Fic: Plus Ça Change (1/3)
Title: Plus Ça Change (1/3)
Author: fides
Pairing: Krycek/Jack, Jack/Ianto, Mulder/Krycek
Fandom: X-Files/Torchwood (and special cookies to anyone who can id the other fandoms that get hinted at)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None really, a few hints at kink here and there :-)
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine no matter what the little voices in my head might say ;-)
Summary: Alex goes to Cardiff after the Brit's death to meet some of the Brit's contacts.
Notes: I know that the timelines don't quite fit so I decided to fudge things a little because it was too tempting to compare Torchwood and the Consortium. This is set after the Movie (X-Files) and during the latter half of season 1 (Torchwood). There are a few general spoilers for X-Files and Torchwood but no specifics. In depth knowledge of both fandoms isn't required.
First published in connotations 2007 zine, now timed out. Thanks to temaris and moth2fic for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are own.
The note was waiting for Mulder when he returned home. He had come from seeing Scully in the hospital and on top of his guilt each word hit him like a bullet to his skull: "The rat has found a hole in Cardiff". He could almost smell the cigarette smoke on the paper. Antarctica suddenly seemed like a paradise.
~~~~
"And this," Captain Jack Harkness completed the introductions, "is Alex Krycek."
Alex looked around the room assessing everyone in the light of the scant information he had managed to discover about them:
Owen Harper; London wide boy with a medical degree, a chip on his shoulder and his brain located south of his waistband. Probably did well enough for himself through sheer chutzpah and repetition, and when he didn't blamed the women for being frigid bitches. He would fight dirty, but Alex wasn't concerned about that; he could fight dirtier. Still, if anyone did, Owen knew all the low-life dealers and two-bit hoods in the area so he was worth cultivating, plus it always paid to be friendly with the docs, there was always the chance that they would hesitate to make you an experiment if they thought of you as human.
Toshiko, Tosh, Sato; attractive in a geeky kind of way, obviously intelligent. Alex could only imagine how much Mulder's Gunman buddies would cream themselves over her and it wasn't a pretty thought. She seemed to fade into the background in the wake of all the loud personalities around her. He could probably win her over just by listening to her about her work for a few hours and taking her seriously. But it wouldn't do to underestimate her; in Alex's experience it was the quiet ones that you took your eye off who slid the knife into your back
Gwen Cooper; so nice Alex wanted to shoot her. She didn't look at his fake arm with an empathy that made his teeth ache. She stared at him with such wide, innocent eyes that Alex knew she would be horrified if she knew what he had done. She was their Mulder, bleeding with every victim and dying with every loss. It was a weakness, but Alex couldn't bring himself to deny that it could also be a strength if used correctly. Gwen he could use, she would feel sorry for him, underestimate him and excuse him right up until a moment past too late. He looked up at her through carefully lowered lashes and caught her blush. Owen bristled and Krycek noted the reaction for future dealings.
Finally, the Captain himself. Captain of what, Alex wondered. One was obviously supposed to think Air Force due to the uniform but the RAF didn't have the rank of Captain. Even assuming it was just a shortening of Group Captain, Alex had checked and there hadn't been any Jack Harknesses in the Royal Air Force since the Second World War. Nor was there an unaccounted for 'Captain Harkness', named Jack or otherwise, in any recognised military that he could find records for. Which meant either the information had been hidden... or the Captain was just making it up. Whatever else he was, Alex had to admit the man was attractive and charismatic, despite the strange period military fetish. However, under the light flirtation Alex could see a hardness he recognised only too well. One player knew another no matter how sugar-coated. Alex had been dealing with both the KGB and Smokey and his old boys’ club for years, he could handle a con man leading a two-bit outfit no one had heard of in a soggy wannabe country.
That was Torchwood Three. The world was doomed.
Four pairs of eyes, two male, two female regarded Alex with a mixture of interest, appreciation and hostility. Alex was used to that. He was slightly surprised by quite how blatantly the two men were checking him out, although with a fair measure of animosity in the case of the doctor. Wide boy obviously didn't like his girlfriend, ex, potential shag, whatever she was giving other guys the eye. Alex considered playing up to the interest versus playing the tough guy. Being underestimated was good, but so was being taken seriously. He let his body sag into a provocative slouch, right hand high on his thigh and fingers curling inwards, the dead weight of his left hanging back at his side and tightening the line of his body and pulling his leather jacket further open. His gun would be clearly visible and Alex amused himself watching the combined gaze of his audience flick between his crotch and his holster. Only Jack looked him in the eyes and smiled. It wasn't an unfriendly smile, but it was much too knowing for Alex's peace of mind.
He was almost relieved when the door to the meeting room opened in a waft of coffee. Almost. Alex tried not to squirm as it really didn't go with the image he was trying to project. He hadn't been able to face coffee since the silo. He always had this nagging worry that it would start crawling out of the cup towards him. He was probably the only person whose pulse got a jumpstart from an espresso before they started drinking it. At least the appearance of refreshments had taken the focus off him slightly.
The tray of drinks was brought in by the man who had let him into the compound earlier. The suit that had looked a trifle out of place in the dingy tourist office, now leant a little class to what was obviously a menial role. File the paperwork, get the coffee... Alex knew how that went. He wondered if the man was even allowed to stay for the meetings or if he had memos about stationary misuse he had to go type. Still he was young and probably ambitious, looked good in the suit he had chosen... Alex could work with that. Most people didn't realise how much information an efficient secretary could get access to if they had reason and Alex was very good at coming up with convincing reasons.
Owen looked down at his cup and then at the young man in confusion.
"Oi - what's this?"
Coffee-boy gave the dissenter a look which Alex thought eloquently conveyed the fact that the man knew much more about hot beverages that Owen did. Well, if you made the coffee in a place like this then, Alex supposed, you would get imperious over the little things.
"Coffee, Owen."
"It doesn't look like coffee," Owen complained.
Alex took his with slight trepidation and a smile of thanks. Owen was right, it didn't have that normal 'I want to take over the world but you first' look about it that had driven him from ever visiting Starbucks again.
"I thought I would try something a little different. It’s an Arabian blonde roast. I can take it back if..."
"No." Owen clung to his cup as if it was going to be taken from him by force.
"So what did you do in America, Alex?" Gwen, and it would, Alex realised, always be her who asked those type of questions, enquired as she passed the cookies across. She had a latte and a line of foam on her top lip.
He prepared his 'FBI' undercover agent response, it always got the bleeding heart ones and it confused the issue nicely if anyone checked up on him. He leant forward to take the offered plate and tried to look his most sincere and believable. He smiled and was pleased to see her automatically mirror the gesture. Almost too easy. He'd be running the place in a month.
"Mr Krycek specialised in information, gathering and hiding." Everyone turned to look at the young man as he placed the penultimate cup in front of Tosh. "In this capacity he was also employed for what is euphemistically called 'wet work'." He caught Krycek's surprised look and addressed him directly "Your previous employer was kind enough to forward us your file." He put the final cup down and, tray by his side, inclined his head slightly in introduction. "Ianto Jones."
"Ianto keeps us fed, cleans up after us and gets us where we need to go." The Captain's smirk suggested coffee was not the only thing Ianto could serve steaming hot. As he moved to the head of the table to stand by Jack, Ianto bent down and whispered something in Gwen's ear. She quickly rubbed the froth from her expression which had all the shock, horror and fascination that Alex had expected.
Alex dismissed her and mentally translated the information he had just been given: logistics and security. And sleeping with the boss so not much chance of turning him without seducing him away from Captain America. Shit. As if he hadn't spent years with the mirror to remind him you couldn't trust the young, pretty ones. They had something to prove after all.
The coffee was good. Almost good enough to provide a distraction from the file that Ianto had slipped from under the tray to in front of the Captain. Was that his file, Alex wondered; it looked thick enough. Or was it just the blood-caffeine levels of the staff for the last quarter? From what Alex had seen so far, that document could easily be the size of the file in question. Jack nodded at whatever Ianto had pointed out to him. Alex assumed it was standard posturing so took the opportunity to enjoy his drink. As the final cup had been placed on the table in an empty place it didn't come as a surprise to Alex when Ianto took the seat by it.
"So," the Captain prompted, "why don't you tell us about what has been happening?" His eyes crinkled in amused challenge as he took a sip of his coffee.
Alex suddenly found himself the focus of everyone's expectant attention. He could do this. He smiled at the waiting room and tried to decide where to begin.
~~~
"That," Alex concluded, "is the situation." Or at least as much of it as he was prepared to share. He had laid out most of what he knew, about the plans for colonisation, the alien groups, the conspiracies and experiments. It felt strange talking about it out loud without any euphamisms and double-talk, but the Brit had left him with a set of very unequivocal instructions, along with enough funds to buy a small island until the world ended. Unfortunately that event was not particularly far away unless someone did something about it, and the fact that he couldn't hope to stop it on his own was a much more convincing argument than any the old man had mustered. Somehow he had expected more than attentive interest from his audience. Everyone was nodding at the right time and no one had that 'are you insane' look that Mulder seemed to specialise in bringing out in people, especialy when he insisted on telling them worryingly similar information to that which Alex had just laid out.
Owen looked bored. Gwen looked surprised but Alex was beginning to suspect that was a semi-permanent state. It was mildy reassuring that Tosh and Ianto seemed to be taking notes. Not that Alex was totally convinced that Tosh wasn't working on some other pet project on her handheld computer under guise of paying attention. The Captain, at least, had gone from suspicious to concerned. It had probably helped that, while Alex had missed a few details out, he hadn't actually outright lied.
"What was UNIT's take on the matter?" the Captain asked into the silence.
"UNIT?" Alex wracked his brains but he couldn't think of any Consortium project or source with those initials.
"United Nations Intelligence Task force," the Captain elaborated. "A bit stuffy but investigating, monitoring and fighting extra-terrestrial threats is their excuse for trying to head-hunt my people. And they do look good in uniform."
Alex stared at him, lost. Owen didn't bother to hide his smirk.
Ianto coughed discreetly, drawing everyone's attention to him. "The American authorities refused to acknowledge the existence or the jurisdiction of any UN mandated force or their precedence in first contact situations."
"The Russians?" Krycek croaked.
"Ianto?" Jack prompted.
"Cold war mentality. They and the Americans got into something before UNIT was officially formed and they both dug in. Torchwood had a guy on the inside of the Americans." Ianto nodded towards Alex and Alex realised he meant his erstwhile employer. "I assume UNIT have as well. I can't comment on UNIT but we were hardly going to feed them information if they weren't going to play ball with us. Torchwood kept an eye on any information and technology they retrieved but they were so far behind our own research that official Torchwood policy was just to let both them and the Russian get on with their little intrigue and not interfere."
Alex looked back and forth between them trying to work out if this was an elaborate con and what they could hope to gain by it.
"Tosh," the Captain requested, "can you bring up the details on the Thosove of Quitelis 3?"
A few flicks of her stylus and the main screen flicked to life, an all too familiar profile laid out on it. Alex swallowed. The pictures moved and flowed in a way that made his skin crawl. No one needed to ask if he recognised anything on the screen. Another gesture and the screen reverted to its former state. Forcing his eyes away from the swirling logo, Alex saw Tosh looking at him. She gave him a little nod which he returned. There was no pity in her gaze and he appriciated that almost more than what she had done.
"They had a civil war a century or so ago," the Captain said quietly. "They spent a few decades changing governments and executing the old regimes as enemies of the people before things settled. Some of the more enlightened governments sentenced those who had fallen from favour to exile rather than death."
"They came here?" Alex deduced.
"Bringing their allies and politics with them. That would be my guess. We can check their current status but I'm thinking the group that your Consortium are dealing with are an ousted faction acting independently, possibly trying to create a power base to stage a revolution back home. But, whoever they are, they are in breach of a couple of fairly important intergalactic treaties. We can pass the details on to UNIT, let them earn their wages for once." The Captain looked around the table. "Anyone else have any comments?"
Tosh waved a pointer and a bewildering array of biological data appeared on the screen. "If we can get an analysis of the vaccine that the Russians were developing then we can run it against the information we have on their genetics and physiology. We have information on effective weaponry but it might be interesting to compare..."
Alex felt adrift. The voices around him kept going but the words faded from his understanding, as if they weren't real. It was all for nothing. He had sacrificed everything: his arm, his morality, any hope of a normal life and considered it worth the price because he was fighting for a cause he believed in. So, that cause had, at its heart, been about his own survival and his survival as an independent entity. However, not having, Oilians, or whatever they were called, oozing around and taking over people or using them as incubators was in the best interest of the rest of the world as well as his own. It was all a lie. It wasn't as if he hadn't known the old men with their cover-ups and denials were less than the epitome of truth, he had done his share of obfuscating and misdirecting at their request, but even they had been a fallacy. All those years with the threat of extra-terrestrial invasion hanging over them. All that pain. All that death. All the sacrifices for the greater good. And all along they had just needed to get their collective heads out of their butts and stop thinking they knew better than the rest of the damn world.
A triple whisky appeared in his good hand and he drank it without thought or feeling. The burn of the alcohol was nothing compared to the acid corroding his throat or nausea in his stomach. The glass was refilled and the contents followed the first just as swiftly. He had just enough time to think ‘something is wrong’ when the dizzy feeling hit. He thought he heard a London accent ask, "Was that really necessary?" and a Welsh one reply, "In my opinion," before darkness claimed him. He hoped they stopped discussing the details long enough to put him to bed as the warm American voice rumbled that they should, but he couldn't really find it in himself to care.
~~~
Alex woke up to hissed voices arguing.
"We shouldn't have just done it." Welsh, female... Gwen, he thought woozily. A few more details came back but they didn't bring the expected hangover with them. It hadn't been just alcohol in his glass he realised. He wondered if he just kept his eyes shut whether he could avoid having to deal with this new reality that had been forced on him.
"What?" Owen, voice as soft and smooth as a concrete pillow. "You think he wouldn't want it done?"
Alex wondered vaguely what they had done and to whom.
"We still should have asked," Gwen insisted. "You just wanted to test that machine."
Tests. Alex knew about those. Apparently Torchwood wasn't so different from the Consortium after all. Maybe Torchwood was the lie. Maybe the Smoker had caught up with him and with was all a hallucination designed to break him. Somehow that was actually a comforting thought. He knew how to deal with that.
"I get to give it its first field trial," Owen agreed. "He gets to jerk off and channel surf at the same time. It's what is known as a win-win situation."
It slowly dawned on Alex that Gwen had been holding his hand while he had been sleeping off whatever drug they had slipped him. She was holding his left hand. They were talking about him. Alex decided unconscious was a good state to be.
~~~
The drug-induced hallucination scenario was either a lot more sophisticated than Alex expected, not to mention weirder, or everything they had told him was true. Ianto had set him up with a computer account but Alex knew better than to trust files he was being given access to. His attempts at hacking the computers had just resulted in a memo that could he please not do that. He had done better in his private investigations carried out in the small hours from his hotel room. He hadn't been able to find much but what he had been able to track down confirmed everything that the Captain had said. But it would. The weevils had been fairly conclusive, Alex had to admit, or would have been if Alex hadn't seen pictures of the types of deformities that had resulted from some of the Consortiums experiments. The arm, that was just wish-fulfillment, an incentive to believe what he was being fed. It was the pteranodon that finally convinced him. There was no logical reason for the beast. You screw with someone's head you don't put in things that made no sense.
Of course, even without any ulterior motivation the arm was, Alex found, a bit of a mind-fuck. For the most part it just worked, although he had a tendency to forget it was there and then be surprised when it suddenly joined in proceedings. He had mentioned this to Owen when the doctor had checked him out but the response had been a set of physio exercises to do and a suggestion that he make the most of having a 'stranger' hand while the feeling lasted. Alex concluded from that, that Owen might have received a medical degree but it definitely hadn't been in psychology. He'd also discovered that Jack responded to his making his opinion known to Owen by calling out that throttling the staff was his job. Alex had been pleased to find that his new arm could do some things just as well as the original. The money changing hands as soon as Jack had wandered off had been a little weird but for some reason after that morning everyone had just accepted him as part of the team.
Alex had been sitting around the hub staring at his hand and counting off the days he had had it on its, his, fingers when the Captain had suggested a trip to the firing range. He'd been shown it in passing but when he had asked to use it he'd been told that the Captain would have to certify him first. Apparently FBI accreditation, lapsed admittedly, and his years as a Consortium operative didn't count for very much. Still he could understand a leader wanting to know about the capability of his troops.
The Captain didn't say much when they arrived. Just waved to the tables that had arrays of hand guns and watched carefully as Alex examined each and every one. He had his own preferences, but it was always worth checking out the alternatives and the Torchwood Three armoury, or what he was being shown of it, certainly had an impressive range of options.
Initially they shot side by side. Alex was pleased to see he had the edge with his own piece, but then he had practically, and occasionally literally, slept with it for the last year. When he tried a few of the other makes, Jack, and somehow over the bonding stimulation of hot metal and gunpowder the Captain had become Jack, had beaten him two times out of three. It was worse when, at Jack's suggestion, they switched to their off hands.
"Damn!" Alex muttered as he once again failed to so much as clip the black let alone the bull.
"Would you mind a little advice?" Jack asked. His grouping Alex had noticed was only a hair worse than it had been with his prefered hand.
There was only one answer to that. "Less than I would mind getting shot."
"I think your problem," Jack put the gun he been using down and slid behind him, copying his stance, "is that you are over-thinking it."
Alex tightened his grip on his own gun, concentrating on the feel of the moulded handle under his palm and the reassurance of the safety as he checked it. Anything to distract from the warm presence so close behind him. Jack's hands slipped over his hips, pulling him gently into position. Concentrate on the target Alex told himself. Don't push back. And, for the sake of what little dignity you have, don't rub yourself against him. Jack's hands ran over his arms, guiding his gun hand into position.
"Just relax," Jack told him, his breath tickling Alex's ear. "You're fighting your own instincts"
At that moment, Alex's instinct was to push Jack against the wall and see if all the stories he had heard since he had arrived were true, so he couldn't argue with that assessment.
"Shut your eyes," Jack whispered. "Just be in the moment. Breathe..."
Alex did his beast to visualise the concentric rings of the mark but the only thing he was interested in hitting was standing behind him giving him instructions. Breathing was a good idea. That at least he could do. Echoing Jack's long slow breaths until their chests rose and fell in sync. It was that or letting his breath speed up with his heartbeat until he was panting.
"And sight the target..."
Alex opened his eyes slowly, glaring at the outline of the weevil that was charging unmoving at him. He sought the bull's eye and drew a bead on it. The gun bobbed slightly with their slow, shared breath.
"When you are ready," Jack's voice spun out the moment, "pause..." he held the breath for a second longer than normal and Alex found himself copying the gesture without thought, "and then increase the pressure on the trigger slowly."
Alex forced his attention to narrow on the target. There was nothing in the world except him and the bull and the air being drawn in and out of his lungs by the man pressed hard behind him. His thumb caressed the safety, sliding it across the stock to the point of danger. He was primed, ready...
He had to stop himself jumping as the sound of the shot reverberated around the range. He hadn't flinched from a shot since he had taken Duane Barry down and he wasn't about to start again. It was easy to relax again, use Jack's body as a mould which he could use to return to his prior state. He squeezed off the remaining shots, braced against his own reactions. When the last round buried itself in the wall intended to receive the load, to Alex's disappointment, Jack released him.
With a touch of a button the target trundled closer.
"Not a bad grouping," Jack congratulated.
"I've done better," Alex grumbled, but he had to admit it was better than his other attempts with his new hand.
"A bit more practice," Jack assured him, "and you'll do better again. You just need..." He moved close again and Alex wondered if Jack did, in fact, know exactly what he needed, "...to go with the flow rather than try and force it. Try with two weapons."
Alex weighed up his options and bent forward to pick up the gun that matched the one in his left hand. Jack passed him forward two new clips. Neither moved away from the other.
"You'll need a squarer stance," Jack reminded Alex unnecessarily.
This time when Jack's hands helped him find his position, Alex gave in to the desire to press back against him. Just a little. The recoil of the guns vibrated through them both. Twin holes drilling through the invading paper monsters with each double explosion. The adrenaline buzzed through his body, the seductive joy of controlling deadly weapons unadulterated by anyone actually trying to kill him. The blood raced in his veins in an exuberant dance as he lost himself in the staccato beat of firearm discharge.
"Feel good?" Jack asked when Alex had finished. Alex suspected the manic gleam in his eyes probably answered that question well enough. He didn't need to look at the targets, each shot had felt right as his body responded. Left, right, together. It hadn't mattered. He felt whole again for the first time since Russia.
"Feels great," Alex agreed, turning his head to face Jack. Jack's eyes were dark even in the bright lights of the range. Nice to see he wasn't the only one enjoying the experience. Instinctively he licked his lips and watched Jack's gaze drop as he caught and followed the motion. They stood, motionless, faces so close that their breath kissed. Alex wanted to lean into that invitation, ground himself in this new existence that Jack had laid out for him. Normally he wouldn't care, seeing the path forward he would take it and deal with the consequences when they arose, but this wasn't normally. If he hadn't thought about how best to seduce his way into favour, hadn't made plans, even the hypothetical ones that always skittered around his head, and backup plans about how to worm his way between Jack and Ianto and use their relationship against them, then he wouldn't have cared. But for once he needed to make clear, even if it was only to himself, that that wasn't why anything that happened, happened.
"I thought you and the coffee wizard had something going on," he forced out and, oh, those words hurt. "Won't he have something to say about this?"
Jack laughed, his breath tickling Alex's face. "We could ask him. Ianto?"
Krycek swore at his own stupidity and stepped away from the other man. Jack hadn't even raised his voice. A distinctly Welsh voice sounded in the room confirming Alex's suspicions.
"Owen is up to his armpits in an autopsy and the girls have headed out for lunch. I believe they were planning a quick trip to a new shop Gwen has discovered so I don't expect them to hurry back. You probably have a hour and a half before anyone notices your absence."
"Thanks, Could you cut the audio and video feeds from the range for the next hour."
"Certainly, Sir." Ianto agreed as if there was nothing abnormal about the request.
"Ianto." Jack eyed Alex as he spoke and Alex wondered why until he saw the smile. From nowhere, Alex found he still had the ability to blush. Annoyed at his own response he stalked over to the far table of guns and checked and replaced the weapons he had been holding with more thoroughness than he needed. It had been a while but it hadn't been that long, damn it.
"Sir?" Ianto's voice hovered somewhere between deference and cheek.
"*All* the cameras," Jack instructed carefully. "Do you want the authorisation code?"
"That won't be necessary, Sir." That had definitely shaded more toward cheek than deference, Alex thought. "I should inform you that you have been on limited surveillance for the last forty-five minutes. I thought Mr Krycek might prefer a bit of privacy for this initial session. The remaining cameras and the audio will develop a temporary system failure in approximately two minutes. I'll let you know if any of the others start looking for you." There was a slight crackle as the intercom clicked off.
Jack looked across at Alex and smiled. "I don't think he minds."
Alex growled low in his throat; shoving the gun he was still holding onto the table he stalked forwards. Jack backed away slowly, playing the game.
"We have two minutes until the cameras go off," Jack reminded him.
Alex didn't slow. "Do you care?"
Jack's wide grin answered that question. They hit the wall hard but neither of them noticed. Jack's mouth was hot and welcoming under his as Alex ground them together. All Alex's confusion and frustration of the last few days fuelled the kiss and were burned off in its heat. Alex groaned in relief as the world dissolved away except for the two of them. Jack was a solid mass against him, unyielding to anything except Alex's demands to touch and be touched. Against his assault Jack met him, kiss for kiss, shove for shove and need for need. Challenging Alex and pushing them both to greater exertion.
Alex's erection fought his jeans for space, reminding him when he had forgotten that there could be more than mutual dry humping. Pressed against his hip, he could feel a hardness that mirrored his own, less constrained but, Alex suspected, no less desirous of freedom. He reached for it, squeezing through the material of Jack's trousers with the roughness of intent. As if that was the signal they had both been waiting for, four hands scrabbled at clothing, zips and buttons giving finally under the uncoordinated attack. Alex hissed as Jack nipped at his neck but tilted his head back for more.
He was crushing Jack against the brickwork, both their pants shoved down to their thighs, but Jack was pulling him closer still, his hand wrapping around both their cocks stroking them with a teasing slowness that counterpointed their frenzy. Alex whined, torn between shock at himself for making the noise and desperation for more. He pumped his hips forward into the tight grip, finding the rhythm that would drive him insane faster than Mulder with an idea between his teeth. Teeth... Jack's teeth scraped against the soft skin of Alex's neck but the kiss he placed on the spot was gentle. Alex caught Jack's head and pulled him back into a deep kiss, thrusting his tongue into Jack's mouth in time with the hard, uncompromising stroke of their cocks. Jack sucked at his tongue and Alex froze as his control hovered on a knife edge.
"Yes," he hissed into Jack's mouth. "Yes."
They paused for a moment, bodies stilled as they found some restraint in a shared, panting kiss. Jack slid to his knees, forcing Alex half a step back to allow space for him between Alex and the wall. Alex followed the movements with his hands, still resting on Jack's head from the kiss. Some of the urgency had ebbed with the shift from quick and rough to something more. Alex's breath caught in his throat, not wanting to leave the paradise that Alex's body became as Jack took Alex deep into his mouth.
"Yes," Alex breathed. There were no other words in his vocabulary, no other thoughts beyond 'yes', echoing into the forever of the moment.
Alex was more than happy to let Jack set the pace. Hot, wet suction teased his existence down to his cock. The flutter of Jack's tongue tingling along nerves sensitised by their rough treatment earlier. He tangled his fingers in the thick hair. Too dark for Mulder but the strands felt so similar as they twined around his hands. Short back and sides but longer on top, and Mulder said he had a stupid-ass haircut. But, God, he didn't care. Didn't care about anything except how damn good it felt with Jack's lips wrapped around his dick. Colonisation could start, the world could drown in an ocean of black oil... just as long as that wonderful sensation didn't end.
There is a God Alex thought vaguely and he is right here in front of me. All he needs to do is come back from the dead; I'll start the damn church.
Alex wasn't totally convinced that he didn't start praying when Jack's hands slid up past the bunched material of his jeans to his bared thighs and then up, further, to cup his balls. The warm fingers gently lifted and rolled the heavy sacs, clasping them with a pressure that made him gasp and want to beg for more. Long fingers explored further, stroking over his perineum in time with the movement of Jack's mouth along his erection. The slight tug on his balls with each stroke encouraged him to thrust forwards even as he wanted to move away to feel the pull harder. Alex whimpered as Jack began to speed up.
Alex needed to come. He could feel the need building in the pit of his stomach, a coil of heat that wrapped itself around his spine and climbed every nerve until it reached the basest part of his brain and started giving orders. Unable to stop himself and reacting to Jack's urgings he thrust forwards, again and again. For a moment Jack's finger's slipped even further back, rubbing over the entrance to Alex's body. The commanding voice was silenced as a new desire crystallised in Alex's mind.
"Wait," Alex rasped. He was insane to want this to stop but sometimes you had to make sacrifices for a greater goal. He looked down into the face of his madness. Jack's lips were full and damp from the blow-job. He wanted to kiss them, to feel their softness against his own mouth, to fuck them and take up the invitation they seemed to make. But while it was enough, it wasn't. He wanted to let go. To give up control and responsibility and himself. It had been so long. Too long. When was the last time... Mulder, two, no, three mind-wipes ago. They'd only had time to exchange blows and blow-jobs the last time and only a brief kiss the time before that.
"Fuck me." He meant it as a demand but it slipped from his mouth as a plea. "But first kiss me." That was a plea and he didn't care. He couldn't look at those slick lips without feeling them somehow. Jack took pity on him, rising to his feet with a grace Alex could only envy in his own clumsy state. The kiss was too short but it was what Jack chose to give him and that was enough.
"Hands on the table," Jack ordered.
Alex moved to obey instantly, or as instantly as he could manage hobbled by his jeans.
Jack's hands ran over Alex's body in a slow parody of patting him down.
"Well now *Mister* Krycek." Jack's hand curved around Alex's erection and stroked once. "Do you have a licence for that?"
Alex shook his head numbly. Lines from half of Mulder's bad porn movies ran through his mind but talking seemed too much effort. He pushed into Jack's hand instead. Jack chuckled but smothered the sound against Alex's skin, kissing and licking where his T-shirt could be pushed aside to reveal the point where neck and shoulder joined. Slick fingers pushed gently into his body and he arched into the invasion. He really hoped that whatever Jack was using was sanitary but as long as it worked he was willing to worry about it later. Something that might have been 'yes' or might have been 'please' but was both encompassed in a meaningless sound fell from his lips. Alex could hear the traditional rustle of a condom being opened and applied and nearly cheered. He started in surprise when he heard Jack open a second and reach around to roll it, one-handed, over Alex's cock.
"You guys really believe in safe sex, huh?" Alex panted, bemused, as those wonderful fingers of Jack's other hand twisted inside him promising more.
"You want to wait while we clear the guns off the table?" Jack inquired, voice tight with impatience. "Ianto might not mind me fucking other people but if I make that mistake again then I might as well move to an ice planet."
The fingers were removed and Alex couldn't help the chuff of laughter that slipped out. "You are so whipped."
"Only," Jack whispered in his ear, "if I ask nicely."
Alex's only audible response was something along the lines of 'Gnnnggg'. Everything else was lost when Jack's cock, finally, breached his body. Alex was sure he wouldn't be able to remember what the sex was like afterwards. Jack had started slow enough, letting him adjust and find his level of comfort. As Alex could have told him if he had thought of it, his level of comfort right at that moment was 'fucked blind' and soon all restraint gave way to hard and fast. Alex gripped the table, convinced it was the only thing keeping him semi-upright and half-terrified it would collapse and Jack would stop. He had ceased being grateful for having both arms to support him somewhere around the tenth devastating thrust, reserving all his gratitude for more important things like the fact Jack seemed to be able to read his mind when it came to things like increasing tempo and force. He didn't know how long it took before the sheer power and exuberance whited out every nerve in his body in the EMP explosion which had apparently replaced his orgasm, but that wasn't a problem because time had long ceased to have meaning.
As he came back to himself, Alex was slightly relieved to find that even blissed out his body had enough instinct to keep pushing into Jack's thrusts rather than leaving the poor bastard hanging for the third time. Alex liked to think he wasn't a particularly selfish lover but since they kept mind-wiping his most regular shag it was a bit hard to tell. Mulder always thought he was wonderful because he couldn't recall all the times they had done it before. Still, even when he wasn't playing a game it was a bad plan to alienate your boss by being a lousy lay. With that and a fair helping of good will to all men, especially those who gave him earth-shattering orgasms, Alex set about trying to make sure Jack's ending was just as happy.
When it was over they leaned together, Alex supporting them both in a sweaty heap, and just let the moment last. Finally, with one last kiss at the available skin of his neck, Jack disengaged. Without speaking, both men removed their condoms and rearranged their clothing. But for a few telltale hints, that could be easily disposed off, no one would be able to tell what they had been doing. Still, Alex found that the situation bothered him. It wasn't the sex, he'd never made any promises to Mulder, there was no point when the man wouldn't remember them anyway, and he certainly had no complaints as to performance. It just disturbed him that these people, who incidentally he was beginning to like despite himself, had all this amazing technology and if he had been trying to pull a job he had just been handed the perfect opportunity for mayhem. The array of guns, including his own loaded piece, lay on the table in front of him like a double-cross waiting to happen.
"Jack," Alex warned, "you shouldn't let your guard down like that. Not that I didn't have a good time but with all these weapons around..." Alex scooped his gun up as he spoke, letting the familiar feeling of the weight in his hand give him the distance he needed. This was for their own benefit after all. The next person might not be as well intentioned as he was. "All I'd need to do..."
Alex let his thumb brush the safety as he brought the barrel around and sighted between the blue of Jack's eyes.
*BANG*
Alex jumped and whirled, aiming even as he turned to face the threat. Ianto was calmly watching him, gun trained directly at him. Forcing himself to calm down, Alex looked down the range to where Ianto's shot had gone. A dark hole disfigured the target, kissing the left side of the bulls eye. He looked back as Ianto tutted.
"I'm still pulling the shot slightly."
Jack grinned at him. "You obviously need to get in a bit more practice. You might hit Owen somewhere vital next time."
Alex lowered his gun and looked between them. They were both clearly insane.
"That was stupid." He hissed as he took an angry step towards Ianto. "I could have shot him by accident!"
Ianto's grip firmed on the gun, a worried but determined look on his face. "It was an acceptable risk."
The snick of Jack's gun behind him stopped Alex in his tracks and he let himself be disarmed. He didn't think Jack would kill him but he also knew that a hot and dirty fuck amounted to nothing when it came to Jack's team.
"Ianto knew I wasn't in any danger," Jack told him. He could hear Jack's gun being un-cocked and put away. Instead of the muzzle at his head, Alex felt Jack's hands on his shoulders, calming him. "He could see the safety was on and your finger wasn't on the trigger."
Alex could almost see the look that passed between the two men over his shoulder. Ianto nodded, confirming what Jack was saying. Alex wasn't sure he believed it, but there was something about Torchwood Three and the crazy people who worked there that reassured him even as it scared the crap out of him.
"You were there the entire time?" Alex asked Ianto. He wanted to be angry but the lethargy of a good fuck was leaching it from him. He'd used up all his energy and objectivity when he pulled the gun on Jack.
"Standard protocol for when there's no digital surveillance. As you pointed out, this is a room where you don't want to lose track of things or people." Ianto holstered the gun he had been holding and looked between Alex and Jack "If there is nothing else I'll restore the systems; I have something that needs my attention in the archives."
"I swear you keep a stack of dirty magazines down there." Although Alex couldn't see it, the leer was clear in Jack's voice.
"Now you know that isn't true, Sir. You and Owen have searched so hard one might get the impression you were searching for something that didn't exist."
"Ianto?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Leave the cameras on."
Ianto's almost convincingly innocent, "I didn't know you found filing so interesting, Sir," drifted back to them. Alex gave in to the madness and laughed along with Jack even as he made a mental note to try and hack into the security system. He had always worked on the principle that if you couldn't beat them, join them, at least until you could beat them, and he couldn't think of a better exception to prove the rule.
Part 2, Part 3
Author: fides
Pairing: Krycek/Jack, Jack/Ianto, Mulder/Krycek
Fandom: X-Files/Torchwood (and special cookies to anyone who can id the other fandoms that get hinted at)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None really, a few hints at kink here and there :-)
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine no matter what the little voices in my head might say ;-)
Summary: Alex goes to Cardiff after the Brit's death to meet some of the Brit's contacts.
Notes: I know that the timelines don't quite fit so I decided to fudge things a little because it was too tempting to compare Torchwood and the Consortium. This is set after the Movie (X-Files) and during the latter half of season 1 (Torchwood). There are a few general spoilers for X-Files and Torchwood but no specifics. In depth knowledge of both fandoms isn't required.
First published in connotations 2007 zine, now timed out. Thanks to temaris and moth2fic for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are own.
The note was waiting for Mulder when he returned home. He had come from seeing Scully in the hospital and on top of his guilt each word hit him like a bullet to his skull: "The rat has found a hole in Cardiff". He could almost smell the cigarette smoke on the paper. Antarctica suddenly seemed like a paradise.
~~~~
"And this," Captain Jack Harkness completed the introductions, "is Alex Krycek."
Alex looked around the room assessing everyone in the light of the scant information he had managed to discover about them:
Owen Harper; London wide boy with a medical degree, a chip on his shoulder and his brain located south of his waistband. Probably did well enough for himself through sheer chutzpah and repetition, and when he didn't blamed the women for being frigid bitches. He would fight dirty, but Alex wasn't concerned about that; he could fight dirtier. Still, if anyone did, Owen knew all the low-life dealers and two-bit hoods in the area so he was worth cultivating, plus it always paid to be friendly with the docs, there was always the chance that they would hesitate to make you an experiment if they thought of you as human.
Toshiko, Tosh, Sato; attractive in a geeky kind of way, obviously intelligent. Alex could only imagine how much Mulder's Gunman buddies would cream themselves over her and it wasn't a pretty thought. She seemed to fade into the background in the wake of all the loud personalities around her. He could probably win her over just by listening to her about her work for a few hours and taking her seriously. But it wouldn't do to underestimate her; in Alex's experience it was the quiet ones that you took your eye off who slid the knife into your back
Gwen Cooper; so nice Alex wanted to shoot her. She didn't look at his fake arm with an empathy that made his teeth ache. She stared at him with such wide, innocent eyes that Alex knew she would be horrified if she knew what he had done. She was their Mulder, bleeding with every victim and dying with every loss. It was a weakness, but Alex couldn't bring himself to deny that it could also be a strength if used correctly. Gwen he could use, she would feel sorry for him, underestimate him and excuse him right up until a moment past too late. He looked up at her through carefully lowered lashes and caught her blush. Owen bristled and Krycek noted the reaction for future dealings.
Finally, the Captain himself. Captain of what, Alex wondered. One was obviously supposed to think Air Force due to the uniform but the RAF didn't have the rank of Captain. Even assuming it was just a shortening of Group Captain, Alex had checked and there hadn't been any Jack Harknesses in the Royal Air Force since the Second World War. Nor was there an unaccounted for 'Captain Harkness', named Jack or otherwise, in any recognised military that he could find records for. Which meant either the information had been hidden... or the Captain was just making it up. Whatever else he was, Alex had to admit the man was attractive and charismatic, despite the strange period military fetish. However, under the light flirtation Alex could see a hardness he recognised only too well. One player knew another no matter how sugar-coated. Alex had been dealing with both the KGB and Smokey and his old boys’ club for years, he could handle a con man leading a two-bit outfit no one had heard of in a soggy wannabe country.
That was Torchwood Three. The world was doomed.
Four pairs of eyes, two male, two female regarded Alex with a mixture of interest, appreciation and hostility. Alex was used to that. He was slightly surprised by quite how blatantly the two men were checking him out, although with a fair measure of animosity in the case of the doctor. Wide boy obviously didn't like his girlfriend, ex, potential shag, whatever she was giving other guys the eye. Alex considered playing up to the interest versus playing the tough guy. Being underestimated was good, but so was being taken seriously. He let his body sag into a provocative slouch, right hand high on his thigh and fingers curling inwards, the dead weight of his left hanging back at his side and tightening the line of his body and pulling his leather jacket further open. His gun would be clearly visible and Alex amused himself watching the combined gaze of his audience flick between his crotch and his holster. Only Jack looked him in the eyes and smiled. It wasn't an unfriendly smile, but it was much too knowing for Alex's peace of mind.
He was almost relieved when the door to the meeting room opened in a waft of coffee. Almost. Alex tried not to squirm as it really didn't go with the image he was trying to project. He hadn't been able to face coffee since the silo. He always had this nagging worry that it would start crawling out of the cup towards him. He was probably the only person whose pulse got a jumpstart from an espresso before they started drinking it. At least the appearance of refreshments had taken the focus off him slightly.
The tray of drinks was brought in by the man who had let him into the compound earlier. The suit that had looked a trifle out of place in the dingy tourist office, now leant a little class to what was obviously a menial role. File the paperwork, get the coffee... Alex knew how that went. He wondered if the man was even allowed to stay for the meetings or if he had memos about stationary misuse he had to go type. Still he was young and probably ambitious, looked good in the suit he had chosen... Alex could work with that. Most people didn't realise how much information an efficient secretary could get access to if they had reason and Alex was very good at coming up with convincing reasons.
Owen looked down at his cup and then at the young man in confusion.
"Oi - what's this?"
Coffee-boy gave the dissenter a look which Alex thought eloquently conveyed the fact that the man knew much more about hot beverages that Owen did. Well, if you made the coffee in a place like this then, Alex supposed, you would get imperious over the little things.
"Coffee, Owen."
"It doesn't look like coffee," Owen complained.
Alex took his with slight trepidation and a smile of thanks. Owen was right, it didn't have that normal 'I want to take over the world but you first' look about it that had driven him from ever visiting Starbucks again.
"I thought I would try something a little different. It’s an Arabian blonde roast. I can take it back if..."
"No." Owen clung to his cup as if it was going to be taken from him by force.
"So what did you do in America, Alex?" Gwen, and it would, Alex realised, always be her who asked those type of questions, enquired as she passed the cookies across. She had a latte and a line of foam on her top lip.
He prepared his 'FBI' undercover agent response, it always got the bleeding heart ones and it confused the issue nicely if anyone checked up on him. He leant forward to take the offered plate and tried to look his most sincere and believable. He smiled and was pleased to see her automatically mirror the gesture. Almost too easy. He'd be running the place in a month.
"Mr Krycek specialised in information, gathering and hiding." Everyone turned to look at the young man as he placed the penultimate cup in front of Tosh. "In this capacity he was also employed for what is euphemistically called 'wet work'." He caught Krycek's surprised look and addressed him directly "Your previous employer was kind enough to forward us your file." He put the final cup down and, tray by his side, inclined his head slightly in introduction. "Ianto Jones."
"Ianto keeps us fed, cleans up after us and gets us where we need to go." The Captain's smirk suggested coffee was not the only thing Ianto could serve steaming hot. As he moved to the head of the table to stand by Jack, Ianto bent down and whispered something in Gwen's ear. She quickly rubbed the froth from her expression which had all the shock, horror and fascination that Alex had expected.
Alex dismissed her and mentally translated the information he had just been given: logistics and security. And sleeping with the boss so not much chance of turning him without seducing him away from Captain America. Shit. As if he hadn't spent years with the mirror to remind him you couldn't trust the young, pretty ones. They had something to prove after all.
The coffee was good. Almost good enough to provide a distraction from the file that Ianto had slipped from under the tray to in front of the Captain. Was that his file, Alex wondered; it looked thick enough. Or was it just the blood-caffeine levels of the staff for the last quarter? From what Alex had seen so far, that document could easily be the size of the file in question. Jack nodded at whatever Ianto had pointed out to him. Alex assumed it was standard posturing so took the opportunity to enjoy his drink. As the final cup had been placed on the table in an empty place it didn't come as a surprise to Alex when Ianto took the seat by it.
"So," the Captain prompted, "why don't you tell us about what has been happening?" His eyes crinkled in amused challenge as he took a sip of his coffee.
Alex suddenly found himself the focus of everyone's expectant attention. He could do this. He smiled at the waiting room and tried to decide where to begin.
~~~
"That," Alex concluded, "is the situation." Or at least as much of it as he was prepared to share. He had laid out most of what he knew, about the plans for colonisation, the alien groups, the conspiracies and experiments. It felt strange talking about it out loud without any euphamisms and double-talk, but the Brit had left him with a set of very unequivocal instructions, along with enough funds to buy a small island until the world ended. Unfortunately that event was not particularly far away unless someone did something about it, and the fact that he couldn't hope to stop it on his own was a much more convincing argument than any the old man had mustered. Somehow he had expected more than attentive interest from his audience. Everyone was nodding at the right time and no one had that 'are you insane' look that Mulder seemed to specialise in bringing out in people, especialy when he insisted on telling them worryingly similar information to that which Alex had just laid out.
Owen looked bored. Gwen looked surprised but Alex was beginning to suspect that was a semi-permanent state. It was mildy reassuring that Tosh and Ianto seemed to be taking notes. Not that Alex was totally convinced that Tosh wasn't working on some other pet project on her handheld computer under guise of paying attention. The Captain, at least, had gone from suspicious to concerned. It had probably helped that, while Alex had missed a few details out, he hadn't actually outright lied.
"What was UNIT's take on the matter?" the Captain asked into the silence.
"UNIT?" Alex wracked his brains but he couldn't think of any Consortium project or source with those initials.
"United Nations Intelligence Task force," the Captain elaborated. "A bit stuffy but investigating, monitoring and fighting extra-terrestrial threats is their excuse for trying to head-hunt my people. And they do look good in uniform."
Alex stared at him, lost. Owen didn't bother to hide his smirk.
Ianto coughed discreetly, drawing everyone's attention to him. "The American authorities refused to acknowledge the existence or the jurisdiction of any UN mandated force or their precedence in first contact situations."
"The Russians?" Krycek croaked.
"Ianto?" Jack prompted.
"Cold war mentality. They and the Americans got into something before UNIT was officially formed and they both dug in. Torchwood had a guy on the inside of the Americans." Ianto nodded towards Alex and Alex realised he meant his erstwhile employer. "I assume UNIT have as well. I can't comment on UNIT but we were hardly going to feed them information if they weren't going to play ball with us. Torchwood kept an eye on any information and technology they retrieved but they were so far behind our own research that official Torchwood policy was just to let both them and the Russian get on with their little intrigue and not interfere."
Alex looked back and forth between them trying to work out if this was an elaborate con and what they could hope to gain by it.
"Tosh," the Captain requested, "can you bring up the details on the Thosove of Quitelis 3?"
A few flicks of her stylus and the main screen flicked to life, an all too familiar profile laid out on it. Alex swallowed. The pictures moved and flowed in a way that made his skin crawl. No one needed to ask if he recognised anything on the screen. Another gesture and the screen reverted to its former state. Forcing his eyes away from the swirling logo, Alex saw Tosh looking at him. She gave him a little nod which he returned. There was no pity in her gaze and he appriciated that almost more than what she had done.
"They had a civil war a century or so ago," the Captain said quietly. "They spent a few decades changing governments and executing the old regimes as enemies of the people before things settled. Some of the more enlightened governments sentenced those who had fallen from favour to exile rather than death."
"They came here?" Alex deduced.
"Bringing their allies and politics with them. That would be my guess. We can check their current status but I'm thinking the group that your Consortium are dealing with are an ousted faction acting independently, possibly trying to create a power base to stage a revolution back home. But, whoever they are, they are in breach of a couple of fairly important intergalactic treaties. We can pass the details on to UNIT, let them earn their wages for once." The Captain looked around the table. "Anyone else have any comments?"
Tosh waved a pointer and a bewildering array of biological data appeared on the screen. "If we can get an analysis of the vaccine that the Russians were developing then we can run it against the information we have on their genetics and physiology. We have information on effective weaponry but it might be interesting to compare..."
Alex felt adrift. The voices around him kept going but the words faded from his understanding, as if they weren't real. It was all for nothing. He had sacrificed everything: his arm, his morality, any hope of a normal life and considered it worth the price because he was fighting for a cause he believed in. So, that cause had, at its heart, been about his own survival and his survival as an independent entity. However, not having, Oilians, or whatever they were called, oozing around and taking over people or using them as incubators was in the best interest of the rest of the world as well as his own. It was all a lie. It wasn't as if he hadn't known the old men with their cover-ups and denials were less than the epitome of truth, he had done his share of obfuscating and misdirecting at their request, but even they had been a fallacy. All those years with the threat of extra-terrestrial invasion hanging over them. All that pain. All that death. All the sacrifices for the greater good. And all along they had just needed to get their collective heads out of their butts and stop thinking they knew better than the rest of the damn world.
A triple whisky appeared in his good hand and he drank it without thought or feeling. The burn of the alcohol was nothing compared to the acid corroding his throat or nausea in his stomach. The glass was refilled and the contents followed the first just as swiftly. He had just enough time to think ‘something is wrong’ when the dizzy feeling hit. He thought he heard a London accent ask, "Was that really necessary?" and a Welsh one reply, "In my opinion," before darkness claimed him. He hoped they stopped discussing the details long enough to put him to bed as the warm American voice rumbled that they should, but he couldn't really find it in himself to care.
~~~
Alex woke up to hissed voices arguing.
"We shouldn't have just done it." Welsh, female... Gwen, he thought woozily. A few more details came back but they didn't bring the expected hangover with them. It hadn't been just alcohol in his glass he realised. He wondered if he just kept his eyes shut whether he could avoid having to deal with this new reality that had been forced on him.
"What?" Owen, voice as soft and smooth as a concrete pillow. "You think he wouldn't want it done?"
Alex wondered vaguely what they had done and to whom.
"We still should have asked," Gwen insisted. "You just wanted to test that machine."
Tests. Alex knew about those. Apparently Torchwood wasn't so different from the Consortium after all. Maybe Torchwood was the lie. Maybe the Smoker had caught up with him and with was all a hallucination designed to break him. Somehow that was actually a comforting thought. He knew how to deal with that.
"I get to give it its first field trial," Owen agreed. "He gets to jerk off and channel surf at the same time. It's what is known as a win-win situation."
It slowly dawned on Alex that Gwen had been holding his hand while he had been sleeping off whatever drug they had slipped him. She was holding his left hand. They were talking about him. Alex decided unconscious was a good state to be.
~~~
The drug-induced hallucination scenario was either a lot more sophisticated than Alex expected, not to mention weirder, or everything they had told him was true. Ianto had set him up with a computer account but Alex knew better than to trust files he was being given access to. His attempts at hacking the computers had just resulted in a memo that could he please not do that. He had done better in his private investigations carried out in the small hours from his hotel room. He hadn't been able to find much but what he had been able to track down confirmed everything that the Captain had said. But it would. The weevils had been fairly conclusive, Alex had to admit, or would have been if Alex hadn't seen pictures of the types of deformities that had resulted from some of the Consortiums experiments. The arm, that was just wish-fulfillment, an incentive to believe what he was being fed. It was the pteranodon that finally convinced him. There was no logical reason for the beast. You screw with someone's head you don't put in things that made no sense.
Of course, even without any ulterior motivation the arm was, Alex found, a bit of a mind-fuck. For the most part it just worked, although he had a tendency to forget it was there and then be surprised when it suddenly joined in proceedings. He had mentioned this to Owen when the doctor had checked him out but the response had been a set of physio exercises to do and a suggestion that he make the most of having a 'stranger' hand while the feeling lasted. Alex concluded from that, that Owen might have received a medical degree but it definitely hadn't been in psychology. He'd also discovered that Jack responded to his making his opinion known to Owen by calling out that throttling the staff was his job. Alex had been pleased to find that his new arm could do some things just as well as the original. The money changing hands as soon as Jack had wandered off had been a little weird but for some reason after that morning everyone had just accepted him as part of the team.
Alex had been sitting around the hub staring at his hand and counting off the days he had had it on its, his, fingers when the Captain had suggested a trip to the firing range. He'd been shown it in passing but when he had asked to use it he'd been told that the Captain would have to certify him first. Apparently FBI accreditation, lapsed admittedly, and his years as a Consortium operative didn't count for very much. Still he could understand a leader wanting to know about the capability of his troops.
The Captain didn't say much when they arrived. Just waved to the tables that had arrays of hand guns and watched carefully as Alex examined each and every one. He had his own preferences, but it was always worth checking out the alternatives and the Torchwood Three armoury, or what he was being shown of it, certainly had an impressive range of options.
Initially they shot side by side. Alex was pleased to see he had the edge with his own piece, but then he had practically, and occasionally literally, slept with it for the last year. When he tried a few of the other makes, Jack, and somehow over the bonding stimulation of hot metal and gunpowder the Captain had become Jack, had beaten him two times out of three. It was worse when, at Jack's suggestion, they switched to their off hands.
"Damn!" Alex muttered as he once again failed to so much as clip the black let alone the bull.
"Would you mind a little advice?" Jack asked. His grouping Alex had noticed was only a hair worse than it had been with his prefered hand.
There was only one answer to that. "Less than I would mind getting shot."
"I think your problem," Jack put the gun he been using down and slid behind him, copying his stance, "is that you are over-thinking it."
Alex tightened his grip on his own gun, concentrating on the feel of the moulded handle under his palm and the reassurance of the safety as he checked it. Anything to distract from the warm presence so close behind him. Jack's hands slipped over his hips, pulling him gently into position. Concentrate on the target Alex told himself. Don't push back. And, for the sake of what little dignity you have, don't rub yourself against him. Jack's hands ran over his arms, guiding his gun hand into position.
"Just relax," Jack told him, his breath tickling Alex's ear. "You're fighting your own instincts"
At that moment, Alex's instinct was to push Jack against the wall and see if all the stories he had heard since he had arrived were true, so he couldn't argue with that assessment.
"Shut your eyes," Jack whispered. "Just be in the moment. Breathe..."
Alex did his beast to visualise the concentric rings of the mark but the only thing he was interested in hitting was standing behind him giving him instructions. Breathing was a good idea. That at least he could do. Echoing Jack's long slow breaths until their chests rose and fell in sync. It was that or letting his breath speed up with his heartbeat until he was panting.
"And sight the target..."
Alex opened his eyes slowly, glaring at the outline of the weevil that was charging unmoving at him. He sought the bull's eye and drew a bead on it. The gun bobbed slightly with their slow, shared breath.
"When you are ready," Jack's voice spun out the moment, "pause..." he held the breath for a second longer than normal and Alex found himself copying the gesture without thought, "and then increase the pressure on the trigger slowly."
Alex forced his attention to narrow on the target. There was nothing in the world except him and the bull and the air being drawn in and out of his lungs by the man pressed hard behind him. His thumb caressed the safety, sliding it across the stock to the point of danger. He was primed, ready...
He had to stop himself jumping as the sound of the shot reverberated around the range. He hadn't flinched from a shot since he had taken Duane Barry down and he wasn't about to start again. It was easy to relax again, use Jack's body as a mould which he could use to return to his prior state. He squeezed off the remaining shots, braced against his own reactions. When the last round buried itself in the wall intended to receive the load, to Alex's disappointment, Jack released him.
With a touch of a button the target trundled closer.
"Not a bad grouping," Jack congratulated.
"I've done better," Alex grumbled, but he had to admit it was better than his other attempts with his new hand.
"A bit more practice," Jack assured him, "and you'll do better again. You just need..." He moved close again and Alex wondered if Jack did, in fact, know exactly what he needed, "...to go with the flow rather than try and force it. Try with two weapons."
Alex weighed up his options and bent forward to pick up the gun that matched the one in his left hand. Jack passed him forward two new clips. Neither moved away from the other.
"You'll need a squarer stance," Jack reminded Alex unnecessarily.
This time when Jack's hands helped him find his position, Alex gave in to the desire to press back against him. Just a little. The recoil of the guns vibrated through them both. Twin holes drilling through the invading paper monsters with each double explosion. The adrenaline buzzed through his body, the seductive joy of controlling deadly weapons unadulterated by anyone actually trying to kill him. The blood raced in his veins in an exuberant dance as he lost himself in the staccato beat of firearm discharge.
"Feel good?" Jack asked when Alex had finished. Alex suspected the manic gleam in his eyes probably answered that question well enough. He didn't need to look at the targets, each shot had felt right as his body responded. Left, right, together. It hadn't mattered. He felt whole again for the first time since Russia.
"Feels great," Alex agreed, turning his head to face Jack. Jack's eyes were dark even in the bright lights of the range. Nice to see he wasn't the only one enjoying the experience. Instinctively he licked his lips and watched Jack's gaze drop as he caught and followed the motion. They stood, motionless, faces so close that their breath kissed. Alex wanted to lean into that invitation, ground himself in this new existence that Jack had laid out for him. Normally he wouldn't care, seeing the path forward he would take it and deal with the consequences when they arose, but this wasn't normally. If he hadn't thought about how best to seduce his way into favour, hadn't made plans, even the hypothetical ones that always skittered around his head, and backup plans about how to worm his way between Jack and Ianto and use their relationship against them, then he wouldn't have cared. But for once he needed to make clear, even if it was only to himself, that that wasn't why anything that happened, happened.
"I thought you and the coffee wizard had something going on," he forced out and, oh, those words hurt. "Won't he have something to say about this?"
Jack laughed, his breath tickling Alex's face. "We could ask him. Ianto?"
Krycek swore at his own stupidity and stepped away from the other man. Jack hadn't even raised his voice. A distinctly Welsh voice sounded in the room confirming Alex's suspicions.
"Owen is up to his armpits in an autopsy and the girls have headed out for lunch. I believe they were planning a quick trip to a new shop Gwen has discovered so I don't expect them to hurry back. You probably have a hour and a half before anyone notices your absence."
"Thanks, Could you cut the audio and video feeds from the range for the next hour."
"Certainly, Sir." Ianto agreed as if there was nothing abnormal about the request.
"Ianto." Jack eyed Alex as he spoke and Alex wondered why until he saw the smile. From nowhere, Alex found he still had the ability to blush. Annoyed at his own response he stalked over to the far table of guns and checked and replaced the weapons he had been holding with more thoroughness than he needed. It had been a while but it hadn't been that long, damn it.
"Sir?" Ianto's voice hovered somewhere between deference and cheek.
"*All* the cameras," Jack instructed carefully. "Do you want the authorisation code?"
"That won't be necessary, Sir." That had definitely shaded more toward cheek than deference, Alex thought. "I should inform you that you have been on limited surveillance for the last forty-five minutes. I thought Mr Krycek might prefer a bit of privacy for this initial session. The remaining cameras and the audio will develop a temporary system failure in approximately two minutes. I'll let you know if any of the others start looking for you." There was a slight crackle as the intercom clicked off.
Jack looked across at Alex and smiled. "I don't think he minds."
Alex growled low in his throat; shoving the gun he was still holding onto the table he stalked forwards. Jack backed away slowly, playing the game.
"We have two minutes until the cameras go off," Jack reminded him.
Alex didn't slow. "Do you care?"
Jack's wide grin answered that question. They hit the wall hard but neither of them noticed. Jack's mouth was hot and welcoming under his as Alex ground them together. All Alex's confusion and frustration of the last few days fuelled the kiss and were burned off in its heat. Alex groaned in relief as the world dissolved away except for the two of them. Jack was a solid mass against him, unyielding to anything except Alex's demands to touch and be touched. Against his assault Jack met him, kiss for kiss, shove for shove and need for need. Challenging Alex and pushing them both to greater exertion.
Alex's erection fought his jeans for space, reminding him when he had forgotten that there could be more than mutual dry humping. Pressed against his hip, he could feel a hardness that mirrored his own, less constrained but, Alex suspected, no less desirous of freedom. He reached for it, squeezing through the material of Jack's trousers with the roughness of intent. As if that was the signal they had both been waiting for, four hands scrabbled at clothing, zips and buttons giving finally under the uncoordinated attack. Alex hissed as Jack nipped at his neck but tilted his head back for more.
He was crushing Jack against the brickwork, both their pants shoved down to their thighs, but Jack was pulling him closer still, his hand wrapping around both their cocks stroking them with a teasing slowness that counterpointed their frenzy. Alex whined, torn between shock at himself for making the noise and desperation for more. He pumped his hips forward into the tight grip, finding the rhythm that would drive him insane faster than Mulder with an idea between his teeth. Teeth... Jack's teeth scraped against the soft skin of Alex's neck but the kiss he placed on the spot was gentle. Alex caught Jack's head and pulled him back into a deep kiss, thrusting his tongue into Jack's mouth in time with the hard, uncompromising stroke of their cocks. Jack sucked at his tongue and Alex froze as his control hovered on a knife edge.
"Yes," he hissed into Jack's mouth. "Yes."
They paused for a moment, bodies stilled as they found some restraint in a shared, panting kiss. Jack slid to his knees, forcing Alex half a step back to allow space for him between Alex and the wall. Alex followed the movements with his hands, still resting on Jack's head from the kiss. Some of the urgency had ebbed with the shift from quick and rough to something more. Alex's breath caught in his throat, not wanting to leave the paradise that Alex's body became as Jack took Alex deep into his mouth.
"Yes," Alex breathed. There were no other words in his vocabulary, no other thoughts beyond 'yes', echoing into the forever of the moment.
Alex was more than happy to let Jack set the pace. Hot, wet suction teased his existence down to his cock. The flutter of Jack's tongue tingling along nerves sensitised by their rough treatment earlier. He tangled his fingers in the thick hair. Too dark for Mulder but the strands felt so similar as they twined around his hands. Short back and sides but longer on top, and Mulder said he had a stupid-ass haircut. But, God, he didn't care. Didn't care about anything except how damn good it felt with Jack's lips wrapped around his dick. Colonisation could start, the world could drown in an ocean of black oil... just as long as that wonderful sensation didn't end.
There is a God Alex thought vaguely and he is right here in front of me. All he needs to do is come back from the dead; I'll start the damn church.
Alex wasn't totally convinced that he didn't start praying when Jack's hands slid up past the bunched material of his jeans to his bared thighs and then up, further, to cup his balls. The warm fingers gently lifted and rolled the heavy sacs, clasping them with a pressure that made him gasp and want to beg for more. Long fingers explored further, stroking over his perineum in time with the movement of Jack's mouth along his erection. The slight tug on his balls with each stroke encouraged him to thrust forwards even as he wanted to move away to feel the pull harder. Alex whimpered as Jack began to speed up.
Alex needed to come. He could feel the need building in the pit of his stomach, a coil of heat that wrapped itself around his spine and climbed every nerve until it reached the basest part of his brain and started giving orders. Unable to stop himself and reacting to Jack's urgings he thrust forwards, again and again. For a moment Jack's finger's slipped even further back, rubbing over the entrance to Alex's body. The commanding voice was silenced as a new desire crystallised in Alex's mind.
"Wait," Alex rasped. He was insane to want this to stop but sometimes you had to make sacrifices for a greater goal. He looked down into the face of his madness. Jack's lips were full and damp from the blow-job. He wanted to kiss them, to feel their softness against his own mouth, to fuck them and take up the invitation they seemed to make. But while it was enough, it wasn't. He wanted to let go. To give up control and responsibility and himself. It had been so long. Too long. When was the last time... Mulder, two, no, three mind-wipes ago. They'd only had time to exchange blows and blow-jobs the last time and only a brief kiss the time before that.
"Fuck me." He meant it as a demand but it slipped from his mouth as a plea. "But first kiss me." That was a plea and he didn't care. He couldn't look at those slick lips without feeling them somehow. Jack took pity on him, rising to his feet with a grace Alex could only envy in his own clumsy state. The kiss was too short but it was what Jack chose to give him and that was enough.
"Hands on the table," Jack ordered.
Alex moved to obey instantly, or as instantly as he could manage hobbled by his jeans.
Jack's hands ran over Alex's body in a slow parody of patting him down.
"Well now *Mister* Krycek." Jack's hand curved around Alex's erection and stroked once. "Do you have a licence for that?"
Alex shook his head numbly. Lines from half of Mulder's bad porn movies ran through his mind but talking seemed too much effort. He pushed into Jack's hand instead. Jack chuckled but smothered the sound against Alex's skin, kissing and licking where his T-shirt could be pushed aside to reveal the point where neck and shoulder joined. Slick fingers pushed gently into his body and he arched into the invasion. He really hoped that whatever Jack was using was sanitary but as long as it worked he was willing to worry about it later. Something that might have been 'yes' or might have been 'please' but was both encompassed in a meaningless sound fell from his lips. Alex could hear the traditional rustle of a condom being opened and applied and nearly cheered. He started in surprise when he heard Jack open a second and reach around to roll it, one-handed, over Alex's cock.
"You guys really believe in safe sex, huh?" Alex panted, bemused, as those wonderful fingers of Jack's other hand twisted inside him promising more.
"You want to wait while we clear the guns off the table?" Jack inquired, voice tight with impatience. "Ianto might not mind me fucking other people but if I make that mistake again then I might as well move to an ice planet."
The fingers were removed and Alex couldn't help the chuff of laughter that slipped out. "You are so whipped."
"Only," Jack whispered in his ear, "if I ask nicely."
Alex's only audible response was something along the lines of 'Gnnnggg'. Everything else was lost when Jack's cock, finally, breached his body. Alex was sure he wouldn't be able to remember what the sex was like afterwards. Jack had started slow enough, letting him adjust and find his level of comfort. As Alex could have told him if he had thought of it, his level of comfort right at that moment was 'fucked blind' and soon all restraint gave way to hard and fast. Alex gripped the table, convinced it was the only thing keeping him semi-upright and half-terrified it would collapse and Jack would stop. He had ceased being grateful for having both arms to support him somewhere around the tenth devastating thrust, reserving all his gratitude for more important things like the fact Jack seemed to be able to read his mind when it came to things like increasing tempo and force. He didn't know how long it took before the sheer power and exuberance whited out every nerve in his body in the EMP explosion which had apparently replaced his orgasm, but that wasn't a problem because time had long ceased to have meaning.
As he came back to himself, Alex was slightly relieved to find that even blissed out his body had enough instinct to keep pushing into Jack's thrusts rather than leaving the poor bastard hanging for the third time. Alex liked to think he wasn't a particularly selfish lover but since they kept mind-wiping his most regular shag it was a bit hard to tell. Mulder always thought he was wonderful because he couldn't recall all the times they had done it before. Still, even when he wasn't playing a game it was a bad plan to alienate your boss by being a lousy lay. With that and a fair helping of good will to all men, especially those who gave him earth-shattering orgasms, Alex set about trying to make sure Jack's ending was just as happy.
When it was over they leaned together, Alex supporting them both in a sweaty heap, and just let the moment last. Finally, with one last kiss at the available skin of his neck, Jack disengaged. Without speaking, both men removed their condoms and rearranged their clothing. But for a few telltale hints, that could be easily disposed off, no one would be able to tell what they had been doing. Still, Alex found that the situation bothered him. It wasn't the sex, he'd never made any promises to Mulder, there was no point when the man wouldn't remember them anyway, and he certainly had no complaints as to performance. It just disturbed him that these people, who incidentally he was beginning to like despite himself, had all this amazing technology and if he had been trying to pull a job he had just been handed the perfect opportunity for mayhem. The array of guns, including his own loaded piece, lay on the table in front of him like a double-cross waiting to happen.
"Jack," Alex warned, "you shouldn't let your guard down like that. Not that I didn't have a good time but with all these weapons around..." Alex scooped his gun up as he spoke, letting the familiar feeling of the weight in his hand give him the distance he needed. This was for their own benefit after all. The next person might not be as well intentioned as he was. "All I'd need to do..."
Alex let his thumb brush the safety as he brought the barrel around and sighted between the blue of Jack's eyes.
*BANG*
Alex jumped and whirled, aiming even as he turned to face the threat. Ianto was calmly watching him, gun trained directly at him. Forcing himself to calm down, Alex looked down the range to where Ianto's shot had gone. A dark hole disfigured the target, kissing the left side of the bulls eye. He looked back as Ianto tutted.
"I'm still pulling the shot slightly."
Jack grinned at him. "You obviously need to get in a bit more practice. You might hit Owen somewhere vital next time."
Alex lowered his gun and looked between them. They were both clearly insane.
"That was stupid." He hissed as he took an angry step towards Ianto. "I could have shot him by accident!"
Ianto's grip firmed on the gun, a worried but determined look on his face. "It was an acceptable risk."
The snick of Jack's gun behind him stopped Alex in his tracks and he let himself be disarmed. He didn't think Jack would kill him but he also knew that a hot and dirty fuck amounted to nothing when it came to Jack's team.
"Ianto knew I wasn't in any danger," Jack told him. He could hear Jack's gun being un-cocked and put away. Instead of the muzzle at his head, Alex felt Jack's hands on his shoulders, calming him. "He could see the safety was on and your finger wasn't on the trigger."
Alex could almost see the look that passed between the two men over his shoulder. Ianto nodded, confirming what Jack was saying. Alex wasn't sure he believed it, but there was something about Torchwood Three and the crazy people who worked there that reassured him even as it scared the crap out of him.
"You were there the entire time?" Alex asked Ianto. He wanted to be angry but the lethargy of a good fuck was leaching it from him. He'd used up all his energy and objectivity when he pulled the gun on Jack.
"Standard protocol for when there's no digital surveillance. As you pointed out, this is a room where you don't want to lose track of things or people." Ianto holstered the gun he had been holding and looked between Alex and Jack "If there is nothing else I'll restore the systems; I have something that needs my attention in the archives."
"I swear you keep a stack of dirty magazines down there." Although Alex couldn't see it, the leer was clear in Jack's voice.
"Now you know that isn't true, Sir. You and Owen have searched so hard one might get the impression you were searching for something that didn't exist."
"Ianto?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Leave the cameras on."
Ianto's almost convincingly innocent, "I didn't know you found filing so interesting, Sir," drifted back to them. Alex gave in to the madness and laughed along with Jack even as he made a mental note to try and hack into the security system. He had always worked on the principle that if you couldn't beat them, join them, at least until you could beat them, and he couldn't think of a better exception to prove the rule.
Part 2, Part 3