "I
don't think Mulder should be left alone for any longer. Come in
with me, Jeff. This should be interesting."
Mulder crouched behind the desk, conjured knife in hand. He
couldn't let Krycek take him in so easily or let himself fall prey to
that madness again. He had goals, and becoming Alex Krycek's
tame fucktoy wasn't one of them, no matter how incredible it felt.
His fingers hurt from clenching convulsively on the knife handle.
Krycek would come back.
The door opened, and he heard, "Are you playing with me,
Mulder? You should know that I love games."
For once in his life, Mulder successfully resisted the urge to make
a stupid quip. He just had to be silent and wait. His moment
would come.
A slight breeze on his left side made him suspicious. He slashed at
the air and heard something yelp in surprise. Something gripped
his arms, so he fought back, twisting and slashing. Spender
suddenly became visible. Mulder went still in surprise, and the
other man smashed his head into the side of the desk.
Dazed, Mulder slumped back in Spender's grip and tried to ignore
the thrumming in his body that reminded him of his bout with
Krycek. Even with his head ringing, the touch felt so damned
good. //Jeffrey Spender too? I'm a fucking slut...//
Krycek bounced down from the top of the desk and put a hand on
his shoulder. "Done yet, Mulder?"
Mulder's brain whited out from overload. Too much information,
too much power, too much...
He thought he heard Spender say, "Alex, let go of him."
"Why?"
"He can't think when we're both touching him."
"Really."
"Alex, he can't think when we're both touching him."
"I see." Krycek took his hand away, and Mulder could reason
again. Sort of. He still wanted to jump them, but at least he could
think enough to know what a stupid idea that was. He was helpless
against whatever the hell was working on him.
Mulder suddenly started to tremble uncontrollably. He couldn't
take it anymore. Days of pushing back the horror, helplessness,
and fatigue finally caught up with him at the worst possible
moment, in front of two of his enemies. Having abandoned
strength, all he could do was stay with this and hope he could get
them to underestimate him.
Spender's grip turned surprisingly gentle, and Mulder felt a wave
of something pass into him from his captor. It felt a bit like
sympathy. The other man pulled him in closer, so he could lean
back.
//What the hell is he doing? What does he want?//
"Alex, he needs rest. He won't get very far otherwise."
"Who said I was going anywhere with either of you?" Mulder
asked. It horrified him to realize that he sounded petulant instead
of assertive. But Spender just stroked his hair and held him close.
//This is a damned subtle revenge.// In contrast to Krycek's feral,
chaotic power, Spender's felt quieter, more elusive. Ephemeral.
Krycek looked disappointed, then brightened a little. He spoke as
if Mulder hadn't said a word. "We shouldn't leave until morning
anyway."
They ignored Mulder's protests and dragged him into a large
storage room. Its office supplies had been removed to make way
for a huge, luxurious bed. In moments he was at the center of a
puppy pile, with an enemy on either side. The strange link he felt
to them hummed happily and comfortably, lulling him to sleep.
Mulder awoke feeling warm and comfortable with someone's hand
draped on his hip and his face turned into someone's neck. He
realized it was Spender's hand and Krycek's neck. //A weasel and
a rat. The rodents rule here.// But Mulder hadn't felt this good in
a long time.
Mulder knew he had to get out of here before his loneliness and
encroaching insanity prompted him to accept this lunacy as
normal.
He slid slowly and carefully away from them and tried not to enjoy
the feel of Spender's hand trailing up his side as he moved. He got
off the bed and left the room without waking them.
Mulder listened carefully for other people and clung to the
shadows. The downtrodden work crews, candlelit halls, and
unfamiliar smells made the once familiar building foreign. One
scent in particular, a somehow stale smell of metal and sulfur,
drew him in. There seemed to be a giant hole through the center of
the building ahead, and he couldn't help walking closer in
curiosity.
The crater and destruction paled in importance to the creature that
rested in it, illuminated by torchlight. It looked like a dragon. //It
can't be a— Oh, what the hell do I know? I didn't think any of this
was possible.// Books usually described their skin as looking like
metal, but this one's hide just seemed to be a softly shimmering
gray that recalled ashes. //Krycek said that the major Syndicate
members had become dragons.//
The thought staggered him.
Something grabbed him away from the edge and dragged him back
into the shadows. "Didn't believe me, did you?" Krycek asked.
The insanity returned with that touch. Mulder pulled away but
couldn't get out of Krycek's grip. "You've been known to lie on
occasion."
Krycek smiled. "We can't leave until daylight." He dragged
Mulder back to the room.
When Krycek tossed Mulder onto the bed, Spender woke up and
stretched, looking surprisingly sensual. "Mulder's starting to
annoy you already?" Spender asked.
"He got out. Why didn't you wake up, Jeff?"
Spender just smirked. "Why didn't you?"
Krycek climbed onto the bed and grabbed Spender, with Mulder
scurrying to get out of the way. Krycek and Spender kissed,
grinding against one another madly, but when Mulder tried to
leave, his former partner snagged his arm again.
"Going somewhere, Mulder?"
"I'm not your party favor."
"You don't have to be, but I don't want you wandering around.
It's not safe."
"What do you care?"
"The Smoking Dragon's been known to eat people. I don't think
you want to end that way."
Mulder shuddered. "I can take care of myself."
Spender spoke up. "We'll tie you to something if we have to, but I
think you'd be happier if we didn't. You could promise not to
leave."
Realizing it was a fight he couldn't win, Mulder gave in. Besides,
he might find a chance to slip away when Krycek and Spender
were too... involved to notice. "I promise."
Krycek smirked but went back to what he was doing. Mulder tried
not to look, but the sounds kept drawing his eyes back. The
moans, sighs, and faint growls accompanied a frenzy of stroking
and kissing. It was a bit like watching Wild Kingdom. When
Spender teased the head of Krycek's cock with his surprisingly
pretty mouth, Mulder had to bite back a groan of his own. //I can't
be getting off on this.//
When Spender took it in deep and started to hum, to Krycek's very
vocal approval, Mulder had to conclude that he was getting off
on this. The sight of Krycek arching off the bed, roaring out his
orgasm, almost made Mulder come right there. Only pride and a
terror at what he was feeling stopped him. He wouldn't, not like
that.
Mulder unzipped his jeans to relieve some of the discomfort, but
that didn't help the hot, swelling heaviness he felt in his cock. If
he didn't jerk off, he would explode.
But before he could reach for it, Krycek did, gripping his cock
tightly at the base. Mulder squeaked. His former partner grinned,
mocking and sultry all at once, and asked, "Are you sure you don't
want us to help you with it?"
Mulder felt a hard claw tracing his delicate skin. He groaned.
"Good enough," Krycek said as he pulled Mulder up to a standing
position.
Krycek knelt before him //Now there's something I could get used
to// while Spender stood behind him. Surrounded, he felt a spike
of terror and lust. They pulled his jeans down. Alex gripped him
by the hips and started to stroke a rough, hot tongue along his
cock, making him jerk. Then a slick finger pushed up into him and
hit his prostate, making him gasp. Spender. //Can't think; don't
want to; it's so good; why is it so good?//
Mulder swayed back and forth, to Spender and then to Krycek and
back again, drowning under the sensations of the two-sided assault.
They somehow timed it so Alex pulled with his mouth and
Spender stroked with his fingers at exactly the same time. Mulder
couldn't turn back from this now even if he'd wanted to.
Then Spender thrust in with his cock just as Krycek took him down
deep. Mulder shrieked as they set a hard, relentless pace. The
strokes reverberated through his whole body, while teeth that
shouldn't have been quite that sharp nipped at him as their owner
sucked, sheathing him in hot wetness. Glittering green eyes that
looked human only part of the time locked onto his and wouldn't
let him go. He would have tumbled to the floor if they hadn't been
holding him up.
Mulder came hard, exploding into Krycek's mouth, and pushed
back so hard on Spender that the other man came as well. Krycek
stood, grinning as he licked his lips, and pushed them onto the bed.
As satiated as Mulder felt, the look in his former partner's eyes
made his cock twitch. //Not again. Not already.//
Krycek rolled Mulder onto his stomach and stroked in while
Spender leaned back on the pillows and lazily watched. Mulder
whimpered at how good and right it felt to have Krycek's weight at
his back and his hard cock sliding slowly inside him, so good and
so right that he couldn't feel resentful at having been appointed
bottom boy. He flushed under Spender's hungry gaze but couldn't
help behaving like a total slut.
"I've figured out our escape plan. It's so damned simple it'll make
you sick," Krycek panted.
"Tell us," Mulder gasped.
"I'll show you. Later."
Once Spender started to caress his cock, Mulder had his second
orgasm for the session. Krycek, though, continued to ride him for
a while afterward, taking his time. It was oddly comforting, and
Mulder felt strangely, inextricably, bonded to them. Whatever else
happened, he would be leaving with them.
After Krycek had reamed Mulder to his satisfaction, he planted a
kiss at the back of the other man's neck and said, cheerfully,
"We're all so close now, it's almost incestuous."
//I know I'm going to regret this.// But Mulder went to sleep
entangled with them anyway.
Alex looked at the pulsing wall of thorns, then at his partners.
"Just climb onto the dolly and wrap around one another. I'm
hoping that the Call will change your thought processes enough to
let me wheel you through."
"The call?" Mulder asked. He moved gingerly but had that
freshly-fucked glow Alex loved to see on him.
"We don't have time to get into it now. You'll figure it out."
Mulder pouted a little, making Alex want to bite him. "And if it
doesn't work?"
"I run back like hell with you and hope you'll be alive to take
another shot at it."
Jeff actually smiled. "Good thing we have you here to reassure
us."
//Maybe I'll keep him around after all. He's unexpectedly
interesting.// "Hop on."
Jeff got on first, arranging himself and their luggage as well as he
could, before opening his arms to Mulder, who cast a doubtful look
at the whole enterprise before climbing on. They wrapped their
arms around one another and took on that vague, inward-looking
expression that came with being linked through the Call. Alex
hoped it would be enough of a change to get them through the
wall.
Alex pushed the dolly forward. The thorns parted for them but
twitched menacingly in an atypical way, as if trying to decide if
they should be attacking instead. He walked faster. When the
thorns started to make a faint threshing sound, Alex started to run.
The dolly almost overbalanced a few times, but he managed to
keep Mulder and Jeff on it until just after they cleared the barrier.
As they hit the asphalt, a stem as thick as Alex's arm took a last
swipe, tearing the back of his jeans. He pushed the others forward
and shimmied clear.
Jeff looked around at the devastation, stunned. "I hadn't been out
of the building since the morning before the Change..."
"We don't have time to sightsee; we have to haul ass before our
absence is noticed. Get on." Alex transformed into a sable-
colored stallion and felt his mind changing with his body. After a
moment's hesitation the two-legs climbed onto him, and he started
to run.
Mounted on the speeding Krycek-horse, with Spender clinging to
him from behind, Mulder could barely think. The scenery zipped
by at an alarming rate, and what Krycek called the Call buzzed
through his mind. They raced for an unknown length of time
before he felt Krycek start to falter beneath him. When the horse
stopped, breathing hard and frothing a bit, Mulder pulled himself
and Spender off.
Then the soreness hit. //Will I be able to walk the rest of the
way?//
Krycek returned to his human form and knelt, shuddering, in the
street. "It hurts." His hands looked swollen and badly bruised.
His feet had also swelled to strain his boots.
//Running on all fours on asphalt might have done it.// Even as
Mulder felt the disbelief //I'm still feeling disbelief?// and pity hit,
he also knew that they couldn't stop yet, even though he didn't
know how far they'd gotten. There had to be something— He
concentrated for a minute and conjured a travois.
"Get on and lie down. I'll pull you the rest of the way," Mulder
said. //No matter how much it hurts. Why am I doing this?//
Krycek looked at Mulder with stunned eyes but did as he was told.
For once. He quickly let himself go to sleep once settled.
"Spender, you'll have to defend us. I won't have my hands free."
Spender nodded and drew his gun.
The next few hours wracked Mulder's nerves, already frayed from
the weariness and strain of keeping the conjured travois together
while walking and pulling it as well. At least Spender carried the
packs of supplies and ammunition. Mulder kept going by
methodically putting one foot before the other, going mentally
numb to ignore the pain, and never thinking how far he would have
to go before he could stop. That strategy had gotten him through
the days following Scully's death.
While their surroundings looked deserted, he could swear he felt
eyes following them from every wall and pile of rubble. He
wished they could move faster, but he couldn't see any way of
doing that.
Mulder saw a movement in his peripheral vision. Something huge
and dark launched itself at Spender from behind a large pile of
bricks. A long, thickly furred hand festooned with claws struck
toward the other agent before Mulder could even shout a warning.
But the claws and fist flew right through Spender, though he
flinched as they passed. Once they were free of him, he fired into
its head at point blank range. With most of its head blown off, the
creature fell to the ground dead. Spender stared at it and tried to
catch his breath.
Mulder stared silently himself for a while before he finally asked,
"You don't just turn invisible, do you, Spender?"
Spender turned wide eyes on him. "I'm naturally invisible and
intangible. I have to concentrate not to be. I'm more willing to let
my concentration falter and slide into invisibility than... the other.
It's not as— I'm just tired right now."
//That's awful, and it has to be a hell of a strain.// Mulder stared for
a second more, then realized, //I don't think Krycek knows about
the second talent. If that's so, they don't trust each other either.
Doesn't surprise me, but...//
"Why couldn't you get through the wall yourself, then?"
"The thorns are a specific kind of warding magic. They managed
to tear at me even while I was intangible. Imagine my surprise
when one sliced into my arm." Spender straightened. "You could
call me `Jeff,' you know."
"That was damned good work... Jeff. You saved our asses."
Jeff smiled a little, almost wistfully. "I know."
An uneventful hour later, Krycek came to again and directed them
to their stop for the night, a fortified area he'd taken note of during
one of his scouting expeditions. Mulder started a fire, though still
uneasy at his ability to do so, and volunteered for first watch. His
insomnia was turning out to be useful in this new world.
He looked at his traveling companions, his former enemies. What
a team the three of them made. One had no stable identity and
shifted from creature to creature, self to self, so easily that Mulder
wondered if he was even aware of it anymore. The second
couldn't touch anything or be seen unless he made a special effort.
//Then there's me, who can make something out of nothing if I
believe strongly enough. Somebody had a sense of humor about
this.//
Spender and Krycek weren't the allies he would have chosen, but
he was starting to think that he wouldn't survive without them. Or
want to.
THE END
Changed
by Viridian5
Mulder had been walking for two days, stopping only after dark to
take shelter from the creatures that now ruled the night. Most of
them could be fended off with fire and cold steel, but he was better
off not encountering them at all. //If Scully had—//
