Follows: Midnight Matinee, Thorns . A rose by any name would smell as deadly , Sex, Lies & Nanocytes , Guns 'N Roses , Wreaths & Revelations  Revenge is a dish best served cold & Bed of Roses

I wasn't planning on posting this yet. I wanted to savor it in private for a bit longer <g> but I received so much flak over leaving Bed of Roses where I did that I decided to stop teasing you all.

Which isn't to say you'll necessarily be any happier about where *this* part ends <g>

After a long and fruitless search of the house Skinner came to the reluctant conclusion that, despite Alex's arrogant words, the decision not to kill him had been a last-minute decision rather than a carefully orchestrated plan.  Either that or Alex liked the idea of keeping him permanently naked but despite the humiliating, not to mention erotic, possibilities of that idea, the house was just too damned cold for Alex to be playing that kind of power game with him. 

While he wouldn't put it past Alex's bizarre sense of humor to deliberately make his life uncomfortable, he doubted that it would suit Alex's game plan if he caught pneumonia. A huge, draughty, unheated house during the middle of winter simply wasn't a healthy place for an already-injured, middle-aged man to stagger around naked in.

So it was more probable that the only reason he had nothing more than a towel to wear was that his unsuccessful attempt at escape had destroyed the already blood-sodden sweats Alex had dressed him in for his removal from the hospital and there were no replacement clothes because Alex hadn't *planned* to bring him to the house.

It was a depressing thought.

Faced with the alternatives of either making a makeshift toga out of his bed sheets or spending the wait for Alex's return never moving from the proximity of the open fireplace in the library, Walter decided he had no option except to rummage through the discarded clothes in Alex's room in the hope that something would fit him.

To a disinterested onlooker that decision would have seemed the obvious choice, something that he would have tried immediately rather than rummaging first through the wardrobes and drawers of the seven other bedrooms. To Walter, however, the idea was torture. So much so that the more he thought about it, the more he began to contemplate whether *that* was the true reason Alex had left him unclothed. Except that seemed even too machiavellian for Alex's fiendish imagination.

Besides, how the hell would Alex know how much the idea would upset him?

To touch clothes that had embraced the body of his tormentor. To smell the faint scent impregnated into the fabric that was uniquely Alex. To feel the embrace of Alex's clothes as they slid over his skin as though, somehow, he was wrapping himself inside Alex.

He'd wash them, he decided abruptly.  He'd gather the clothing into a bundle, take them downstairs to the kitchen and throw them inside the brand-new washing machine and only then, when the clothes bore nothing more than the fresh fragrance of laundry, would he see which items would stretch over his own heavier frame.

Yet he knew, even as he stepped forward into Alex's bedroom, that he was lying to himself.

Thaddeus Constantine Smith, once affectionately nick-named T.C. by his late unlamented father but much better known in recent years by his alias Spender, had been stuck in the gridlock from hell. Some stupid bastard had evidently decided that Thursday night rush hour in the Capitol was a good time to dig a hole in the middle of Independence Avenue. 

Consequently, what should have been a twenty minute journey had already taken over an hour and, although he could feel that the car was moving freely once more, he still hadn't arrived at the place that he was currently calling home.  

Still he hated wasting time so, after ten minutes of irritation, he'd raised the tinted glass between himself and his driver and was now so engrossed in the report he was reading that he twice reached for a fresh cigarette with his left hand while there was still a lit one smoldering in his right. The second time he did it he chuckled at the irony of his left hand literally not knowing what his right hand was doing. It seemed a wonderful analogy of the document in his hands.

According to the report Kersh had given him earlier that afternoon, the death of Walter Skinner had caused an uproar the likes of which he'd never before witnessed. He'd badly miscalculated when he'd given Krycek permission to dispose of the Assistant Director. He'd made an assumption, and that assumption had turned out to be a gross mistake. He'd assumed, as had his associates, that Krycek would dispose of Skinner in a frenzy of cruel sexual depravity. He'd envisaged Krycek leaving Skinner's obviously well-fucked corpse tied, gagged and bound in some sleazy motel as the apparent accidental victim of a deviant sexual encounter that had escalated out of control. Preferably a motel room paid for with Skinner's own credit card. He'd gleefully imagined the Bureau running around in circles trying to conceal the unsavory and embarrassing details of Skinner's demise. It had been an entertaining thought.

Instead the stupid little fucker had blown Skinner into a thousand pieces in the middle of a public hospital and although the aftermath was, in many ways, as entertaining as the scenario he had originally hoped for it was also causing the interest and speculation of unwelcome eyes.  Questions were being asked about the possible motives of Skinner's murderer and, naturally, those questions were spreading to encompass the activities of the departments under Skinner's control.  For the first time in years, people in positions of power were again listening to Fox Mulder's wild allegations of corruption inside the Government. People who had been complacently burying their heads in the sand were now, in the wake of Skinner's demise, wondering whether they too were in danger.

There was nothing like a bit of fear and self-interest to wake people up.

It pissed him off, even though the danger to himself was very slight. There were too many people racing around with their own agendas for any cohesive investigation into Skinner's death. He suspected the best solution to the problem was to blame the act on terrorist activity. All he needed to do was find a convenient patsy to take the fall and the whole storm in a teacup would blow over. Unfortunately that patsy couldn't be Krycek, as much as the little bastard deserved it. The last thing he needed was anything that might validate Mulder's loudly outspoken theories of conspiracy. Besides, Krycek had covered his tracks so well that there was no way of proving he'd done the deed. Even his own colleagues had fallen for Krycek's bullshit alibi and were looking elsewhere for the bomber.

He'd taught Krycek too well. Which was, on reflection, the most worrying part of the situation. Krycek never did anything without a self-serving reason. So the question foremost in his mind was what Krycek was hoping to achieve by deliberately setting the cat amongst the pigeons like this.

It was becoming uncomfortably dark inside the car. His eyes were straining now to read the fine print of the report and the bulb on his overhead light seemed to have blown. Irritably, he lowered the tinted glass that separated him from his driver. Silently the glass slid down until he could clearly see the road ahead and he frowned with confusion at the unfamiliar landscape.

"Where the hell are we, Rogers, and what's wrong with the interior lights?" he growled.

"I'm afraid Rogers unexpectedly took ill," a familiar husky voice replied and in the reflection of the driver's mirror, Spender saw a pair of cold green eyes. He rolled and dropped to the floor, his fingers hitting the window control as he fell, his head instinctively ducking under any possible line of fire until the bullet-proof glass slid back into place.

It didn't.

He took a moment to absorb the fact that the little bastard had somehow managed to override the control from the driver's side, decided he shouldn't expect any less, and coolly rose and seated himself once more, reaching for his cigarettes and lighting one calmly before turning his attention to his new 'driver'.

"Alex, what a pleasant surprise," Spender drawled, though his hand shook slightly as he raised the cigarette to his mouth. Belatedly, he recalled a couple of faint thuds shortly after he'd closed the tinted glass. Noise he'd dismissed without thought at the time but that now spoke of a car door opening and closing. "You could have just called me and made an appointment, you know. You didn't have to snarl up the entire traffic system of D.C."

"You wound me," Alex replied cheerfully. "There I was, walking down the road, minding my own business when who should I happen to see but my old friend Spender? I was just about to tap on your window and say 'hi', when your driver staggered out of the car, clutching his stomach, and ran off into some bushes to presumably answer the call of nature. So I said to myself, poor old Spender, how's he going to drive that big car all by himself? I'd better get in and drive him safely home."

The ludicrous story didn't even deserve an acknowledgement, Spender decided. "What do you want, Alex?"

"Are we talking generalities or specifics? I mean, if you're asking in general terms, I'd have to say that my ultimate goal in life is to live in peace in a big remote house with a shit load of money in the bank and a certain mutual acquaintance to play with."

"Stick with specifics," Spender snarled.

"Ah, but I was coming to that. You see, I've got the house and the money so all I need now is the peace and the playmate. The problem is that the two are mutually exclusive."

"I don't understand the problem," Spender lied. "We agreed that you could substitute Mulder for Skinner and, regardless of the way you disposed of your last 'playmate', I see no reason to change that arrangement. While I might personally find your way of controlling him distasteful, I never believed the nanocytes were a viable alternative. They're only effective on someone with a developed sense of self-preservation. Which is something that experience has proven Mulder lacks. As long as you can keep him in line, no-one is going to take him away from you, Alex, and in the long-term...if you want to take him away and play happy families with him after the game's over then I don't see a problem with that either." 

"Well, there's a problem that I see," Alex replied coldly. "I've given it a lot of thought and, on reflection, I've decided I don't want to wait until you've finished playing your games with him. I want to take him away *now*."

"You can't," Spender replied. He raised his hand placatingly as Alex looked over his shoulder with a furious glare. "I understand your inability to comprehend anything past your own desires, Alex, so I'm not going to waste my breath pointing out how many of our associates would be displeased with that course of action. So let me put it in terms you *will* understand. Regardless of whatever sexual attraction Mulder feels for you, he'll never voluntary agree to walk away from his personal crusade to become your fucktoy."

"Why do you assume I require his agreement?" 

"If you were willing to just kidnap him, you wouldn't be wasting your time discussing it with me, you'd have done it by now," Spender replied. "Besides, I understand you better than you think. You don't see Mulder as a person, you see him as a possession you want to own. It's not his body you want to fuck with as much as his head. You want him to think he's in love with you. Nothing less will satisfy your psychotic need to completely control the people around you."

"You're such a cynic," Alex purred. "Don't you believe in the concept of 'true love'?"

"Alex, remember who you're talking to. I know you better than you know yourself. When you were five-years-old you strangled your pet kitten just because it scratched you.  When you were seven, you set fire to your baby sister's cot because you were jealous of the attention your mother was paying her. When I first met you, you were just ten years old and already living in a psychiatric hospital."

"I remember," Alex grinned. "Dear old Uncle Thad came to rescue me from the nasty doctors who wanted to make me better. You threw away my medication and my teddy bear and gave me a gun to play with instead."

"You fulfilled a specific need I had at the time," Spender agreed unapologetically. "A little boy with an angel's face and an assassin's nature. I don't regret using that child. The only regret I have is that I made the mistake of letting him grow up. I should have either put a bullet through your brain after you completed your original assignment or I should have put you back in the hospital while there was still a chance that whatever was wrong in your head could be fixed. I made a mistake when I let Cardinale keep you as his personal 'pet'. I underestimated your instinct to survive at all odds. What I'll never underestimate is your inability to understand the concept of 'love'. And, for what it's worth, I'm sorry for you. As much as I envy your lack of a conscience, I pity you for your lack of a soul."

"How touching," Alex drawled. "It surprises me that you even know what a soul is, Spender. You certainly didn't show evidence of one when you pimped a ten-year-old boy to a sick, sadistic fuck like Cardinale, did you? But that's old news. Let's dwell on the future instead. You're right about me wanting to own more than Fox's body. I want his heart too. Which is a lot easier to say than to achieve. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to woo a Fox. Oh, but then again, maybe you would. You fucked up your own attempt, didn't you? The thing is, it's all about finding the right lure, isn't it? It's going to take more than flowers and fucks to win his heart. The way I figure it, the only thing that might do the trick is giving him the pelt of a particular old wolf. The fact that the said old wolf knows a little too much about me for comfort is just gravy."

Spender's heart began to hammer wildly in his chest.

"Those metal detectors at the Hoover are a bastard, aren't they?" Alex commented cheerfully. "What you wouldn't give right now to have a gun under that jacket, huh?"

Spender shrugged and reached for his cigarettes with apparent cool indifference. "Like you said yourself, Alex, you want Fox and the chance to live in peace. The two aims are mutually exclusive. Kill me and you lose any chance of 'peace'. Even in the highly unlikely event that you win your Fox's love, you won't live long enough to enjoy it."

"Yeah, that's what I figured," Alex agreed dolefully, although the eyes in the mirror retained their glinting humor. "Kill one wolf and the whole pack will circle in on me for revenge. Not really the way I envisaged spending the rest of my life. All that looking over my shoulder would give me one hell of a migraine."

"So I repeat my earlier question. What do you want, Alex?"

"This is a really classy car. I happen to have an urgent need for a car like this. "

"You want my car?" Spender asked, blinking in disbelief.

"Oh yes," Alex agreed pleasantly. "It's just perfect for a couple of things I've planned. Would you mind if I borrowed it for a day or two?"

"Not at all," Spender growled sarcastically.

Alex grinned and slammed the brakes on so hard that Spender almost fell to the floor again. The car rolled to a halt and Spender heard a distinct clicking sound as the central locking disengaged. He hesitated a moment, staring deep into the mocking green eyes in the mirror, then dove for the door. He scrambled out onto the sidewalk and stared angrily up and down the deserted country road. It was darker than he'd expected, a heavy cloud-cover was obscuring the evening sunlight so that the trees lining the road cast long threatening shadows.  His heart thudded  again when the driver's window lowered but instead of the snub end of a pistol that he expected, all that greeted him was Alex's smug smile.

"Enjoy your walk home, 'Uncle Thad'."

"I won't forget this, Alex," he promised quietly, and although his face was expressionless his whole body was trembling with fury.

"I certainly hope not," Alex replied, with a chilling grin. "I look forward to running into you." Then he closed the window, gunned the engine and sped off down the road, leaving Spender glaring furiously after the car's disappearing tail lights.

Which was the moment that the gray clouds broke into a drizzling rain.

Within minutes he was soaked through as the deceptively light rain ate through the fine wool of his suit and turned his cigarette into a limp, spluttering ruin. The night closed in quickly, dropping the temperature several degrees until his teeth were chattering with cold and his angry trembling transformed into shivering misery.

He had no idea where he was. The darkening road seemed to stretch for miles in front of him and although common sense told him that Alex couldn't have driven him that far away from civilization he couldn't see even a distant winking light in the distance to indicate habitation.

Then he heard it, faint at first through the rain that was now falling steadily around him, the low purring drone of an approaching engine.  He smiled. It wasn't so dark yet that the approaching driver wouldn't see him. In minutes he would be safe and warm in the passenger seat of someone's car, on his way to a phone box to call the wrath of hell down on Alex fucking Krycek.

He saw the approaching headlights, and held out his arm, thumb extended to the heavens. He heard the car's engine begin to quieten as it began to slow its approach, and he twisted his face into his most charming smile. It was too dark to discern the make and model of the car All he could identify as he blinked at it through the pouring rain was that it was as huge as a limousine and as black as night.

And it was at that moment of horrified realization that he heard the unmistakable roar of the driver suddenly flooring the accelerator.

He lay back on the unmade bed and nuzzled his face against the soft cotton of one of Alex's tee-shirts, inhaling deeply, letting the faint smoky tendrils of spice and musk slither over his senses as, eyes closed, he slipped his tongue out to lick delicately at the fabric.

Cradling his left hand against his stomach, he let his right hand creep down past the hungry throbbing of his cock and settle instead on his balls, cupping the soft sac in his palm and letting his fingers slide experimentally over the hardness beneath, alternating between gentle rolling strokes and almost vicious squeezes.

His cock was bobbing greedily in time with his fingers, achingly hard, desperate to be touched, but to respond to its demands he had to release his balls and as he stroked his fingers along his shaft, his balls then throbbed in neglected protest. One handed, Walter couldn't gratify the need in his balls without relinquishing the pleasure his fingers were giving to his cock.  One-handed, the attention to one necessitated the abandonment of the other.

He tossed his head against the pillow in frustration. He needed more stimulation than just the stale smell of Alex and the friction of frantic fingers against his cock. He needed a little pain to counterbalance the pleasure, something to force him to give up control and simply submit to his desire.

Mulder had cruelly accused him of letting Alex train him to need the stimuli of pain and fear.

Mulder was wrong.

Alex hadn't created the need. All Alex had done was inadvertently discover it inside him. 

The first time he'd used the nanocytes to force him to submit, Alex's intention had simply been to rape him. Not from any sexual desire but simply as an ultimate show of power. The total domination of one man over another. Alex had forced him to strip and bend over for no other reason than to totally humiliate him. The first time Alex's cock had breached his ass it had been a weapon of vengeance, thrusting into him with the same brutal savagery as Walter's fist had shown the night he had gut punched Alex in that same apartment.

Cruel vengeance, pure and simple, with Alex only hard from the excitement of being allowed to destroy Walter's pride.

Yet, through it all, through the flesh-tearing, vicious battering assault on his asshole, he had writhed like a slut on Alex's cock. Not through arousal but because the whole seemingly-endless rape had taken place to the accompaniment of every vein and artery in his body threatening to explode. It hadn't been the threat of activating the nanocytes that had broken his will, it had been Alex's laughing promise to only de-activate them after he'd submitted.

He'd been crazed, barely even aware of the additional pain in his ass as he'd squirmed and bucked and screamed until Alex was laughing uproariously, no longer thrusting but just riding the storm of Walter's tormented writhing.

An endless, mind-shattering torture, until a white-hot fire had erupted like magma from his body and he had come so hard that he literally thought that it was his heart exploding rather than his cock, that the wet sticky heat that splattered his chest was blood rather than his own semen, and that the cessation of pain was death rather than Alex simply reaching into his pocket and turning off the palm pilot.

As he'd sprawled on the floor, dazed and confused, barely conscious that Alex was still thrusting to completion inside him, he'd fallen into a memory long-forgotten. Another time, another place, another war, another time of agonizing pain and volcanic pleasure. Another violent cock breaching him as he lay crushed beneath a man's body. Another ruthless man who had taken him with force, though in the memory it had been a sergeant's stripes that had defeated him rather than technological wizardry.

And in that memory another mocking laugh, another man running fingers through the shameful evidence of his own body's treachery, a finger smeared with his own juices pressed against his mouth, forcing him to taste himself. Alex's voice an eerie echo of another contemptuous voice dripping with scorn as it named him 'slut' rather than victim.

"Who the hell would have thought it?" Alex had smirked. "Big, butch, macho Walter Skinner *likes* getting it up the ass!"

"You look terrible," Scully announced, her red-rimmed eyes dark with concern.

"Aw, and I'm wearing my best suit," Mulder replied, with a wry, mocking smirk.

Annoyance flickered over her features and then faded back beneath her expression of concern. "Have you slept at all? Have you eaten?"

"Leave me alone, Scully. You're not my mother."

"No, I'm your partner," she snapped, "and you look like hell."

"It's a funeral, Scully. I'm supposed to look like hell. It's obligatory."

"I'm worried about you," she confessed. "I know how you felt about Walter and *I* understand what you're going through, but no one else does. You're running around making crazed, unsubstantiated accusations without one shred of evidence. They're already talking about pulling you off the investigation, maybe even suspending you. Is that what you want? Don't you realize that Walter's death hasn't only affected you emotionally, it's removed the only barrier that protected you inside the bureau? You're exposed now and throwing yourself out on a limb in your quest for vengeance is just making you an easier target."

"I don't care," Mulder replied dully, his eyes blank with misery. "I don't care if I go down with them, as long as I take them down."

"The only person going down is you, Mulder. Do you think that's what Walter would have wanted?"

He flinched and turned away from her, his eyes scanning over the faces thronged in the crowded cemetery.

"Who are you looking for?" she asked, her voice softer in an attempt at reconciliation.

"He isn't here," Mulder mumbled. "The bastard isn't here."

"Who isn't?"

"Alex. You asked me what Walter would have wanted, well that's what he would have wanted. For Alex Krycek to at least care enough to turn up at his fucking funeral."

"Half the Bureau is here and Krycek's a wanted felon," she reminded him quietly. "Even if he wanted to attend the funeral, he couldn't."

Mulder ignored her, continuing to regard the gathered mourners in disgust as one by one they filed past the grave and back towards their cars. "I don't think half the people here ever even met Walter."

"They're just here to show their respect, Mulder. Calm down. Don't make a scene here. Please. It won't help Walter and it will just give them more ammunition to fire at you.  Come on, it's over. Let's go."

"You go," he replied, shaking her hand off his arm. "I want to stay awhile."

"I'll wait in the car for you then," she offered, understanding his desire to spend some time alone at the graveside.

He shook his head firmly. "I don't want you to wait. Please, Scully. Just leave me be."

"But how will you get home?"

"Please, Scully. Just go," he whispered, then turned his back on her and began walking slowly towards Walter's grave.

She stared after him, misery and irritation warring over her features, and then she sighed and headed back to her car, leaving Mulder to mourn alone.

Walter woke to the enticing aroma of hot food, its pungent smell waking his stomach to rumbling awareness even if his mind still felt hazy and disconnected, and it occurred to him belatedly that taking painkillers on an empty stomach had probably been a bad idea. He didn't know how long he'd slept but his tongue felt like something had crawled into his mouth and died.

He staggered to his feet, wincing as the movement caused his swollen wrist to throb once more. His bandage was stained with dark coppery patches but no evidence of fresher blood so it seemed, at least, that his gunshot hand was beginning to heal. He knew he needed to change the dressing and cleanse the wound but the idea made him feel squeamish. It wasn't something he could face yet. He didn't want to face the reality of his mutilation and that, naturally, made him consider Alex's missing arm. He wondered how Alex had coped with his own, so much more grievous, disfigurement. If the thought of losing two fingers made him feel so sickened, how much more Alex must have struggled to face the reality of losing an entire limb.

Or perhaps not.  That was a little like wondering whether two broken legs hurt more than one. The pain and shock of injuries was a subjective thing. He was still contemplating that idea when it finally struck him that the smell of food being cooked meant that someone was in the house. Presumably, the mysterious Ivan.

With hurried caution, torn between his urge to run downstairs and the need to be careful of his left hand, he dragged one of Alex's tee-shirts over his head. It fit a little snuggly, but not uncomfortably so. Alex's jeans were more difficult. Despite Alex's muscular build, the pants were too tight. The only way he could wear them was if he pulled them as far as his hips and left them unfastened. Fortunately, he found a generously over-sized sweater that hung down far enough to conceal his crotch.  The sweater was too large even for him and not even the faint musky odor of familiar aftershave convinced him that it belonged to Alex. It was only as he realized that the sleeves were generous enough for him to slip his bandaged hand through without difficulty, that it occurred to him why Alex wore sweaters several sizes too large for himself and again he found himself unexpectedly overcome with a wave of empathy for his captor.

But not one so overwhelming that he ignored his impulse to race down the stairs to meet the mysterious Ivan, the one person who held the possible key to his prison.

As Mulder finally turned away from Walter's grave towards the entrance of the cemetery, he realized he wasn't alone.  One of the two black funeral cars was still parked by the side of the road, its driver a dark shadow dozing quietly behind the tinted glass of the front seat and one of its rear doors open in clear invitation.

He smiled wryly. He should have known that Scully wouldn't have just driven off without ensuring he had a lift home although, considering the way he had snapped her head off earlier, he was surprised that she'd bothered.

As he approached the car, he frowned with confusion. There was a slight but distinct indentation on the car's hood and its front fender was slightly crushed. He wasn't sure what annoyed him more, that he'd been too distracted earlier to see the damage or that he was now paying enough attention to his surroundings to notice it. It seemed vaguely disrespectful for the funeral home to use a damaged vehicle for the ceremony but it somehow seemed even more disrespectful for him to imagine that such a triviality mattered. It worried him that nothing more than a meaningless ceremony had somehow settled the nit-picking portion of his mind to the reality of Walter's death.

So he just tapped lightly on the driver's window to announce his arrival and slipped into the black leather interior, closing the door behind him. It was only then that he noticed the wreath still sitting on the seat beside him; a huge, opulently impressive display of red and white roses. 

He pressed the button that should have lowered the glass between himself and the driver but it didn't work. Instead of the glass sliding downwards, he heard the starting purr of the car's engine and a faint click as the central-locking engaged.

Mulder banged furiously at the tinted glass, until the driver shook his head with obvious irritation and lowered the window a fraction of an inch. "Wait. Turn the car around. Someone's forgotten to leave these flowers at the cemetery."

The driver looked over his shoulder and met Mulder's eyes with a cool, amused stare.

"The roses aren't for Walter, Fox. They're for you."

With an incoherent scream of rage, Mulder dove inside his jacket for his weapon.

"Stop the car, you bastard, or I'll...."

"Commit suicide if you fire against that glass, Fox," Alex interrupted, in a satisfied purr. "At close quarters there's one hell of a ricochet from bullet-proof glass."

"Why the hell would a funeral car have bullet proof glass?" Mulder argued, wondering whether to call his bluff.

"It's just a conveniently colored limousine, Fox," Alex replied patiently. Then he chuckled. "Although I admit that its previous owner arranged a few funerals in his time."

Mulder took a deep, steadying breath. "What do you want?"

"Other than your delectable ass?" He waited until Mulder's loud vitriolic response faded to an obscene mumbling before continuing. "Well, I'm sure you'd like me to say I came to show my respects to Walter, but the truth is I need your help with something and since your apartment has turned into Fort Knox, this seemed the best place to ensure I got a chance to speak before you tried to shoot me."

"You want my help? My *help*? Why the fuck would I ever help you?"

"Because I bought you flowers?" Alex asked sweetly.

"Because you bought me flowers?" Mulder repeated, in furious disbelief.

"Well, I did."

Mulder blinked slowly, reminded himself he was dealing with a psychopath and took another deep breath. "So you did. You came to Walter's funeral and brought *me* a wreath." He chewed his lower lip worriedly, as it suddenly occurred to him that Alex might blame *him* for Walter's death. "Why did you buy me flowers, Alex?" he asked cautiously.

"Well, I didn't see the point of giving them to Walter. I hate to point out the obvious but he's dead, Fox. It's not like he's going to appreciate the gesture. Besides, I hate funerals. They're a complete waste of time, money and energy. Funerals aren't for the dead, they're just a bizarre celebration by the onlookers of the fact that they aren't in the coffin themselves. I mean, take today as a prime example. Full military funeral, twelve-gun salute, six-foot coffin and enough flowers to open up a florists and all you buried were two fingers and a bag of mixed entrails. Talk about the ultimate closed-coffin ceremony."

"You heartless bastard."

"I'm a realist, Fox. Besides, whatever was in that coffin, it wasn't Walter. Believe me, he's in a much better place now."

"Stop the press, new headline, 'Alex Krycek gets religion'," Mulder snarled.

"I want to believe," Alex chuckled.

Mulder stared at the back of his head in disbelief, and when he spoke his tone was as sad as it was angry. "Doesn't anything touch you, Alex? He loved you."

"I'm a lovable guy," Alex replied, glancing over his shoulder with a cold smirk.

"You don't care do you? He loved you and he's dead and you just don't give a fuck. You make me sick."

"Wailing and gnashing of teeth isn't my style. I'm more the 'eye for an eye' type," Alex announced. "Which brings me to the point of our little jaunt. There's a folder under the wreath. It's for you."

Mulder pushed the flowers aside and saw a fat, plain, manila folder.

"Stop looking at it as though it might bite you and open it up," Alex instructed impatiently.

"What is it?"

"Open it and find out."

Gingerly, Mulder reached for the folder and opened it. Then he whistled under his breath and began rifling through the sheathes of paper with mounting excitement.

"Where the hell did you...I can't believe this. I used to have some of these but mine were all censored. How the hell did you get the original copies? This is...oh, fuck...is this transcript genuine?"

"It's all genuine," Alex announced smugly. "As to where I got it? Well, call it my insurance policy, gathered over the years at considerable personal expense and risk. All prettily bound and gift wrapped for the special Fox in my life."

"Why?" Mulder grated. "What's this going to cost me?" 

He didn't even pretend he wasn't willing to pay whatever cost Alex set. In his hands, finally, was everything he'd ever dreamt of obtaining. From what appeared to be a complete transcript of the MJ files, to uncensored copies of X-files that he'd only ever seen before with more black ink than legible typing, to a chronologically catalogued list of the government's efforts to bury the truth and, most damning evidence of all, a dossier containing the real names and true allegiances of dozens of conspirators including a full report on the cigarette-smoking bastard himself.

"I told you," Alex replied patiently. "I need your help. I want to take them down and I can't do it alone. It's like trying to chop heads off an Hydra. Cut one bastard down and two grow in his place. I need the resources of the Bureau to pull this off."

Mulder shook his head in disbelief, his eyes turning from hazel to smoky gray and finally to a shimmering green. "You do care," he whispered finally. "This is your 'eye for an eye', isn't it? They killed Walter and so you're turning against them."

"Does it matter why I'm giving it to you?" Alex asked, with a one-shouldered shrug. "If that's what you want to believe, then fine. The truth is that this is the first time the information I've just given you won't be wasted. Last week, if you'd walked into a Senate hearing with that file you'd have been thrown out on your ass. Today, after the very public murder of one of the FBI's assistant directors, and the 'removal' of the one man who might still have managed to bury the truth, people are going to have to listen to you."

"It still won't be enough," Mulder argued. "Smith, or Spender, or whatever the hell name he's going by now, will disappear like smoke the moment I instigate an enquiry."

"He's the one I removed."

"Removed?"

"He's dead," Alex announced flatly.

"What?" Mulder demanded. 

In the driver's mirror, he saw the reflection of a slow, wolfish grin.

"He met with an unfortunate accident yesterday evening. The details of which might come to light at any moment, hence the need for you to act swiftly on the information I've given you."

"So you took out the smoker and you need me to make sure his colleagues don't get the chance to take revenge on you."

"Let's just say it would be to our mutual advantage if their allegiances were to be publicly exposed."

"No," Mulder mumbled. "I don't believe this. I mean, I *want* to believe it but I don't. You're just playing me. You must be. If you killed the smoker, you as good as painted a target on your back. You're not capable, Alex. Believe it or not, I *do* understand you. You're psychologically incapable of risking your life for something as nebulous as revenge for Walter's death."

"But I never said I did it for Walter," Alex reminded him sweetly. "I did it for you, Fox. So now you owe me, and I'm going to collect."

"What exactly do you think I owe you?" Mulder demanded suspiciously.

"Your help to expose the conspirators, of course, but that's hardly a favor, is it? We both know that all I've done here is hand you the bullets for a gun you've been itching to fire for years."

Mulder nodded sullenly.

"So, let's move to specifics, shall we?  I want the new alarm code for Walter's apartment. I know it was you who changed it and while I *could* get in there without the code I don't see why I should go to the trouble."

"Why the fuck do you want to get in his apartment, Alex? You don't need to worry about covering your tracks. Walter did that for you the night you put him into hospital."

Alex turned away from him and stared silently out of the windshield for a long time before replying in a low, embarrassed voice. "I just want a few things of his."

Something softened in Mulder at the quietly spoken confession. Alex *had* cared for Walter in his own fucked up way. Why the hell else would he want some mementoes of Walter's life?

"He left a will, you know," he told Alex gently. "He left everything to me, with a codicil that I should allow you to take anything you wanted."

"He named me?" Alex demanded, swinging around to face Mulder once more with dangerously bright eyes. It was hard to tell whether the emotion swirling in the green depths was anger or fear or something else entirely.

"Of course he didn't name you. He just wrote the condition that I should ensure the happiness and comfort of his pet rodent before considering the disposal of his assets.  Since I didn't find a hamster cage in his apartment, it was obvious what he was trying to say. He loved you, Alex. I might not like facing that, but the problem with being a truth-seeker is that when you start disturbing rocks you don't always enjoy the truths you reveal."

"So you'll give me the code?"

"Code? I'll give you the damned keys, Alex. Take anything you want. That's obviously what Walter was hoping you'd do. The only surprise is that he trusted me to allow it," he added, a little bitterly.

"Perhaps he just knew you were safe with me," Alex replied, with surprising gentleness. "He knew I'd *ask* you for his things rather than just taking them."

"Because you love me?" Mulder asked sadly.

"I do," Alex assured him. "You know that I do. Shall I stop the car and prove it to you?"

Mulder opened his mouth with the intention of telling him to go to hell, but the words twisted in his throat, choking and constricting him. "Oh, shit, Alex," he gasped finally, tears pouring down his cheeks.  "He's dead. Don't you understand that? Walter's dead."

He heard the locks disengage, heard Alex climbing out of the driver's seat and the crunch of his boots on the road, heard his own door opening, and he knew he should lift his weapon towards Alex or even just form his hand into a fist because otherwise Alex was going to climb inside the car and touch him and this time he wouldn't have the excuse of handcuffs or the press of a gun against his head or even the knowledge that his co-operation might buy Walter some safety.

Walter was dead. He was lying in the ground, buried under six-foot of soil, and Alex had killed the man who had probably ordered Walter's death and he'd handed him the evidence that would crush the conspiracy. Alex was real and Alex was alive and Alex was *here*, and Alex was touching him, holding him, devouring his lips with a hungry mouth and wiping at his tears with fingers that were soft, and tender and full of love. Alex was pressing him down, gently crushing him into the wreath of roses, and if the rose thorns were biting against his back, clawing pain into his flesh with the pressure of each hungry kiss against his neck and throat, then that somehow felt right too.

As right as the feel of Alex's touch, and Alex's kisses and, oh god, yes, the feel of Alex's fingers fumbling at the zipper of his pants. It didn't matter if it was grief that made him need Alex's touch, or that it was his body's instinctive need to reaffirm life in the face of death which probably made his cock leapt up to meet Alex's hand in hot, greedy expectation.

It seemed curiously right that this was happening in the back of a black funeral car, on the mattress of a crushed wreath, with both of them dressed in clothes of mourning.

Too right for Mulder to find the strength to deny what he wanted, what he needed, what was the only thing that might temporarily dull the aching loneliness of his heart.

"Fuck me, Alex," he pleaded, tears still streaming down his face.

And, with a soft chuckle, Alex complied.

Cat soft, on feet wearing only a pair of Alex's socks, Walter padded into the kitchen and stared in confused disbelief at the figure standing over the stove while energetically stirring a large pot of what smelt deliciously like some form of goulash.

Walter was a big man, broad as well as tall, but he felt dwarfish in comparison with the stranger in Alex's kitchen. The man... no, Ivan, he reminded himself angrily. Ivan was perhaps a hand-span shorter than eight foot tall.  Abnormally tall. The kind of height that deserved notation in a record book. And broad too. Enough muscle mass to make the average Mr. Universe look like a seven-stone weakling in comparison. Biceps wider than Walter's thighs. Almost as wide as the deformed lump that rose like a second head out of the middle of Ivan's back.

Walter took a deep, steadying breath, as he wondered just how tall Ivan *really* was. What height would this giant have reached if his spine hadn't knotted and twisted into a knurled mass at the base of his neck?

Giant.

With the word, a memory returned of the nightmare figure that had lumbered out of the darkness towards him like a twisted tree coming to life.  The giant man with the horror-comic face and the huge malformed hands.  The monster who had...who had presumably picked him up and carried him to the safety of the house.

And though his stomach twisted with revulsion at the thought of Ivan turning around so that the face that had terrified him even in darkness should now be revealed in the bright stark lights of the kitchen, it was the knowledge that the fearsome creature of his nightmare vision had, in fact, been a gentle savior whose hands hadn't even left bruises to mark their passing on his skin, that made him deliberately form his features into a mask of polite indifference before he announced his presence.

"Good afternoon, Ivan."

The huge man startled at his voice, swinging around with lumbering gracelessness so that the full ruin of his features was revealed.

It wasn't a face. The word 'face' suggested some form of order, some familiar arrangement  regardless of the arrangement's beauty or ugliness. What Ivan had could only be accurately described as a head. A head on which the arrangement of hair was broken randomly to reveal the occasional mis-placed feature. A single eye, too large even in terms of Ivan's gargantuan proportions, nestled approximately where his right cheekbone should have been situated. A gaping mouth, filled with broken and blackened teeth, set a couple of inches too far left of center.  A nose that was little more than nostrils, lying pug-flat so that every breath Ivan took was accompanied by a wet snort as though he was drowning in his own nasal juices. The only 'normal' features were Ivan's ears. They alone defined the sides of his 'face', their perfectly proportioned perfection somehow only increasing the overall horror of Ivan's countenance.

There was a difference between expecting such a sight and facing it and the difference was pounded into Walter by the frantic thudding of his own heart. Ivan was the living representation of a thousand childhood nightmares. Giant, monster, bogeyman, Cyclops, gargantua, grendel, he was...Walter searched for the right word in the dark, swirling, frightened confusion of his brain. He was...he was...and then he found the word, grasped it, clung on to it and dragged it into the light. Ivan was...a man.

No more. No less. Just a tragically deformed man.

A prisoner of this place as much as he was. A prisoner of his own body who'd somehow found sanctuary here in Alex's house and was probably trapped by his need of that sanctuary as securely as Walter himself was tethered by the nanocytes. Perhaps Ivan was even trapped in the same hopeless adoration of Alex. There was a concept too bitter-tasting for Walter to drag to the surface for closer inspection. How *would* a creature like Ivan perceive Alex? Perhaps more to the point, how did Alex perceive Ivan? Had Alex employed Ivan out of pity or  expediency? Did Alex's peculiar madness allow him to see the man beneath Ivan's freakish ugliness or was he simply exploiting Ivan for his own purposes? Perhaps if he could learn the answer to that question, he might finally understand Alex. 

"That smells really good," he said quietly, nodding at the pot and smiling softly.

Ivan cocked his head in obvious confusion, his single eye narrowing in query. It was a strangely beautiful eye now Walter that considered it objectively, as dark and placid as a dray-horse's soft gaze.  If eyes truly *were* the windows to the soul, then the soul inside Ivan seemed to be of a surprisingly gentle variety.

Ivan grunted inquisitively, and somewhere in the rough sounds Walter heard a pattern and rhythm, words with the inflection of Russian, a language he knew too little of for conversation but enough of to perhaps unravel Ivan's mystery given patience and time. 

"I'm sorry, I haven't spoken Russian since I was five," he apologized gently, although he doubted Ivan understood what he was saying. "I'm hungry," he continued, tapping his mouth and then rubbing his belly.

That Ivan seemed to understand because his mouth opened into a huge, gap-toothed grin and he gestured towards the kitchen table with a hand larger than Walter's head. A hand that could crush Walter's neck like glass but was instead preoccupied now with ladling the heavily spiced stew into two steaming bowls.

Walter sat down at the table and cringed internally at how additionally intimidated he felt in that position as Ivan lumbered over, bowls in hand. But he smiled brightly and reached gratefully for the bowl he was given, and he continued smiling at the obviously wary giant as Ivan cautiously offered him a spoon with the heart-breaking hesitancy of someone obviously more used to people fleeing from him than accepting items out of his hands.

"Spaa...see...ba," Walter enunciated carefully.

For a moment Ivan stared at him in disbelief, and then the ugly mouth broke into a relieved smile and the single, soft-brown eye seemed to sparkle wetly for a moment before Ivan grabbed his own spoon and lowered his head to shovel goulash into his mouth with enthusiastic, hungry slurps.

The End....for now.