Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold

 by Mort

 "I think you're going to tell me everything. I think you're going to explain every little detail about your relationship with Alex because, if you don't, I'm going to tell him that you lay here and let me jerk you off."

Skinner gave a gasp of combined terror and reluctant excitement as Mulder's fingers squeezed and pulled on his cock. 

/Your turn on is fear/ Mulder had accused, and he'd been right, damn him.

But in every *important* way, Mulder was wrong. Mulder was underestimating Alex as much as he himself had at first.  Mulder actually thought he still had choices here, imagined that he was immune to Alex's web.

Poor Mulder who had faced real honest-to-god monsters in his life, who had been betrayed, abandoned, perhaps even abused but somehow still believed in the essential 'goodness' of people.

It was as sweet as a grown mad still believing in Santa Claus.

And just as pathetic.

What had happened to "trust no one?"

If Skinner hadn't been too damned sore to even move, he would have surged from the bed and kicked Mulder's ass for being so naive as to believe he was safe here in this hospital room.

Mulder was touching him, jerking him off, threatening him, and actually imagining that his threat had meaning. Because Mulder still hadn't learned that Alex had eyes and ears everywhere.

Did Mulder really think this hospital room was safe? 

It seemed so by the way the younger man's fingers were speeding along his cock, dragging him to orgasm. Skinner wondered where Alex was sitting watching this encounter. Was he in the hospital? Close enough to burst in the door any moment, palm pilot in hand?

Although, knowing Alex, he was more probably jerking himself off in sympathy. Enjoying the vicarious pleasure of watching the man he loved playing with his own toy while he plotted his revenge.

Yes, it was more likely that Alex *was* enjoying Mulder's performance too much to cut it short. Besides, although the bullet with Skinner's name on had undoubtedly been lined up the moment Alex had overhead Skinner trying to convince Mulder to leave town, Skinner knew that Alex hated to take revenge in a hurry.

Alex believed that the flavor of revenge was *always* improved if it was served cold.

So Skinner knew he was dead. 

He had known it the moment he'd opened his mouth and told Mulder to get out of town and leave him and Alex to their dance of death. He didn't even mind. Not really. If he was lucky, Alex might even take him once more, for old time's sake, before the final act.

Some months previously, Skinner had *acquired* an interesting contact poison. He'd injected a lethal dose inside the thin skin of a slow-dissolving suppository. If he timed everything perfectly, the poison wouldn't activate until the capsule was burst by Alex's cock.

There was something almost romantic about the thought that they would share the pleasure of their final death throes together. That they'd die joined literally where their fatal dance had first been born.

He didn't even mind the thought of their corpses being found in such an undignified embrace.

As long as Mulder was safe.

Except he was suddenly sure that Mulder wouldn't be.

His eyes flared with horror as he looked into Mulder's face and saw the zealous fire that burned inside those hazel eyes. 

Mulder didn't *want* to be safe. Mulder wanted to fight, wanted to win, and anyone who knew Mulder knew that he *never* gave up simply because of impossible odds. Mulder was a modern day Don Quixote. He used a gun for a lance, his windmills were UFO's, and he was impervious to mockery of his crazy, one-man crusade against wrong. Skinner wasn't sure whether Mulder had the purity of a saint, or simply the manic self-belief of a madman.

Skinner had signed his own death warrant, and possibly that of Alex, simply to warn off a man who simply didn't understand the concept of self-preservation.

"He'll kill me," he sobbed desperately, praying that Mulder might at least  care about *his* life, even if he was so careless of his own.

"Slowly, probably," Mulder agreed emotionlessly.

Skinner's face crumpled with terror. He willed himself not to react to Mulder's fingers, imagining the fury Alex would feel at this inadvertent betrayal of his love by Mulder.

And Alex *did* love Mulder, which was the saddest, most pathetic thing of all.

Especially since Skinner felt the same way about Alex.

Skinner hadn't been lying when he'd admitted that he loved the assassin. It wasn't something he *wanted*. Alex was as addictive, and fatal, as any illegal drug. On the few occasions that he'd allowed himself to face the truth that his fear of Alex had turned into a bizarre hunger for the green-eyed devil, he had loathed himself for the emotion.

Loving Alex was  like repeatedly striking your head against a wall, simply for the pleasure you felt when the pain finally stopped. 

Yet, sometimes, Skinner had fooled himself that he was slowly wearing down Alex's sharply bristled exterior. Just sometimes he'd imagined a look of guilt in Alex's eyes, a faint moon-shadow in the green depths that spoke of loneliness and need. 

Once or twice, in the sticky aftermath of their frenetic violent coupling, Alex had softened against him briefly, sinking against him as though he wanted to he held as much as Skinner longed to hold him. Alex was like a wild untamed beast that longed to be petted but would instinctively turn and claw any hand that dared to try.

Except there *had* been one terrible night, when Alex had come to him in fury, that Skinner had *almost* managed to turn the relationship around.

Alex had been wild-eyed, his face and chest bruised and battered by someone's fists, his soul crushed by someone's hatred.  

Alex *did* have a soul, somewhere buried deep inside himself. Skinner knew he did, because on that long, torturous night he'd screamed the anguish of Alex's soul on the younger man's behalf.

And when it was over, and Skinner was so badly beaten that he'd had to claim a debilitating attack of influenza to excuse his necessary ten-day absence from work, it had been Alex who had cried and Skinner who had comforted him.

Impossible image. Impossible memory. That  barely able to breathe for the pain in his ribs, blood literally pouring from the deep welts on his back and mingling with the pink-tinged cum that stained his buttocks,  he had lain and rocked a sobbing Alex in his arms, whispering words of comfort and love.

Subdued, a little spaced-out, Alex had stayed with him for almost two days. Helping him to the bathroom when he couldn't even crawl there by himself, bringing him soup and water, lying in bed next to him as a silent comforter when the pain was so great that Skinner couldn't sleep.  

In those two days, Alex hadn't spoken. He'd just gazed at Skinner with eyes bruised with such inner torment that Skinner had become bizarrely convinced that it was Alex who was truly suffering, and that Skinner's broken flesh was simply the vessel by which Alex could demonstrate his own pain.

"Who hurt you, Alex?" Skinner had finally rasped out, when the swelling of his near-strangulation had subsided enough to make speech possible.

And although Alex had self-consciously raised a hand to rub over the fading marks of his own bruised face, Skinner had no more meant Alex's minor injuries than Alex acknowledged them with his answer.

"Mulder," Alex had admitted finally, and green eyes were so dull and haunted by the confession that a hand had clutched around Skinner's heart and squeezed painfully tight.

It was the first time that Skinner believed that Alex was even capable of understanding what love meant.  

Skinner had played the memory over and over in his mind like a well-worn record, until the grooves had become worn almost smooth by repetition, until the weird cadence of the moment had become no more than the shattering sound of broken glass.

So he couldn't deny his own guilt.

He could have changed everything. He could have saved Alex, saved himself, saved Mulder. He could have reached out for Alex in that one moment of vulnerability and thrown him a life-line. 

He could have admitted that he loved Alex, and maybe that temporary, vulnerable Alex would have found enough comfort in the admission to let go of his terrible, unrequited passion for Mulder. Perhaps it would have been enough for Alex to understand that love could survive pain and cruelty, that love could still flourish in sterile soil. That someone *could* love Alex Krycek.

Although he didn't fool himself that Alex could have ever learned to *really* care about him , Skinner was half convinced that Alex *would* have accepted him as a shadow substitute for the man he really wanted. Alex might have given up his hopeless obsession and settled instead for the certainty of Skinner's love.

Instead, he'd laughed.

It had been terrible, bitter laughter, driven by so much pain in his heart that it negated the agony of his ribs. He had laughed until tears had rolled down his cheeks, and like acid each tear had somehow eroded Alex's mask of confused pain to allow the beast beneath his skin to claw its way to the surface once more.

And the pain of witnessing that transformation had wiped the scornful laughter from Skinner's lips even before Alex had back-handed him across the face.

It was that memory that defeated him. 

Skinner's balls tightened and he erupted into Mulder's hand with a raw scream of fear-tinged passion. 

Mulder resisted the urge to thrust his face under the bedcovers and lick Skinner clean. He simply pulled back his hand, straightened the bedcovers and wiped himself with one of the tissues from the bedside cabinet.

"Now, Walter. I think it's time we *really* talked, don't you?"

Mulder pulled off the freeway and parked in the lot of a brightly-lit diner.

He couldn't face going home yet.

Even if his apartment *didn't* contain a psychotic Alex Krycek, which was a distinct possibility, it still bore the strewn, blood-stained petals of the white roses. Just the thought of facing that debris made his stomach churn and bile rise in his throat.

/He loves Krycek. He loves the rat bastard. He loves that fucking maniac. He loves HIM!/

The realization didn't hurt. Hurt didn't even begin to define Mulder's emotions, Walter Skinner, Assistant Director of the FBI and all round good-guy was not only the punch-bag and sexual plaything of the assassin. He actually claimed to be in love with him.

"Look, I'll help you," he'd told Skinner. "I'll do a deal with Krycek. I...I know what he wants. I can get the palm pilot off him. You'll be safe."

And Skinner had looked at him with an almost pitying contempt.

"We BOTH know what he wants, Mulder, and if you care about me at all, if you have any compassion, you won't give it to him."

"But without the nanocytes inside you, he can't hurt you," Mulder had protested.

"Without the nanocytes, he won't feel safe enough to come near me," Skinner had replied with a wry smile.  "So they are the price I pay."

"The price you pay for what?"

"For loving him."

/He loves Krycek. He loves the rat bastard. He loves that fucking maniac. He loves HIM!/

"Sir...Skinner...Walter," Mulder had protested. "You're not thinking straight. You don't love him. It's just a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. He's been holding your life in his hands, abusing you, beating you, you've lost the ability to see him for what he is. It's a natural reaction in victims."

"Kidnap victims," Skinner had replied. "The only thing Alex has kidnapped is my heart."

"NO. You don't love him. You CAN'T love him."

"Because you don't approve of him?" Skinner had challenged. "So what's new?"

"Because...because I love you," Mulder had finally admitted.

And Skinner had laughed.

He had godamned laughed so hard that he'd almost choked, and if it hadn't been for a nurse rushing in as the monitors on Skinner's bed went crazy, Mulder might have been tempted to finish the job himself.

"I'm sorry," Skinner had gasped finally. "I'm not laughing at *you*."

"So what's so damned funny?" he'd demanded angrily, trying not to show how deeply Skinner's laughter had knifed him in the guts.

"I love him, you love me and he loves you. I think *that's* funny."

Funny?

It was so downright hysterical that it was all Mulder could do to sit in his car in the parking lot and keep himself from screaming.

/He loves Krycek. He loves the rat bastard. He loves that fucking maniac. He loves HIM!/

And on the tail end of that thought.

/He doesn't love ME/

"For a bright guy, you're the stupidest fuck I've ever known," Krycek drawled, using his artificial arm to pin Mulder by the neck while his other hand reached over the cinema seat and divested his victim of his weapon.  "You should have *known* I'd find you here."

"I did," Mulder gasped, going limp in Krycek's arms. "I counted on it."

"You did?" Krycek growled, looking around the darkened room with suspicious eyes. He'd been watching the movie theatre for hours, ever since the bug he'd planted on Mulder's car had shown him that the Agent was just driving around the city in circles, clearly afraid to go home.

He'd played the odds, deciding Mulder was more likely to choose a film than a motel, and had staked out the theatre accordingly. He knew everyone inside the theatre. It was impossible that Mulder had managed to get undercover reinforcements in place, but his unnatural placidity was decidedly worrying.

"I wanted to see you," Mulder said.

Krycek gave a coughing laugh of disbelief.

"I'd have come to your place *honey*," he drawled sarcastically. "All you had to do was call me."

"I wanted to see you here," Mulder replied calmly. "Where there's no bad memories between us."

"Cut the bullshit," Krycek snarled, tightening his choke-hold until Mulder gasped for breath. "I know what you want, and it ain't gonna happen."

"So Skinner was wrong, huh?" Mulder sighed.

"About what?"

"He said you were telling the truth when you said you loved me, Alex."

Krycek didn't answer, but the pressure on Mulder's neck eased a little.

"If you love me, you wouldn't be fucking HIM," Mulder said to the silent shadow behind him.

"Slut," Krycek snarled. "I knew you were just a slut, Fox. You sit here offering to whore yourself to save his ass and you think that makes me happy? Fuck you, Fox. If I wanted to pay for ass, I'd damn well get a sweeter piece of meat than you for my money."

Mulder refused to rise to the bait. Despite the cruelty of his words, the tone of obvious hurt in Krycek's voice was too genuine to be faked.

/Shit, he really *does* think he's in love with me/

"This isn't about Skinner," Mulder lied. "At least not the way you think. This is about you telling me you loved me when all along you've been fucking another guy. My own fucking boss, Alex. How is that supposed to make me feel?"

"This is bullshit, Fox. Do I look fucking stupid?" Krycek demanded. "You expect me to believe you're jealous of him when I know perfectly well you want *him*."

"Not any more," Mulder whispered.

"WHAT?"

"You're right, Alex. I haven't given you a chance, because all I wanted was Skinner."

"And now you've changed your mind?" Alex snarled. "Why the fuck should I believe that?"

"Because I thought he was a top, Alex. You know what I am, what I want. He can't give it to me, can he? Not like you can."

Feral green eyes glinted in the darkness behind Mulder's head.

"Strip," he whispered.

"I can't," Mulder hissed, looking frantically at the other movie-goers.

"No one's watching you but me," Alex purred. "Do I have to start threatening to shoot people again?"

"No," Mulder whispered.

"Then strip."

Mulder's fingers trembled as he began unfastening his clothes. He jumped at every loud noise from the film soundtrack and cringed every time a scene-change threw a halo of blue light into the dark room.

Yet there was no doubt that part of his shivering was excitement.

There was something almost obscenely arousing about the idea of being naked in the middle of a public place, of baring himself for Krycek's cock. And as Krycek scrambled over the seat that separated them and unzipped his fly, Mulder was filled with a new fear. A fear of himself.

What had started out as the only logical solution he could think of to save Skinner was becoming a scene more erotic than any movie he'd ever watched, and he began to doubt himself. He began to wonder whether his noble decision to offer his ass in exchange for the palm pilot had ever been more than simply a justification to let Krycek fuck him once more.

He had an almost sickening feeling of deja vu as Krycek pushed him half over the seat in front and kicked his legs wide. The leather of Krycek's trousers was rough as it rasped against his bare buttocks and the feel of the hot, blunt end of Krycek's cock pressing against his pucker made him groan somewhere between fear and desire.

"I'm going to fuck you so hard you'll have to walk home," Krycek promised, "Because you won't be able to sit down for a week."

Then, as though to prove it wasn't mere hyperbole, Krycek rammed himself home in one thrust that forced a scream out of Mulder's throat.

Several heads turned, and although it was impossible to see their faces in the dark, it was obvious to Mulder that they had realized what was happening behind them.

"Shit, Alex, stop. Please...we can go back to my place," Mulder begged, his cheeks flaming.

"Relax," Alex purred, slamming his hips back and forth so hard that Mulder had to bite down on the seat to try and muffle his wails.  "No one will call the cops. We're far better entertainment than the crappy film."

Mulder moaned and closed his eyes in shame, but his cock slapped against his abdomen and drooled with excitement.

"Come on, let's really give them a show," Krycek laughed, adjusting himself so that he could pull almost his entire length out of Mulder's ass before driving back to the hilt.

Mulder was soon bucking and writhing beneath him, so maddened by the sensations hammering through his body that he lost awareness of their audience and began to moan and gasp in earnest.

"Harder?" Alex asked.

"Yeah...please...oh god, yeah," Mulder groaned, pressing his ass back into each corkscrewing thrust of Krycek's cock.

"Well?" Alex demanded.

Spender grinned and stared down at Mulder's pale form as he struggled to dress himself in the now empty theatre.  Even from distance of the projection booth it was clear that the Agent was still groggy.

"Impressive," Spender said, lighting a new cigarette and sucking on it thoughtfully. "He was out for over ten minutes. That last orgasm nearly took his head off. He obviously enjoyed himself immensely, though I imagine he's feeling very uncomfortable now."

"I'm glad you appreciated my efforts to entertain you," Alex drawled.

"You gave us quite  a show, Alexei. My associates *were* quite ... ...entertained. They were just disappointed that it was too dark to fully appreciate what they were watching."

"But were they convinced?"

"On the whole."

"Then you agree?"

"The nanocytes would have been simpler."

"But sex is so much cleaner and achieves the same amount of control."

"You may be right," Spender agreed.

"And you agree about Skinner too?"

"Yes. If you can keep Mulder in line, we don't need Skinner any more."

"Good," Alex purred.

"What are you planning to do with him?" Spender asked.

"Believe me, you'd rather not know," Alex replied.

And then he smiled.

The End