fic: Wotan's Day 3/16
Title: Wotan's Day
Fandoms: Highlander, X-files, Invisible Man
Rating:NC-17 overall, PG for non-explicit sex for this chapter
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Notes: I did not intend to include Invisible Man fandom in this story, but Bobby Hobbes showed up, and wouldn't stop talking.
Summary: Methos follows Krycek south, and we find out that Mulder is on the case.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful--just stupid.)
Time Enough for Love
"And now you work for men like that? Men who would torture me to put their dog back on the leash?"
Hobbes did not answer, despite the truth serum, or perhaps because of it. He could not lie to himself, and if I had judged him correctly, he was about to have a very uncomfortable set of realizations.
I let him think for a minute or two.
"And what would your partner think of your current work situation?"
"He would probably kill me, like a rabid dog." Hobbes' voice was quiet.
"Who do you work for?"
"You, if you want me."
Damn. I had to ask more precisely. "Who did you work for? What was the old man?"
"He was part of a consortium. Old men, shady dealings."
"Aliens?" I tried to keep the sneer of disbelief out of my tone.
"Yeah. Other stuff, too."
I took a breath, thinking. The car stank of sherry, blood, and fouler smells that indicated the final lapse of reflex common to most corpses.
"Was anyone else working with the old man trying to get Krycek?"
"I don't think so, but they usually had more than one operation for any goal. Smart strategy, that, but not always good tactics unless the two teams are aware of each other, coordinated, like. Sometimes these guys were so tight, their ass wouldn't tell their hand it had just taken a dump, if it thought it could get away with not getting wiped."
"Mr. Hobbes," I said, putting aside the colorful image and returning to my immediate needs, "will you help me?"
"Yes."
"I need the contents of the trunk, and I need this car so completely wrecked that the authorities will never identify the bodies. Can you do that?'
"Yes. That's the beauty of the hybrids, Mr. Bierce. All that lovely battery acid, plus the chance for explosion."
"Spoken like a true professional."
"That I am, sir. That I am," he said.
"Do you want to live or die?"
"Live," he said, "but I got no right."
The truth serum was disrupting all of his necessary self-deceptions. My task now was to make sure he channeled his guilt into helping me. Whether he lived or died, the memory of his dead partner would keep him from helping his former employers again.
"That is entirely your decision, then."
We were silent for a few miles, and he slowed to take the next exit.
"I'll let you off here, then go wreck the car. If I do it right, the batteries for the hybrid will rupture and destroy the bodies."
"And you, Mr. Hobbes, what do you choose?"
"Blaze of glory, my friend. Blaze of glory. Christians say an act of redemption at the end can make up for a life of sin."
"You are not a Christian," I said as he took the exit.
"No, sir, I am not, but they sometimes have interesting ideas."
There was a hotel, and he pulled into a parking space.
"Can I trust you, Mr. Hobbes?"
"No," he answered automatically. "I mean, in this case, yes."
It took a few minutes of carefully stated questions, which made Mr. Hobbes impatient, but I left the car confident that he would destroy it thoroughly, and perhaps himself as well. I made him drink more of the sherry to make sure he could not retreat into his self-delusions, and bade him good luck.
I retrieved my bags from the trunk, changed my shirt from the bloody and torn mess, then slapped the lid twice after I closed it. I watched my car pull away, and back to the highway.
Time for the next role. I took a set of identification and a new cell phone out of the gym bag. Paul Adamson, I decided, had just been dumped out of his girlfriend's car after an argument. I memorized the Chicago address, the fact that I was now twenty-eight, and decided I was a part of the great over-educated and underemployed class. Paul was constructed as if his parents had money, and thus the credit rating.
I took a room, and arranged a rental car for the next day, acting spoiled and jilted and annoyed that the cheesy hotel lounge was the best entertainment available.
~~~~~
"Sir?"
Mulder looked up. It was one of the young agents, standing at the door to his office, shifting nervously and adjusting the collar of her pantsuit. Nield. "We have a report on the cell phones. They separated, each heading south out of Denver, joined up again, and now we've lost the signal."
"Which means what?"
"We think that Krycek and his accomplice were traveling together, and realized the phones could be used to track them."
"Don't state the obvious. What do you think?"
"Uh, sir?"
"Just because the phones traveled together, Agent Nield, don't assume their owners did. Did anyone decode Krycek's message?"
The young woman, blinked. "Sir?"
Mulder sighed. Where did they find them this naive? There was something familiar about her, but he couldn't imagine where he'd met her. Perhaps it was the blond All-American prettiness. "You think he really left his comfortable life because he met someone else? You really think Bierce believes it? Does someone like Bierce dump a high-profile litigation to go to Las Vegas, ever? Is the best route to Las Vegas heading south of Denver? No, I think our lawyer friend is about as much what he seems as Sasha Lisitsa was. The clumsy surveillance you set up before I arrived tipped them off. Get me everything you've compiled on Mathias Bierce, and find someone who knew him before college. High school teacher, the kid who used to beat him up on the playground, anything."
He rubbed his eyes under his glasses, not watching her leave. Alexander Danavitch Lisitsa. Alexander, family of Dana, Fox. How annoying could the man be? The rat put his and his wife's names in his own current nom de guerre, although the phrase nom de l'art probably applied better, given Krycek's most recent cover.
And just how involved was Bierce? Up until they flushed him along with Krycek, Mulder had thought he was what he seemed--a young corporate lawyer with bad taste in men, on the rise in a middle American city.
Why the hell had he let Skinner talk him into coming out of retirement?
"If anyone can profile this guy, it's you," they had said, calling him to describe a string of deaths and disappearances in the shadier side of the art world. Mulder had seen the news reports, and didn't think it was all that interesting. Besides, flattery did not work.
Then Walter Skinner called from a golf course in Florida and said it would be a personal favor. "We have a location, and we think it's the guy. It's someone we thought was dead."
"I thought I turned in my Ghostbusters badge," Mulder had answered, ready to hang up.
"We think it's Krycek." And with that, they had him. In a week he was back at Quantico in the new DCI in some sort of weird temporary special agent status from some sort of former FBI reserve pool he hadn't even known existed, much less that he belonged to it. In another week he had a team, such as it was. Nield was the greenest of them.
Mulder looked at the desk, at the paperwork of Operation Ratpack. They'd flushed the quarry before they were ready, lost it already, and added another pigeon to the prey. Bierce.
Nield came in with a file, and Mulder looked at the photographs of Bierce: in a Harvard sweatshirt; wearing a suit, posing in a group photo for a news article about some charity event; standing with his arm over Krycek's shoulder, both of them smiling, comfortable and happy.
Those were two words Mulder could never imagine applying to Alex Krycek.
He did not like to admit that he had some personal satisfaction in the case already from having broken up Krycek's little love nest. The black SUVs were all it had taken to send him running. The question was, where?
~~~~~
I spent a quiet night, letting the news play in the background and practicing with the PlaSteel Ivanhoe as much as the limited hotel space would allow. It was lightweight, requiring less muscle to swing, but more active muscle to cut. I had a feeling I would need to be in fighting shape if I ever caught up with Sasha. I took breakfast in my room, and the annoyance of the TV was finally worthwhile. A black Jaguar had been found almost entirely destroyed. Hobbes had taken it off a bridge and into a canyon. Only the rear license plate was intact enough for any identification. The news announcer said that the relatives of the car's owner were being sought. I wished them luck with their search, suddenly regretful that I had not been able to give Betty a proper goodbye. She would find my will interesting, at least.
The car from the rental agency was flashier than I would have liked, but I suppose the front desk had made assumptions based on my act as Paul Adamson, spoiled son of a rich man. It was time to head south.
I had too much time for rumination, and the flat plains of corn made it hard to judge time and distance. Even the hundred channels on the satellite radio were not enough to prevent my mind from wandering back, fitting in the new information about Sasha with the careful construct of our life together.
There had been one trip in the last year, now that I looked back on it, when he may not have been sure he would return. I was working on a case in bed, computer on my lap and papers spread around, when he came into the bedroom from the dressing room.
"Done packing?" I asked, barely looking up.
"Almost."
He reached under the bed and pulled out the toy box. "I'll need to take these," he said, straightening up with a pair of handcuffs dangling from one finger.
I glanced up. He was waiting for a reaction, but I looked back to my work and said, "Why don't you take the chocolate paints, too? Although they may be a little stale by now. We haven't used them in a while."
"You're not jealous?"
"Foolishly, since you're still alive and not on anti-retrovirals, I trust you to use condoms. Also, you seem to be leaving the Dali," I glanced up at the wall where the painting hung, "which means you're probably coming back. Or, should I worry?"
"Oh, you should worry," he said, and the next thing I knew I was handcuffed to the bed. He looked at me with his trickster's eyes. There were times, like that moment, when I saw elements of myself--not Mathias Bierce but me, Methos--looking back from those eyes. When he looked at me then, pleased with himself for having caught me by surprise and cuffed me to the bed, it was the first time I was absolutely sure that he saw past the mask, and that that was why he stayed, not for the lawyer with the big house, disposable income, and great technique, but for me.
Sasha picked up my papers, stacking them carelessly, and put the laptop aside. He pulled off the covers, and then my shorts. I considered fighting but before I could decide he sucked me into his mouth and made me hard so fast my head swam and I grabbed at his hair with my free hand and the rungs of the headboard with the other....
I relaxed my hand off the steering wheel where it had gripped tight with the memory. I had to stop thinking about it right there, stop the run of details that would only make me uncomfortable while driving, to say the least. No, there was something in his intensity that night that felt very much like he was saying goodbye. I suddenly remembered his destination that trip was Sedona.
Chapter 4
Fandoms: Highlander, X-files, Invisible Man
Rating:NC-17 overall, PG for non-explicit sex for this chapter
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Notes: I did not intend to include Invisible Man fandom in this story, but Bobby Hobbes showed up, and wouldn't stop talking.
Summary: Methos follows Krycek south, and we find out that Mulder is on the case.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful--just stupid.)
Time Enough for Love
"And now you work for men like that? Men who would torture me to put their dog back on the leash?"
Hobbes did not answer, despite the truth serum, or perhaps because of it. He could not lie to himself, and if I had judged him correctly, he was about to have a very uncomfortable set of realizations.
I let him think for a minute or two.
"And what would your partner think of your current work situation?"
"He would probably kill me, like a rabid dog." Hobbes' voice was quiet.
"Who do you work for?"
"You, if you want me."
Damn. I had to ask more precisely. "Who did you work for? What was the old man?"
"He was part of a consortium. Old men, shady dealings."
"Aliens?" I tried to keep the sneer of disbelief out of my tone.
"Yeah. Other stuff, too."
I took a breath, thinking. The car stank of sherry, blood, and fouler smells that indicated the final lapse of reflex common to most corpses.
"Was anyone else working with the old man trying to get Krycek?"
"I don't think so, but they usually had more than one operation for any goal. Smart strategy, that, but not always good tactics unless the two teams are aware of each other, coordinated, like. Sometimes these guys were so tight, their ass wouldn't tell their hand it had just taken a dump, if it thought it could get away with not getting wiped."
"Mr. Hobbes," I said, putting aside the colorful image and returning to my immediate needs, "will you help me?"
"Yes."
"I need the contents of the trunk, and I need this car so completely wrecked that the authorities will never identify the bodies. Can you do that?'
"Yes. That's the beauty of the hybrids, Mr. Bierce. All that lovely battery acid, plus the chance for explosion."
"Spoken like a true professional."
"That I am, sir. That I am," he said.
"Do you want to live or die?"
"Live," he said, "but I got no right."
The truth serum was disrupting all of his necessary self-deceptions. My task now was to make sure he channeled his guilt into helping me. Whether he lived or died, the memory of his dead partner would keep him from helping his former employers again.
"That is entirely your decision, then."
We were silent for a few miles, and he slowed to take the next exit.
"I'll let you off here, then go wreck the car. If I do it right, the batteries for the hybrid will rupture and destroy the bodies."
"And you, Mr. Hobbes, what do you choose?"
"Blaze of glory, my friend. Blaze of glory. Christians say an act of redemption at the end can make up for a life of sin."
"You are not a Christian," I said as he took the exit.
"No, sir, I am not, but they sometimes have interesting ideas."
There was a hotel, and he pulled into a parking space.
"Can I trust you, Mr. Hobbes?"
"No," he answered automatically. "I mean, in this case, yes."
It took a few minutes of carefully stated questions, which made Mr. Hobbes impatient, but I left the car confident that he would destroy it thoroughly, and perhaps himself as well. I made him drink more of the sherry to make sure he could not retreat into his self-delusions, and bade him good luck.
I retrieved my bags from the trunk, changed my shirt from the bloody and torn mess, then slapped the lid twice after I closed it. I watched my car pull away, and back to the highway.
Time for the next role. I took a set of identification and a new cell phone out of the gym bag. Paul Adamson, I decided, had just been dumped out of his girlfriend's car after an argument. I memorized the Chicago address, the fact that I was now twenty-eight, and decided I was a part of the great over-educated and underemployed class. Paul was constructed as if his parents had money, and thus the credit rating.
I took a room, and arranged a rental car for the next day, acting spoiled and jilted and annoyed that the cheesy hotel lounge was the best entertainment available.
~~~~~
"Sir?"
Mulder looked up. It was one of the young agents, standing at the door to his office, shifting nervously and adjusting the collar of her pantsuit. Nield. "We have a report on the cell phones. They separated, each heading south out of Denver, joined up again, and now we've lost the signal."
"Which means what?"
"We think that Krycek and his accomplice were traveling together, and realized the phones could be used to track them."
"Don't state the obvious. What do you think?"
"Uh, sir?"
"Just because the phones traveled together, Agent Nield, don't assume their owners did. Did anyone decode Krycek's message?"
The young woman, blinked. "Sir?"
Mulder sighed. Where did they find them this naive? There was something familiar about her, but he couldn't imagine where he'd met her. Perhaps it was the blond All-American prettiness. "You think he really left his comfortable life because he met someone else? You really think Bierce believes it? Does someone like Bierce dump a high-profile litigation to go to Las Vegas, ever? Is the best route to Las Vegas heading south of Denver? No, I think our lawyer friend is about as much what he seems as Sasha Lisitsa was. The clumsy surveillance you set up before I arrived tipped them off. Get me everything you've compiled on Mathias Bierce, and find someone who knew him before college. High school teacher, the kid who used to beat him up on the playground, anything."
He rubbed his eyes under his glasses, not watching her leave. Alexander Danavitch Lisitsa. Alexander, family of Dana, Fox. How annoying could the man be? The rat put his and his wife's names in his own current nom de guerre, although the phrase nom de l'art probably applied better, given Krycek's most recent cover.
And just how involved was Bierce? Up until they flushed him along with Krycek, Mulder had thought he was what he seemed--a young corporate lawyer with bad taste in men, on the rise in a middle American city.
Why the hell had he let Skinner talk him into coming out of retirement?
"If anyone can profile this guy, it's you," they had said, calling him to describe a string of deaths and disappearances in the shadier side of the art world. Mulder had seen the news reports, and didn't think it was all that interesting. Besides, flattery did not work.
Then Walter Skinner called from a golf course in Florida and said it would be a personal favor. "We have a location, and we think it's the guy. It's someone we thought was dead."
"I thought I turned in my Ghostbusters badge," Mulder had answered, ready to hang up.
"We think it's Krycek." And with that, they had him. In a week he was back at Quantico in the new DCI in some sort of weird temporary special agent status from some sort of former FBI reserve pool he hadn't even known existed, much less that he belonged to it. In another week he had a team, such as it was. Nield was the greenest of them.
Mulder looked at the desk, at the paperwork of Operation Ratpack. They'd flushed the quarry before they were ready, lost it already, and added another pigeon to the prey. Bierce.
Nield came in with a file, and Mulder looked at the photographs of Bierce: in a Harvard sweatshirt; wearing a suit, posing in a group photo for a news article about some charity event; standing with his arm over Krycek's shoulder, both of them smiling, comfortable and happy.
Those were two words Mulder could never imagine applying to Alex Krycek.
He did not like to admit that he had some personal satisfaction in the case already from having broken up Krycek's little love nest. The black SUVs were all it had taken to send him running. The question was, where?
~~~~~
I spent a quiet night, letting the news play in the background and practicing with the PlaSteel Ivanhoe as much as the limited hotel space would allow. It was lightweight, requiring less muscle to swing, but more active muscle to cut. I had a feeling I would need to be in fighting shape if I ever caught up with Sasha. I took breakfast in my room, and the annoyance of the TV was finally worthwhile. A black Jaguar had been found almost entirely destroyed. Hobbes had taken it off a bridge and into a canyon. Only the rear license plate was intact enough for any identification. The news announcer said that the relatives of the car's owner were being sought. I wished them luck with their search, suddenly regretful that I had not been able to give Betty a proper goodbye. She would find my will interesting, at least.
The car from the rental agency was flashier than I would have liked, but I suppose the front desk had made assumptions based on my act as Paul Adamson, spoiled son of a rich man. It was time to head south.
I had too much time for rumination, and the flat plains of corn made it hard to judge time and distance. Even the hundred channels on the satellite radio were not enough to prevent my mind from wandering back, fitting in the new information about Sasha with the careful construct of our life together.
There had been one trip in the last year, now that I looked back on it, when he may not have been sure he would return. I was working on a case in bed, computer on my lap and papers spread around, when he came into the bedroom from the dressing room.
"Done packing?" I asked, barely looking up.
"Almost."
He reached under the bed and pulled out the toy box. "I'll need to take these," he said, straightening up with a pair of handcuffs dangling from one finger.
I glanced up. He was waiting for a reaction, but I looked back to my work and said, "Why don't you take the chocolate paints, too? Although they may be a little stale by now. We haven't used them in a while."
"You're not jealous?"
"Foolishly, since you're still alive and not on anti-retrovirals, I trust you to use condoms. Also, you seem to be leaving the Dali," I glanced up at the wall where the painting hung, "which means you're probably coming back. Or, should I worry?"
"Oh, you should worry," he said, and the next thing I knew I was handcuffed to the bed. He looked at me with his trickster's eyes. There were times, like that moment, when I saw elements of myself--not Mathias Bierce but me, Methos--looking back from those eyes. When he looked at me then, pleased with himself for having caught me by surprise and cuffed me to the bed, it was the first time I was absolutely sure that he saw past the mask, and that that was why he stayed, not for the lawyer with the big house, disposable income, and great technique, but for me.
Sasha picked up my papers, stacking them carelessly, and put the laptop aside. He pulled off the covers, and then my shorts. I considered fighting but before I could decide he sucked me into his mouth and made me hard so fast my head swam and I grabbed at his hair with my free hand and the rungs of the headboard with the other....
I relaxed my hand off the steering wheel where it had gripped tight with the memory. I had to stop thinking about it right there, stop the run of details that would only make me uncomfortable while driving, to say the least. No, there was something in his intensity that night that felt very much like he was saying goodbye. I suddenly remembered his destination that trip was Sedona.
Chapter 4