Futility This feels so...good, so funky, to do it like this, in a place where nobody knows his name. To just abandon reason. The notebook is black, as should be, empty so far, but brimming with promise. Alex Krycek turns it over in his hands, his eyes going just a little blank, oh, but for a secong, of course. This is a man known not for introspection, but for action. He bases his decisions mostly on the kind of unerring intuition that is so prized by his employers. Sometimes cold calculation plays a part. But to look into his own heart ... to analyze. No, that is not a trait Krycek has found reason to nourish through the years. Still, tonight, in this dingy roadside bar, on his way to yet another mission to destroy life and bring new suffering into the world, holding this crisp, new notebook, he feels an unaccustomed need to get to know himself. To pour down a lifetime's worth of hardship and violence onto these shiny blank pages. It is probably not a good idea, considering what he has done, what he is still doing. His justification will probably crumble at any deeper introspection.
He looks at the notebook again and thinks about what it means, this new need. Then his eyes fall on the unassuming manila folder beside the notebook. The casefile for the werewolf boy. Krycek's resolve melts in the space of a heartbeat. In the face of another life on the precipice of destruction there is no place for soulful contemplation. His efficiency lies in his talent for self-deception. He is no so stupid, not so callous that he can't see what he is doing. However, he can justify a lot simply by denying any emotion, by positioning himself clear of humanity. He is both more and less than a man. He needs to keep it that way.
Without looking back at the notebook he leaves on the table, Krycek exits the bar.
Now, the matter at hand. His mission, which he, having no real choice in the matter, already has accepted, is to apprehend and deliver, in one piece and alive, to his superiors, one small town high school boy believed to be, of all things possible and less so, a werewolf. Krycek doesn't know who has found this kid, and doesn't much care either. This isn't the sort of thing he would take an interest in. He has only the vaguest idea of what will happen to the unfortunate lycantrope once delivered. He's done this before, captured fresh-faced teenagers alive. Sometimes he sees them again. Some he has dug shallow desert graves for, some he has worked with after they have become empty-eyed spooks like himself.
Sitting in his parked car he opens the manila folder. They boy's face glares accusingly at him from a glossy school photo. Red, spiky hair, sharp grey eyes, a broad mouth with a wry twist. Not an innocent, oblivious face, this. Krycek imagines this boy to be someone who has felt the butt-end of God's sense of humor. Someone who gets the joke. He envies the imaginary boy. He was never so astute that he could accept the world as a joke. As a child, he was wide-eyed, as a teenager corrupt but clueless. As a man ... well, he finally sees the world for what it is, but it brings him no solace. He has no time for reveling in that great, cosmic irony. He has a job to do. Wasted time ... wasted life.
He shrugs the thought off his shoulders and gets the fuck outta Dodge. The car isn't his, just some generic piece of Japanese crap they've handed him, but he pushes it for everything it's got. Using speeding as a means to forget is pretty juvenile, he supposes, but fuck that. The sight of the blacktop disappearing under the hood as the needle grazes 100 mph is exhilarating in its simplicity. He stops thinking about the boy's knowing face. He even forgets his ever-present employers. Maybe he could just keep going like this. Maybe find a canyon and just do a Thelma and Louise. Fly into infinity. Stop in a freeze-frame. But real life doesn't provide a handy pause-button. There would be an impact sooner or later. Fire ... death. He is a bringer of death, but not for himself. He wants to live, even if life is little more than mere survival. He is not a happy man, far fly even from content, but he is alive. Which is more than you can say about a lot of the sad fucks he has collided with in his life.
Empty desert around him. So many unmarked graves out here. So many dirty secrets, big and small, national and personal. Quite a few of Krycek's own secrets lie buried out here, under the blank, indifferent Nevada sky.
He is only a few hours from the California border. He'll be in Sunnydale before dawn.
He parks his car in an alley and settles in to get some sleep. It's five-thirty, Sunday morning, and Sunnydale is a ghost town. He will wake himself around noon and go looking for his prey. He's checked the calendar, and full moon's a safe eight days off. He's got the boy's home adress, plus that of his girlfriend, best friend and, for some reason Krycek can't make out, the high school librarian.
The kid doesn't come out of his house until after seven pm, and even then he looks tired and sleep-mussed. Krycek watches the late sleeper from his stakeout point across the street. The boy gets into his ridiculous, zebra-striped van and drives off. Krycek follows, keeping his distance. The emptiness of the streets is starting to get on his frayed nerves. There is something positively ominous about the silence, a note of fear in the curtained windows. No cars around except the boy's van and Krycek's grey non-entity of a Nissan. There is no way the kid won't notice him following if he gets closer than a block. And just where is he going? They are driving in circles around the town's tiny downtown area, up alleys, down alleys, backtracking. It's not an attempt at shaking a tail, the van never goes beyond 30mph. It's like ... patroling. Looking for something.
Finally, the van pulls up to the curb and stops. And there is life there, a slight, blonde girl approaching. Krycek checks his file. Not the girlfriend, at least. She's a redhead with a sweet, open face. This is something else entirely, a little valkyrie in black tights. Confidence showing in her step, the cockiness of her posture, that no-bullshit tilt to the head. A face that is both sultry and childlike. Tiny, bird-boned, but powerful in a way that defies clear definition.
Then she glances in his direction and Krycek knows she knows. Oh, she's fast. Cheetah-fast. In the blink of an eye, she's by his door, staring at him through the window. He considers flooring it, but thinks again. Better play this cool, see what she has to say. He rolls down his window. Her eyes are chilly, opaque.
"Hi", she says, smiling a sunny and utterly fake smile.
"Hi", he replies, keeping his face neutral, but allowing the possibility of a smile appear.
"So, who are you?" she goes on. "Another hunter? In with the mayor, maybe? Or just a government spook?"
"Uh ... a spook", he says, fairly truthfully. He realises he will have to do it now, right here in the middle of the street. The werewolf boy is right behind the girl, apprehensive but not afraid.
"What do you want?" the boy asks. His hair isn't red as in the picture, it's dyed jet black with patches of electric blue. Ridiculous, like his van. Black nail polish, too. Small town kid with a little bit of attitude, indeed. Krycek stares at him until he turns his eyes down.
"You", Krycek says evenly. He gets out of the car with studied grace. Notices how the girl, despite her apparent frailness, gets in between, her hands up in a fighting stance.
"Uh-huh, mr G-man", she snarls cockily. He keeps a hand in his coat pocket, not with a gun, but with a small ampulla. It would seem like overkill to down a teenage girl with barbiturates, but he can see the fearless threat in her face. She isn't afraid of him, and the only way a young woman won't be afraid of a strong, obviously threatening man is if she's got one up on him.
And that she has. Her punch is like a snakebite, her follow-up kick even faster. Strong, too. Krycek knows almost immediately that she could, given the opportunity and just a little luck, kill him. He chooses not to give her the chance. The ampulla with its tiny needle is in his hand, and he gets her in the shin when she is aiming for his right kidney. The stuff is strong, hopefully not too strong, and she's down within five seconds.
The werewolf boy understands what just happened and makes a futile rush for his car. He is, as opposed to his friend, no match for Krycek. A quick strike to the back of the head and he crumples to the concrete. Krycek shrugs in mild dismay. Fighting children in broad daylight. Hardly his usual deal.
He carries the girl to the van and stashes her in the back. She'll wake up with a headache sometimes tomorrow. Alas, so will Krycek. In fact, he's got aches a little here and there. She did not fight like a child. Rubbing his side where he'll surely sport bruises, he goes to grab the boy and be gone from this place.
They are well outside town when the young werewolf finally comes to. Krycek has been feeling just a little pinch of concern that he might have clipped the kid too hard. The file helpfully stated that werewolves can't be killed the usual way, but the boy had gone down so completely ... well, no worries, here he is again, cuffed and gagged, alive and ready to serve. He doesn't fight his restraints, doesn't try to scream through the gag, only watches Krycek with eerie calm.
Krycek pulls over - they're already in the outskirts of the desert and the road is empty under darkening skies - and goes around to remove the gag. The boy stays silent.
"How are you feeling?" Krycek asks, hoping he hasn't caused any unnecessary brain damage in his prize. The kid shrugs, managing to look cool even in his trussed state.
"What do you want with me?" he asks coldly.
"I'm going to turn you over to some people who want you. I haven't been informed of their plans." This is technically true, but of course he knows anyway. There really is only one thing They would want a werewolf for. The very same thing they keep men like Krycek himself on their payroll for - murder and mayhem. The boy's unthreatening size and cute-quirky face make him a perfect plant. If there werewolf thing holds true, of course. If it doesn't, the kid is worthless.
"Are you a werewolf?" Krycek asks, keeping a straight face. "Because if you aren't, it would be a lot better for you if I just killed you on the spot."
The boy turns away, not deigning to answer, but his calm in the face of such a preposterous question is answer enough.
Krycek gets back in the car and hits the road again. There is some Holiday Inn room in Nevada with their names on it.
Maybe an hour of driving through dark, unchanging desert before the boy loses his cool and speaks.
"What did you do to Buffy?" he asks, and is there the tiniest tremble in that mellow voice? Krycek is of the opinion there is.
"Your high-kicking friend? She'll be okay. I had to give her a sedative, or we would have been there all day. Perhaps not what you'd call a fair fight, but then she wasn't exactly what she seemed. Maybe my employers should have apprehended her instead of you."
"She wouldn't be any use to them. She isn't the servile type," the boy snorts, his composure regained.
"And you are?" This is only rewarded with a shrug. "You are a cold fish, boy. Been through a little more than your average high school senior?"
"You could say that."
"Your file says you took a bullet for your girlfriend. Self-sacrificing type, then?"
"There are things worth dying for. I wouldn't expect a man like you to understand." Now, that stings. Krycek knows the boy is right, of course. He has long ago deserted any noble principles he might have harboured. Round about the first time he found himself sucking a stranger's cock for just a few rubles more that he would pay for a loaf of bread, he thinks.
"Where are you taking me?" the kid asks.
"Not sure. I'll be informed in time."
"How can they do this? Who the hell are they? What do they want with me?" For the first time, Krycek hears fear in the boy's voice. He searches for some kind of answer.
"Let's just say they're a small group of megalomaniacal geriatrics who have gotten so used to having power over people that they can't stop even when their little project has become an excercise in futility. I'm pretty close to the core, but I'm still just the busboy. You're nothing, you're an interesting experimant. You have the potential to become something like me, perhaps, possibly more, but most likely is that they'll find you too damn dangerous and lock you in a lab cage with the monkeys for the rest of your natural life. That is if they don't have you put down like a rabid dog." Here Krycek has to stop to draw breath, and he realises that he has delivered a speech. A rant, in fact. And with that epiphany comes another. He has no intention whatsoever of turning this boy over to any Morley-puffing sadist. There is no explanation for this decision as of yet.
Krycek lets the car pick up a little speed ... and then some, trying perhaps to outrun his own foolishness, this unaccustomed sentimentality that will surely get him killed. The night rushes past, but it refuses to take with it any of this inexplicable resolve. Thelma and Louise, eternally hovering over their canyon, flash before Krycek's eyes again. Oh, no. Not that. That would be quite unnecessary.
"Are we in a hurry?" The boy's voice is calm again, dry. Oh, and is that sarcasm? A cold fish. That fear Krycek caught earlier ... it might have been faked. Or just a crack in the armor. Whatever it was, it's gone now, and the boy's eyes are shallow pools of muddy water. Krycek reflects that this kid could be an excellent agent. Just the right blank-faced stare, those tightly shackled emotions. Maybe I could use an apprentice. Maybe I could use a companion.
Now he has to drive just that little bit faster to shake that little nugget of wisdom. It is thankfully swept out of his head, torn loose, out of the window and there it goes, flapping into the night, spinning around the desert in a herd of other likewise righteously abandoned abortive attempts at instilling humanity in the shuttered and bolted heart of that mad bad rat bastard Alex Krycek. Losing it. This is looking grim. But then again, things have been looking pretty much uniformly grim ever since he first hit the Moscow streets age thirteen. He shoots the silent boy a heated glance, suddenly resentful of the kid's chances. This well-fed, all-American boy has never known real hunger. Would he understand Krycek's motivation even if they spat him in the face? Probably not. This desperate need for survival that comes not so much from any particular lust for life, but simply from the fact that one is loath to give up something paid for so dearly.
Well, now, this line of thought is giving him the shivers. He slows down a little, and they are no longer in hyperspace. Krycek has other ways of emptying his mind of unwanted guests. Think about something else. The lights of some little shithole wide spot in the road up ahead. A Holiday Inn. Gas Food Lodging. How very convenient. He is suddenly exhausted. His captive is perfectly still, slumped in his seat. His eyes are hooded, distant. No one home.
Krycek pulls into the Holiday Inn lot. He briefly considers leaving the boy in the car while he gets the room, but immediately scraps that. Instead, he cuffs the kid's right hand to his own left, and pulls down their coat sleeves to cover the steel.
"Now you hold my hand. Of course, it goes without saying that I'll kill anyone you try to talk to."
"Of course." The boy, stonefaced, slips his child-sized hand into Krycek's.
Safely in their squalid but relatively clean room, Krycek shackles his impassive prisoner to a chair and indulges in a long, well-deserved shower. He comes out of it refreshed, calm and feeling uncharacteristically magnanimous. He uncuffs the boy.
"You can use the bathroom if you want to. I will take the liberty of watching, though, so for your sake I hope you're not too much of a prude." There was no reply, not even a scathing glance. The boy, the very image of cool, simply marches to the small bathroom and starts shucking his clothes. Krycek sits down on the toilet seat, keeping his eyes carefully on the boy. Not beneath him to take a good look other than for security reasons, either. This is, after all, a fairly strapping lad, in a not-too-obvious way. Not quite as frail as he looks fully clothed, not by half. Pale, translucent skin of the true redhead. Hard, flat muscle. Not an ounce of fat anywhere - werewolves probably don't get a chance to accumulate any puppy-flab. Smooth, hairless chest, ribs showing like faint striations under the taut skin. Nipples small, dark pink. A truly delightful ass.
Krycek catches himself. This isn't the fucking swimsuit round. And now he feels eyes upon himself, and it's the kid of course, not so impassive now - more clearly calculating, appraising. Working things out. Krycek almost blushes, like a girl caught peeping at the top-shelf magazines in the K-mart. The boy's eyes show just a shadow of contempt, and Krycek suddenly gets it. The kid has started to suspect his intentions. Thinking maybe that conspiracy thing is nothing but a smoke screen for a perv to green to get on with it. Oh, Christ. Sure, the kid is pretty enough. And in the size of jailbait, to boot. No doubt he's heard his share of propositions.
Krycek's mouth curls into a helpless grin. He is this fucking close to giggling. The kid frowns, trying to get this unexpected reaction.
"What?" he finally says, exasperated. Krycek puts a lid on his effervescent mirth.
"You thought I was going to jump your bones just then, didn't you? I found that rather amusing." A brief flash of ... something in those storm cloud-colored eyes. Ah, emotion, how rare.
"Well, you were ogling me like the wolf meeting Little Red Riding Hood."
"But you're the only wolf in here. Not saying that I don't appreciate the view, but rape isn't included in my job description." Not this time, anyway, he concedes to himself. But this young stud needen't know that.
The boy looks calculating again.
"Would it help my situation at all if it did?" he asks. Krycek is momentarily stunned. He had figured this kid to be the proud unrelenting kind, and now this. Spoken like a true slut. A survivor. Someone just like Krycek himself. No one you could ever trust, but a kindred spirit nevertheless.
"Of course not. You can't buy me when you don't even know who to bargain with. I am the bow, not the hunter. But thanks graciously for the offer, anyway. Maybe there's hope for you in this cold, old world."
Krycek lets his mind wander free as he watches the boy shower, enjoying the view idly, without allowing himself to be aroused by the sight of those thin hands on soapy, slick skin. For a moment, something approaching contentment calms his nerves. One moment. No demands, no desires. Just the steamy room, the calm and collected boy. Hovering over the Grand Canyon. A cocoon of peace, the eye of the storm.
Then his cell phone goes off with its annoying, ill-biding bleat. 'Pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear'. Fleeting line. Old man Shakespeare has a quote for every occasion. Get a fucking grip.
Anonymous, robot-emotionless voice. Hang on, we're getting a trace. On their way already. Do or die. End game for the exquisite creature in the shower. A blink of worry in grey eyes.
And Krycek knows fear, knows desperation. Cold urgency. What is wrong with me? The boy ... that boy. Ridiculous hair, chipped black nail polish. Steam swirling, soap suds and flawless skin over sleek muscle. Pretty, rounded ass. Face almost oriental in its blank immobility.
Treacherous fingers switch off the phone. Grab the boy, make him move. Flee. And this is truly rebellion. Going AWOL. Betrayal? They have left him dangling so many times the word is empty now. A man like him trusts no one, and with all reason. Helps no one. So what is this man doing, dragging his hapless, half-clothed prisoner soaking wet into the night, to the waiting car? No questions, no protests. Fuck the cuffs, we're gone.
And the desert again, blackness. The phone out the window and still no second thoughts. Just let the night rush in, swallow us whole, kidnapper turned savior, victim turned accomplish, but they don't know that yet, won't acknowledge the preposterous idea. Won't. Can't.
I'll change my mind any minute now, he still thinks. After all, self-deception is his most valuable trait. Faster. Where to go? This country isn't big enough. Nowhere to hide from Their tentacles. Home. Safehouse. Is there anywhere to take this lost boy, uprooted now and forever from his strange Californian backwater home with all the finality of death? To save a life is to be responsible for it. Even this wild-eyed, irrational man knows that. So what is he doing, speeding through gentle night with this stolen life next to him? Stupid, stupid. The end of his life. He doesn't know himself anymore.
"Where are you taking me?" the boy asks. A little chill of déjà-vu there.
"Shut the fuck up", Krycek growls crudely, not trusting himself to really speak. The boy is silenced. After a while, Krycek relents.
"Do you want to be saved?" Let none of those caleidoscope emotions shine through. The boy raises an elegant, auburn eyebrow.
"Are you selling Jesus?"
"You can't have your life back, that's beyond me. But I can give you a chance to survive. Just a chance."
"What are you doing?" Sharp, this boy. Asks the right questions.
"Committing suicide, from the look of it. And the taste. But the smell, kid. Smells like freedom."
"Why me?"
"Fuck should I know. Call it fate. Call it fucking insanity."
"I'm not calling it anything until I hear some sort of game plan. I'm looking hard at the picture here, but it's a Mondrian. All style and no content."
"Look closer, kid. It's more like a Munch. All emotion and no reason."
"I hear you. So you analyze. I don't have the Cliff's Notes on this one."
"I can drop you off, let you run. But then I might as well put a silver bullet in your brain. They'll come after you, you're a loose end now. So am I, but I've been on the run before. You won't last a day."
"Maybe you're underestimating me."
"Maybe you're underestimating them."
"So it's a Terminator type situation, then?"
"Hmm?"
"'He feels no pain, no pity, no remorse. And he absolutely will not stop until you are dead'...?"
"That's right."
"So, I'm Sarah Connor, you're Reese, and we'll have one night of life-altering passion before you kindly die for me and I go off the walls and join some Nicaraguan terrorists. Sounds good to me. Sounds like bullshit, actually."
"Yes it does. I haven't made a habit out of dying for anyone, especially not smart-mouthed Californian brats with painted nails."
"Gracious. And I thought it was the In thing right now. Don't get me wrong here, but it seems you have abandoned the script pretty late into the shoot. Ad-lib is the word, right? You just did a one-eighty. A Thelma and Louise, even." Jesus, time to put a lid on this nonsense.
"Watch your mouth, kid, or I will run us off a cliff. And let's drop the pop-culture references."
"Right. Just you, me, and the open road, then. You make the call. I'm not really clear on my options."
"Let's see, I might manage a Terminator soundbite of my own. 'Come with me if you want to live'. How's that?"
"Spoken like a true geek. You're full of surprises, Mr Secret Agent Man."
"This is not the place for glib."
"No, but I'm just a little bit petrified, and I buckle under pressure and start sprouting nonsense. No, wait ... that's not me. I'm the cool one."
"You are sprouting nonsense."
"I know. It's ... alarming."
"This is something of an alarming situation."
"How bad is it?"
"Well, if we keep a low profile, they might give up on us in a few years."
"So the Terminator analogy is just a smoke-screen?"
"No. They'll probably find us. We'll be little piles of dirt under someone's chicken house."
"Oh."
No smart-aleck response. Nothing more to add. Just the road in front of the car, the black, star-studded sky above. The boy curls up in his seat and promptly falls asleep. Krycek is alone with these new fears he is discovering. He finds himself wishing he had gotten this strange new weakness out of his system and into the blackbound notebook. Now it is too late for regrets. So what is he now? A better person for this small mercy, this one life he has attempted to save? What is he giving up? And empty life for one filled with new insecurities? What does he hope will come of this? He can't find his motive for doing this. The boy? Just another victim. Nothing he hasn't witnessed before.
I should find that canyon now. This isn't me, so better to be done with it. Take him with me to hell.
But that is a thought even more alien to him than the notion of selflessness. Alex Krycek doesn't say Uncle. The steel in him is still there, the spiky ball of a mine in oily water.
Is there a chance here? He looks at the still form of the boy, a still-nameless presence in the lonely, bitter existence of the street walker-turned-assassin. A chance, surely.
He reaches out and shakes the boy awake. Sleepy storm cloud eyes. Acceptance.
"... huh ...?"
"What's your name?" He has the file, but he never saw a name.
"Oz." Ridiculous. But perfect.
"I'm Alex."
Time for a shot of our heroes rushing off into the rising sun, the desert the only witness.
I awake to sweet-smelling darkness. The night is sounding with the secret movements of a billion tiny creatures. I can smell slightly larger animals going about their usual business of hunting, eating, fucking, dying all around me, under me in the fragrant hay. My bed is soft, sheltered as I am from the prickly hay by Alex' trusty old leather. I turn my head, smelling him on it, as if it were his own shed skin. Alex himself is nowhere to be found. The car is right there, looming black against dark blue as my eyes begin to adjust to the scant light the night sky provides. I burrow deeper into the hay, pulling the heavy leather jacket around me. I vaguely remember stumbling out of the car and into this rickety barn. Alex must have lifted me onto the leather after I conked out. What day is it, anyway? No idea. We have been on the road for just about two eternities. Crossing more state lines in these few days than I had in all my life before. So, which state is this? Kansas? Idaho? Montana? I'm not even sure which way we have been heading. Alex has to be Superman, or at least his cousin. No one gets by on that amount of sleep. Not me, anyway. I wonder how long I've been asleep this time.
I am still pleasantly hovering around the edges of full consciousness. I allow myself a little indulgence, a little fantasy. My morning tent is up, trustworthy as usual. Happy thoughts. Green eyes. Not Willow, no. Thoughts of Willow ... strictly off-limits if I want to stay whole, sane and alive. Alex. His eyes are a clearer, edgier green. Emerald. I like to think about the way his face looked when he was checking me out in that motel shower. Hungry. Starved. Not much time for the good things in life when you're a badaaaasss mutha, is there? And Alex is seriously badass, no doubt about it. He doesn't talk about it, of course, but there's really no question about it. He has killed. Probably will again. Possibly he has enjoyed it on occasions. Violence is inherent in his being. I watch my mouth just a little when I'm around him. Even when we banter, I keep a lid on it. I don't want him to punch me. His hands look hard. But they can probably do a lot more pleasant things than whack me in the face. Oh, I have no second thoughts about using him in my fantasies, about taking what I want.
Alex in his tight black jeans. Great ass. Muscular arms, broad shoulders. Alex knows what he looks like, why the hell else those tight teeshirts, those low-slung, hip-hugging pants?
My tent is appreciating this line of thought. I let a hand creep down to give things a little squeeze. Alex ... his hands ... right there. His mouth ... that way, please. My other hand sneaks under my shirt to tweak a hardening nipple. I have to gasp just a little. The other hand on my boner, keeping up a bit of friction through the rough denim of my jeans. Soon I will have to consider releasing my insistent penis for a more thorough workout.
I smell him on a breeze just before he walks into the barn. With a minor curse under my breath I let go of my dick. A setback.
"You awake?"
"Uh-huh."
"Let's move out."
I walk out into the balmy summer night. The moon is swollen above my head, and I can feel it tugging at something inside me, a deep, throbbing pulse. Soon ... soon.
"What is it?" Alex next to me. His heat so close to my back, burning through my thin teeshirt. I feel strangely giddy. My hard-on isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
"The moon", I whisper, elated. "Two more days."
His hand touches my shoulder. Surge of electricity. I lean backwards just a bit, lean into him, my back against his hard chest. He flinches a little, but the hand stays on my shoulder. My idle morning woody has turned into a raging hormonal beast. I rein it in with an effort. What to do? The hand on my shoulder is perfectly still. And I can smell his excitement. He keeps his hips prudently pulled back, but what does it help when you deal with yours truly? You can't lie to a werewolf.
I turn around, slipping my arm around his waist. Giving him a big, old hug, letting him feel my boner. I press my face into the hollow of his throat, which is about as far as I reach. Smelling sweat and dust and something that can't be described because it is uniquely his. Feeling his pulse flutter through the thin skin.
His arms come around me, and now I feel his hardness for real. Told you so. I open my mouth just a little, and tast his skin, taste the salt and musk of it. The moon is so close to full that I have a distinct urge to bite down for a better taste, but it's under control.
His hands - so hot! - slide up my back, over my shoulders, to cup my face and turn it upwards. His eyes, black in the dusk, meet mine.
"What are you doing?" he whispers. Leaving it up to me to pull him down so I can kiss him.
His mouth is as soft as it looks. I simply press my own against it, not exactly doing anything, just holding back, giving him plenty of time to make up his mind. How odd that he would be the one to hesitate, the man, the experience all on his side. I have never even kissed a man in my life. My past ventures into the unchartered waters of gay sex amount to a few hesitant blowjobs given and received by my gorgeous but vapid band front man Devon. I had put it down to sexual frustration on his part, experimentation on mine. Well, well, well. Apparently, the owls are not quite what they seem. Who'll be blowing you now I'm not coming back, Dev? You never let me kiss you, you priggish bastard.
And finally Alex opens his mouth to receive me. Sloppy, enthusiastic kissing. And are those his hands, grabbing my ass? Slipping between my legs, poking around in a delightful, knowing way. I have to break for air, and can't help a tiny yelp when his fingers hit some preciously sensitive spot, through two layers of cloth, to boot. Now, I can't even rightly say I know about all the hot spots on my body. Devon for sure never bothered to find any, and Willow ... well, Willow won't even say ass.
So, all in all, I reflect, as Alex manhandles me back into the barn, this will be different. No need to mind sensitive feelings, hold back, be gentle. This is a man, quite possibly old enough to be my father, a man with twenty or more years of experience. A real, hard, gay man in all his splendor. His mouth is ravaging mine, stealing my breath and leaving my head spinning. My knees buckle, and he pushes me down onto fragrant hay. The world isn't going to stop swirling around me like that, is it? I feel drunk, I feel crazy. His hands, hot on my skin, tugging at my tee. I wriggle out of it with a minor effort. Another searing kiss and his mouth leaves mine to attend to my aching, rock hard nipples. I squirm, I gasp, I rake my fingers through his hair, down his taut, muscular back. My hips buck involuntarily. Sharp straws are scratching my back but really, who cares? Not me, not when talented hands are working on my fly. I arch my back and moan, letting the moan resemble his name, and alright, his breath on my quivering dick, oh yes, wet warmth... My hands grab random tufts of hay, let go, grab some more. There, a sharp, helpless thrust into accepting depths, another and then his hands are on the sharp ridges of my hip bones, holding me down, gently at first, then rougher. His fingers dig into tender flesh, but it doesn't stop me at all. I bruise easily, my skin being very pale, very thin, but the bruises always fade in less than a day, something I find vaguely disappointing. It's kind of a cop out to have superpowers, I figure. There is not a single scar on my body. Eerie, but all too true. The change leaves my human form flawless and reborn every time. There are no pock marks in my face, no new outbreaks of acne, not a freckle to be found. Even my vaccination scar has melted away, as has the mark after the bullet I took for Willow.
There isn't really time for contemplation now, for he's doing ... whatever he does, and my brain shorts out as the orgasm slams into me, claws its way through my gut, spreading into every part of my thrumming body. Intense. For a few moments I am quite unable to move a single finger. Alex, having swallowed what was offered without hesitation, slithers back up my body for a new set of kisses, now with the added spice of my come. This is also new to me, but not at all upleasant. Au contraire. I find my arms again, and promptly aim for the hardon I am reminded of as Alex' gorgeous body presses against me again. He is painfully hard, and the lightest, briefest touch elicits a hissing gasp from him. I fumble a little with his fly (practice will, no doubt, make perfect), but manage it with reasonable dexterity, and there it is. No underwear, you kinky boy, you. He lies completely still, except for the deep trembles that travel through his prone body. I slide a finger down the seam on the underside of his cock, and what is that? Soft skin curls in my hand. Our boy sports a foreskin. I, having a very limited experience with cocks, have never seen one before.
I am momentarily taken aback at what I have here. One achingly beautiful man, aroused to the point of insanity by the alluring presence of yours truly. Check. One impressively dimensioned, uncut cock in my very hand. Check.
I let go of that pretty tool for a moment to give his erect nipples my undivided attention. Nibble ... lick ... tweak ... He gasps. Groans. I like the sound of him groaning like that, deep in his throat, rumbling in his chest. I give him a little more of the same, then move purposefully downwards to that waiting cock.
Strong, almost overwhelming masculine scent. Neither of us has seen a shower in a while, but this is not a problem. My sense of smell has become something quite otherworldly after the change, and this intense assault, the smell of this man, just turns all my pleasure dials up to eleven.
Not a clear thought left in my head as I take him into my mouth, letting my tongue play a little with that unfamiliar foreskin on my way down the long shaft. I hear him moan louder, He mumbles something (that wasn't my name. What ... who is he thinking about? It doesn't matter) under his breath, twining his fingers in my hair, stroking my head, my neck.
When he comes, it's with something like a scream, and there it is again, two syllables that almost positively make up a name. And the desolation of that scream bites deep. I realise that this man probably has as much to try to forget as I have.
Which leads me to Willow, and that's not a place I want to go, so I crawl back up to kiss Alex, making myself feel the difference, this isn't Willow, never will be. And that, dammit, is a good thing. He is looking at me, and there is pain in his eyes. His green eyes. Willow's face again. I shut off the thought. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me like that. Who he wants to think about, but can't let himself. Is it a man or a woman, or something strange like me? Someone he used to love, but lost? Someone he never had? I want to ask, but I don't want him asking me about Willow, so I don't. Let the past forever be clouded. The future is coming, and we're it. Two men with nothing in common, but we will stay together anyway, because there is nothing else to do.
Behold this endless, dusty country road, flanked by miles and miles of yellowing fields, solitary farm houses, small towns. Followed by a curtain of dust that rises in billowing clouds in the hot Indian summer air, a car, color indistinguishable under a coating of dirt, is steadily making its way towards the north-east. There isn't anything strange about this car. The passengers, however, might merit a second glance from a casual observer. The driver is in his thirties, tall and dark, with a face that by any rights should be far too pretty to look this menacing, and eyes far too large and green to look this cold. He is frowning slightly, as if reluctant or afraid. He seems to be holding on to the wheel as if it is the only thing keeping him from falling into the abyss.
The man in the passenger seat is far younger, hardly more than a teenager, and he is small and thin, with a face so carefully devoid of expression as to be almost doll-like in its blankness. He is simply staring out the window, very pointedly not looking at the other man. The difference in age between them is just barely enough to make them a possible father and son, but not even the most casual glance would suggest this. Instead, the air of fear that weaves thick in the car, the boy's youth, the older man's aura of guarded threat give the scenario an angle of coercion, of crime.
This only goes to show how easy it is to misjudge things by their appearance.
Alex Krycek is trying hard to keep his entire concentration on nothing but the road, the mechanics of driving, but is not making a very good job of it. He is nervous, jittery, a few precious heartbeats from scared shitless. The landscape is vast and perfectly magnificent, but he's not here for the scenery. This is the very last place on Earth he'd come to for recreation. There's nowhere to hide out here, no merciful crowd to blend into, nothing at all to shield him from the sound of his own memories. He never thought he'd have to come back. He longs painfully for a nice, big city to disappear into. That will be their next destination. Any damn city. Even DC for all he cares, as long as they can leave this place behind forever. He would have taken them to somewhere crowded and anonymous, gotten them a house with a big basement, anything. But there was no time. The boy hasn't said anything, doesn't need to. Alex can almost feel the pull of the moon himself. If the danger weren't so imminent, he'd be excited. But there is danger. They need a safe place, and what sanctuary is there for men on the run? Where can you hide a werewolf for three nights? What would keep it locked up?
There is one place he is absolutely sure will hold just about anything, and that's where they're heading. So what if it's the place he only goes back to in his worst nightmares, the ones from which he wakes not screaming, but so terrified he's beyond sound?
Again and again, he has to ask why he didn't just take the time when he had it. How hard would it have been to settle down somewhere for a few days, look for some convenient abandoned farm house with a wine cellar, and be done with the problem? But the heady taste of rebellion, the exhilaration of doing one thing right in a lifetime of wrongs, had apparently gone to his head. He had picked a road and followed it, so sure things would work out eventually. The road is taking them north-east. These aren't his usual hunting grounds. He doesn't have any connections here. And suddenly time has run out, and he's got this boy on his hands, this boy who has become not only his accomplice in giving his erstwhile employers a run for their money, but also his lover. This boy, who will, when the moon rises in exactly nine hours time, turn into a wolf.
Alex feels North Dakota close in around him like some dark and noxious cloud, and again he has to fight down panic. He doesn't want to be here, yet the place calls him, taunts him. He is almost positive of the fact that if he sat down and had himself a good, long think, he'd come up with ten better ideas for a werewolf cage than the one he is taking his charge to. However, it seems as if he has been driving in a straight line towards it ever since he pulled the boy out of that shower in Nevada.
Alex is tempted to check the back of his neck for implants, so strong is the pull of Black Crow, North Dakota. The repulsion he feels is strong, too, but not enough. He's being swallowed.
"Alex?" Oz hasn't spoken a word in the hours since they crossed the state line, almost as if he could feel the turmoil inside Alex. But now his voice is insistent.
"What?"
"What happened to you here?"
There is a fraction of a second when Alex thinks he might actually run the car off the road. Then he regains control over his jumpy nerves and the car both. Damn, the kid can pick his moments.
"What makes you think anything happened?" Fucking stupid question, but he wants time to think about his answer.
"You're afraid."
"I'm not afraid."
"You can't lie to me, Alex." The tone is calm, a little resigned. Oz is very good at hiding curiosity. The fact that he asked in the first place must mean he's picking up some pretty heavy vibes. "You don't have to tell me anything, but you stink of fear. I would just like to know what I'm getting into."
"You're not getting into dick, except a place to keep you behind bars until your urges settle." And once more the mere thought of putting the boy down there, locking him in, makes Alex's stomach turn over and his lungs constrict. Even the car, which usually feels safe and cosy, seems too small suddenly, too enclosed.
"Are you claustrophobic?" Fuck. For a second he's tempted to just strike out and break the nosy brat's nose. The last thing he wants now is for anyone to get into his head. Not even Mulder, with his endless analysis, his educated psychobabble, could ever get beyond the walls Alex has erected around his psyche.
Oz throws a quick glance at Alex and promptly zips it. Thank god for the boy's good judgement. It will give Alex more time to come to terms with this return. If there is any possibility of closure, it will come in these next few days. He is not optimistic.
He refuses to tell me where we are, but I see a sign just before we go off the main road. Black Crow. Seems like any other small town to me. There is nothing even remotely ominous about the surroundings, but apparently Alex is going through some personal hell of his own. He is not talking about it, but fear radiates off him in waves so hot I'm starting to sweat. I haven't known him for very long, and he's told me next to nothing about himself, but it doesn't take a mind reader to know that he is a man not used to being afraid. So I'm afraid as well, that his fear of whatever we're heading into will project itself as violence. I haven't been afraid of him at all since Nevada, but now I am.
He takes me to a place that looks like an old quarry, or possibly a set out of some post-apocalyptic B-movie. Cut into the crumbling rock wall is a door. An unassuming metal door.
Alex gets out of the car and stalks over the dusty ground to the door. I stay where I am, reluctant to do anything to arouse his anger.
"Come on!" he shouts without turning around. He's standing in front of the door, staring at it as if he thinks it will open at his command. I walk up to him, a little more certain of my safety, but still quite apprehensive. He turns to me, and his face is paper-white with dark smudges around the eyes, which seem enormous and almost black. Automatically, I take a step backwards. He stares at me like he's never seen me before. "There are over two hundred silos down here," he mumbles.
"What?" I ask stupidly. I have no idea what he's talking about.
"Missile silos," he answers, his voice tight but controlled. "They're supposed to be filled with concrete, but they're not. There's something inside one of them, number 1013 ..."
"What is it?" He looks back at the door and shrugs.
"It's probably gone now."
And that's all the explanation I get, for now he's already pushing the door open.
"Get in. Sun's setting."
I scramble in after him, and the door falls shut behind me. Darkness engulfs us. It doesn't bother me much. My happy little werewolf senses, as strong as they get right now, make eyesight almost redundant.
"No!" The sound is something between a scream and a hiss, a desperate, panicking negation. Alex is pounding at the door, completely lost in mindless panic. The reek of adrenaline is making my head spin. Going against my own better judgement, I tentatively touch his shoulder. He goes instantly rigid, a tight tremor running through him into me, as if I'm touching some malfunctioning electrical appliance. At least he's stopped trying to dig his way through the unlocked door, I think, and then he suddenly snaps around and backhands me in the face.
I know he pulled that punch - if he hadn't, my nose would be broken - but I still fly backwards, landing gracelessly on my ass, clutching my smarting face. He stands above me, invisible in the thick darkness, but his menace is clearly present and accounted for. Then he reaches down for me, pulling me into a tight embrace - apologetic or still frightened, I don't know.
"Come on, Alex, calm down," I mumble tonelessly, trying desperately not to fear him, forgive him, for he knows not what he does. "There's nothing in here. I'd smell it if there were."
A little of the tension flows out of his body. His hands are around me, and just for a few moments he lets some of his walls come down. "That's just it, Oz," he whispers hoarsely into my hair. "Nothing at all down here. Just old, dusty death."
"What happened?" I shouldn't push it, but I can't help my curiosity. What horrors lie behind all this darkness? Will knowing them let me understand what makes this man what he is? Somehow I don't think he'll be quite that forthcoming.
"They left me behind."
"Why did you come back now?" He lets go of me abruptly, tensing up again. He takes a few wavering steps away from the door.
"It's a safe place."
"Is it?"
"It's empty." There's something in his voice now that sets my alarms a-ringing. Annoyance? Maybe, but there's something else, too ... For once, my superior nose fails to tell me anything about his mood. The reek of fear is too pervasive; it covers all nuances. He's still afraid, but he's definitely sublimating the panic now. And when a guy like Alex starts doing that, you'd do good in getting the fuck away from him.
Only I have nowhere in the world to run.
He's got me by the arms before I even realise he's moved. Jesus, he's faster than a cat. Got eyes like one, as well. He's all human; he shouldn't be able to see shit in here. It's not completely dark; there's some sort of vent high up ahead, but the light is so diffuse that even I have trouble distinguishing anything.
He's just holding me steady like that, his fingers digging into my biceps, his harsh breath fanning my face.
"What are we doing here in the dark, Alex?" I ask because I can't think of anything smarter to say. His grip grows minutely tighter, and it's starting to hurt now. Good thing I'll be changing in an hour or so, or I'd sport pretty bruises tomorrow. "Hey!" The startled yelp is out before I can bite down on it - it sounds so sissy - but he's slammed me against the cold concrete of the wall, and it hurt, dammit.
"I'm dealing, Oz, that's what I'm doing," he hisses in my ear, and that throaty whisper would be unbearably sexy if it weren't for those rock hard hands bruising my arms. Hell, it's sexy anyway, but I'm getting pretty wigged out here. He's sublimating, all right. Putting all his fears and whatever traumas this place has left in him into some wild, violent sexual fantasy of his. Now I can smell what it is he's up to, and it's sex, or something at least vaguely resembling it. The smell of his excitement is both turning me on and putting the fear of God into me. This kind of ambiguity is really not me at all. I usually know what I want. Now, as he's pushing against me a lot harder than strictly necessary, his knee nudging my legs apart, his hands leaving my arms to slide up and come to rest on my throat, fingers right over my pulse, I'm too scared to think straight, too fucking horny to fight back.
We've only been lovers, or whatever you want to call this strange relationship, for two nights. There's been gentleness and need and kisses and all that stuff. He hasn't even suggested anything more advanced than those few but incredible blowjobs. But there's nothing gentle about him now. He's still fingering my pulse, almost absentmindedly.
"Now you're afraid," he purrs, and the sound of it sends a cold spike of fear into my gut. Why did I think I'd be safe with this man? He might not be as full-fledged a psychopath as, say, Spike, but he's surely cultivating his own unique brand of budding sociopathy.
"Alex..." I can't make my lips form the plea. Hell, I'm way too stubborn to plead, and the word comes out almost as an encouragement. I don't know what he's really gearing up to do. He probably doesn't even know it himself. Fuck me through this wall or try to kill me? I know he can't make me actually die - he's not packing any silverware - but he can make me hurt.
"Fuck you! Get out of my head!" he shouts, and I know he's not talking to me, and now he grabs me again and just flips me around like I weigh nothing at all, and my face is pressed unceremoniously into cold, rough concrete. He's got my jeans pulled down in no time at all, and I guess I'm gonna get screwed now. And it's definitely going to hurt. I can feel his erection pressing against my ass, and then his hands are around my neck again, squeezing just enough to make me see stars floating in the darkness. I know that I won't die from it, but it doesn't make it any less frightening. I wonder briefly where this need to choke me comes from. It seems to have some sort of sexual meaning for him. Maybe some old lover had a bit of a kink?
Just as I'm starting to mercifully black out, he releases my throat, and I'm left to my own devices, gasping and coughing. In my efforts to remember how to breathe, I never notice him dropping his own pants before he lifts me up and slams home.
I can't scream; my aching throat won't let out more than a sibilant sigh, but there is quite a lot of pain. Not as much as I feared, though. Apparently, he's made some kind of preparations, using I don't know what, spit or precum or whatever, but the feeling isn't one of complete dryness, and dear god, am I grateful for that.
Then his arms come around me, and he's moving slower, giving me some time to adjust. I don't know when this stopped being about hurting me, but he's not trying to turn me into wallpaper anymore. One of his hands creeps to my neck and stays there, unmoving. He still wants to throttle me, apparently, but I 'm ready to take it as a good sign that he's hesitating.
The other hand has found my cock, found it hard and aching, and is now making a good effort of alleviating the ache. I'm starting to forget about the sting in my ass.
"God, you're as twisted as--" His whisper is bitten off, and I never get to know who the template is. Someone who is into power games and autoerotic asphyxiation, I figure. Just perfect for little Alex. "Slut," he hisses, but somehow, the insult doesn't sound very sincere, and the last of the threat is gone from his voice, and he's hovering somewhere between ecstatic and mournful. His hand on my cock is picking up speed, and his cock up my ass is pulled almost all the way out, and I'm anticipating a painful slam again, but instead he does this little readjusting wiggle, and thrusts home, and jesusjesusjesus that is not something they tell you about in biology class, and here I am, howling like the wolf waiting inside me, splattering the concrete with my come. He's gasping behind me, coming as well, and for a moment, we slouch against the wall, sated and quiet as if we were just a couple of ordinary lovers getting off. Then he pulls back quickly, and I'm almost sure I can hear him whisper a hoarse little 'sorry' before he's gone off me and out the door. Without his weight to support me, my knees buckle and I crumple into a little, sad heap of trembling, exhausted flesh.
He's back almost immediately with a flashlight. While I'm still blinking in the unexpected brilliance of it, he pulls me up, not entirely without gentleness, and ushers me towards the beginning of a corridor across the room. I clumsily pull up my jeans, wincing at the soreness and the stickiness, ignoring it with a brave face. Now that I'm no longer scared, or horny, or even very upset (internal memo: analyse lack of righteous outrage later), I can feel how close it is to the Change. It's tugging at me with big, clawed fingers, and it's so much scarier, so much more violent than anything Alex could think of in all his unbalanced inventiveness.
There are endless rows of doors down this corridor. Other corridors branch off pretty much arbitrarily, and I have no idea how Alex knows where he's going. But he does, and it's not too long before we reach the door with the number he mentioned. 1013. Why does he bring me here? Is this where they left him? Whoever 'they' are, and whatever really happened. What lies behind that door?
I'm about to find out, because Alex is opening it. With a good-natured (when did he get good-natured?) nudge, he pushes me into the space behind it. And my question is answered, and the answer is a big fat nothing. It's a missile silo, all right, huge and vast and round, and echoingly empty. Alex flicks the flashlight around the walls, and I catch sight of something small and white just a little bit to the left of the door. It looks like a business card; at least it's small and square and white. I make a move towards it, but Alex is faster, and I never get a chance to see what the name on the card is. Apparently, it has significance to Alex, because he frowns and stuffs it in his pocket without offering an explanation.
He seems almost okay now, but I can feel that he's itching to get the fuck out of here. When he leaves, and the door slams shut, I'm treated to an intense false flashback of what he might have been feeling in some hypothetical past, locked inside this very room. Knowing he's being left to die. I shudder at the thought and pray quietly for him to please not ditch me right now. Come back for me in the morning, Alex...
Tightly clutching the too-familiar business card in his hand, he's already halfway to the entrance hall when he hears the first howls. Incredible how the voice carries in these empty rooms. The sounds start out as screams of agony, move in pitch to almost-wailing, deepen to anger, lust, terrible, terrible joy. Then the last part of humanity fades, and it is pure animal hunger. Alex is happy to leave. He'd be happy to leave in any case. He's not happy about the way things went down here. His most immediate sense of losing control, that jagged-edged panic, is lying low now, but the price ... he's not sure what the price will be, but it might be the last of his own humanity. Dammit, he's gonna do a Mulder (what were you doing here, Mulder? Did you see the ship?) and actually feel guilty about screwing the boy. Okay, so it was more like rape, when you get right down to it, and for fuck's sake, the kid's not seen both sides of twenty, but it did help. He's never had to take anything that hasn't been offered before, and he's not sure Oz had been precisely refusing it. It had been more like some sort of resignation to pain. As if he'd known exactly why Alex was doing what he was doing. As if he had allowed it to happen ...
You're placing the blame on the victim, Krycek, a voice that sounds way too much like Mulder's dry monotone mutters in the confines of his brain. You're being so typical I'm almost disappointed.
That's it. The very last thing he needs is this phantom Mulder picking his brain. Bad enough that the real one tried it so many times, that Oz seems to be able to read his every emotion before he's even recognised it himself. Angrily, he scrunches the business card with his one-time partner's name on it into a little ball and throws it into the night. But of course it's too late, Mulder's back in his head and he's not budging.
The world outside has never felt fresher. Silken moonlight highlights the harsh landscape, taking away its edge, painting it in gossamer silver. Alex leans against the door, filling his lungs eagerly with cool, balmy air, purging his brain of unpleasant thoughts. He can do it for now, just exist as if he's nothing but another shadow in a world made up of stark black and white. Forget about the silo; forget about conspiracies, aliens, paranoid FBI agents with grudges and brilliant minds, monsters ... the one down in the silo, the one within. Just breathe, slowly, savoring every taste of this freedom, which, such as it is, is his alone.
You hurt that boy, PhantomShrink!Mulder vents from his place somewhere in the devious recesses of Alex's brain.
"Jesus, what is this? Where did you come from all of a sudden?" He had definitely thought Mulder was a thing of the past for him, and then all it takes is one little card, fallen out of a pocket, left in a place it shouldn't be, and there the man is, disembodied, nothing but a ghost - mental flatulence, perhaps - but annoying and undeniably desirable as ever.
The boy, Krycek.
"Fuck off." He can't remember ever having an inner dialogue this insistent. Maybe he really is losing it this time. "Shoulda known Black Crow was gonna finish me off."
You invented me, stupid. I'm not going anywhere. Think about the boy, Alex.
"Ha! Mulder never called me that!"
Hmmm - that's true. Not even when I was boning your traitor ass. But how many times did you wish I had? Stupid little fantasies, stupid little fake-fibbie. You're a flake, Alex, always were. But we digress - think about the boy, Alex.
"The boy, the boy! He has a name!"
Maybe he has - but you weren't thinking about his name when you were slamming him into that wall, were you?
"No, for god's sake, I was thinking about you!"
This time, there is no reply, and Alex sighs in relief. Having his own fucking subconscious turn on him is just way too much to handle on a day like today. Still, the odd little exercise has been cathartic in its own, bordering-on-committable kinda way. He does feel bad about roughing Oz up. He'd just needed something to take his mind off the walls closing in on him. And it had helped. Oz had taken it like a man and a half, too. The pint-sized werewolf is not someone to dismiss with a shrug, that's for sure. Please, Ma, can I keep'em?
He wonders if Oz will be hungry when he comes off his wolfy high. Somehow it seems like the change, whatever it is like, should use a lot of energy. Alex doesn't know much of anything about werewolves, but he's seen the same movies as the next guy, and a common theme seems to be hunger.
There's bound to be a diner somewhere in Black Crow. Time to think about that in the morning. Alex suddenly realises he's exhausted. All this angst and panic and facing of assorted demons has left him emotionally empty and weary to the bone. Sleep would be an idea. There's only the car to do that in, but Alex has done that so many times, it works just as well as a hotel room. You learn to be flexible when half the world wants to kill you and the other half wants you behind bars.
Despite the day's ardors, Alex Krycek sleeps like the dead that night, curled up in the cramped back seat. He doesn't dream. Around him, the world continues on, the moon wanders steadily across the sky, stars twinkle, trees rustle, animals go about their business as usual. Deep in the confines of silo #1013, a very large and very ugly wolf sits morosely on a vast, cold, concrete floor. The not-quite-animal is hungry, angry, ready to bite and tear and rip through flesh, bones and just about anything else, but it's intelligent enough to know that there is no way out of this place. Finally, it too lies down to sleep and dreams of rabbits and deer and naked men.
I awake naked on a cold floor. I am not surprised. Being a werewolf, the whole deal with phases and changes and chains and cages has very gently slid into routine for me over the last year. Now that I'm awake and as good as human again, apart from a few lingering traces of a dream teasing the edges of my consciousness ... bright gleam of panic in terrified eyes, the taste of blood thick and metallic in my mouth, the steamy breath of a dying stag puffing and curling around me, the reek of entrails, tempting, sweet, diving into it and eating, eating...
I shrug, trying to avoid the feeling of excitement the dream has left in me. These dreams - are they memories or simply wishful thinking on behalf of the wolf? I haven't spent more than two or three wolf-nights on the loose, and I just don't know what mayhem my animal half was up to back then. There were all those missing dogs and cats and sheep...
This is all just the ordinary run of things. I always wake up feeling high on blood I hopefully never swallowed, reeling with some imaginary hunt. It's all in a day for your average Teen Wolf, isn't it? Now, if Giles would just get his tweed-clad butt to work and come unlock the cage, I will be just as sound as a pound. I'll go home, maybe call Willow ... is it Saturday? Hmmm, the Bronze might be an idea ... band practice seems likely to occur at some point. Only not too late, of course. This was only the first night. Three nights a month to explain away. Dev is always understanding, even though I never told him the truth. Dev tends to jump to conclusions so damned quickly I never have to tell him anything. Probably thinks I've got something on the side. Which I have, in a way.
At this point in my post-lupine early morning ruminations, I find it in me to open my eyes. And it's black around me. Deep, merciless, moonless-night, bottom-of-sack-black. And quiet. And cold. Conclusions present themselves quickly, even to my sleep-and-lycanthropy-addled brain. Silo. Alex. Last night.
Shit.
I'm locked in a silo, at the mercy of someone I'm starting to suspect is hovering just south of nutcase. Someone who last night, for reasons kept mostly to himself, saw fit to slam me against a wall, slam me against a wall and ... well, do whatever. It's easy enough to pinpoint what happened, in the obvious, physical way, but what really went down is just way too complicated. Technically, of course, it can only be called rape. (I must be callous, but I don't feel raped.) Alex, trying to exorcise his demons, whatever they looked like, by pounding his cock up my sore ass. Gentle, considerate lover turned savage. Yeah, we've heard that song before. And we didn't like it back then, either.
I get up, trying without much success not to think about what I'll do if Alex has chosen to leave silo, demons and hapless victim behind. I feel his way to my clothes. They're still lying in the same orderly heap I put them in last night after I'd listened to the echo of Alex's footsteps fade to oppressive silence in the empty corridors. Another thing that's just plain ordinary by now; take off your clothes prior to change, thereby avoiding the embarrassment of having to ask the librarian to find something for you to wear on your way home in the morning.
Even though I put on my clothes, I'm shivering. I'm starving. I have a vision of bloody steaks in glorious rows, lined up between plates of prime rib dripping with grease, humongous hamburgers, bowls of meaty stew, grilled liver (funny how I always hated liver before - now I could eat it raw and love it), ham, long strings of sausages... It all fades when I imagine a whole stag, still warm and twitching, blood streaming from the bites on its neck and flanks. I could rip its gut open, stick my head in, find the liver and gulp it down before starting on the rest of that freshly-killed banquet. Tongue is good, so's the muzzle. And the heart is a rare treat, tough, a little bitter, but very personal. I guess I should get nervous now that my fantasy stag has mutated into something that looks almost human, but I'm so deep in tastes and smells and the wonderful feeling of standing ravenous in front of the meal of your life, I can't be bothered.
I'm halfway into a trance when I suddenly snap out of it. The door to the silo stands open; Alex is there, looking at me with a small frown creasing his brow. I banish the thought of warm meat from my devious brain.
"Are you hungry?" he asks, as if he can see some of the bloodthirst in my face.
"I could eat a horse," I say. Or you.
He's apparently going through another phase of not talking to me, for he refuses to talk or even look at me as he leads me through the maze. He seems to have, at least superficially, gotten over his claustrophobia. I can smell no fear or panic on him, and he looks cool. In fact, he's got that stone-faced look I have come to think of as his professional face (game face). By now, I know better than to say anything. Nothing about him is reliable, nothing is safe. Still, I've hardly ever seen a sight more welcome than his face.
He drives me into town, buys me breakfast by the truckload in a dank little diner, all the while keeping communication down to the barest minimum, his face staying forbidding, his eyes distant, scanning some inner landscapes I'll never know anything about. I find it pretty easy to ignore him right back, faced as I am with the pleasant task of refilling my body's depleted reserves. There is nothing in the world that gives you a better appetite than shapeshifting. The perky little waitress gives me funny look when I order my third round, but that's easy to ignore as well.
Finally, after I've eaten in silence for almost an hour, he looks me in the eye for the first time this morning. His eyes manage to seem both completely shuttered and painfully intense at the same time. Weirdness.
"Alex?" He looks away, and I'm almost sure he's ashamed. He's thinking about last night. Maybe he wants to get rid of me. Maybe I am bad for him. Yeah, and he's just fucking perfect for me, I guess. He's not going to say anything, I suppose. I'll have to make this right myself. Dammit, that sort of thing doesn't come naturally to me. "You don't have to say anything," I start. It sounds irrevocably clichéd and lame, lame, lame. "But you scare me. I don't know if I can trust you."
He meets my eyes now, and this time there's no mistaking the expression. He's pissed off, and no two ways about it.
"It's not my problem if you trust me or not. I'm just trying to stay alive." His voice is perfectly cold. But it's still got that husky, too-many-cigarrettes quality to it, and hell, if I can't feel a funny little tingle in the places that matter. He probably can't help it, but he's too hot to be this cold. Shit.
"Are you going to kill me?"
"I don't know." Well, that's reassuring. "Look, Oz. I'm not someone you want to fuck with. You're already a liability. Try not to become a problem."
Now he's pissing me off. He's scared of something, and it makes him pissed, and he takes it out on me. Real fucking mature. I have a temper, although it's not in much use these days, but now I can feel it building up.
"I'm a liability? You fucking kidnapped me! I don't know, I was just living under the impression that you wanted to help me. I actually thought you gave a shit. Let's not forget who's been fucking who, okay?"
"I don't need this."
"Yeah, well, you've got it. You can try to kill me, but it won't be very easy unless you've got some silver bullets for that plunky sidearm you pack. You can ditch me right here. Just stop fucking with my head. I'm not your whipping boy."
I am perfectly able to be angry in a quiet way, but somehow that doesn't seem to work for me today. I'm almost shouting, and people are starting to throw us uncertain glances. Alex is looking like he can't decide whether to shoot me on the spot or just leave with the door banging. I don't think he's very good at arguing. He's probably always been able to solve things with a bullet or two.
"You little shit," he hisses, and for a second I'm sure he's going to lose it and just whip out his gun. But he's got more control than I've given him credit for, and I can see his eyes turn shallow as he bites the bullet and shuts down the anger.
"We don't have to talk about it," I say, trying to take advantage of the moment. Trying to save my ass, I guess. Alex with pent-up emotion is worse than angry Alex in many ways. "We don't have to talk about anything. You did what you did for your own reasons. I can live with it. If you can, we're okay."
"I can live with a lot, Oz. I am living with a lot. You're just another victim."
"Yeah, well, try not to fucking rape me again, or I might get really angry."
I say that in my sarcastic voice, but I'm told it sounds a lot like my regular one, so I'm not sure if he got me. He doesn't bother answering. In fact, he's tuned me out again and is looking out the window. I guess the conversation is over. There's no apology forthcoming, not that I expected one. I won't be hearing any heartfelt revelations of childhood abuse or whatever it was that made him what he is. This isn't a Harlequin romance, and that's for sure.
When we get back in the car, he seems to have accepted my presence again. There isn't much talk, but he's not ignoring me, either. I suppose this is the way it's going to be. Why should we talk about what we feel, anyway? I'm not his boyfriend; he's not my father. We're just a couple of strangers thrown together.
Then he surprises me again. Just as I was beginning to think I had him pretty much figured out, he throws me another curve ball. He turns to me, and actually grins. Mercurial doesn't even begin to describe this guy's personality.
"I guess sex is out of the question, then?"
It takes me a good ten seconds to digest this. He rapes me, and now he wants to sleep with me? Why should I want to? But I do. Of course I do. He's all I've got, after all. The only one who knows where I am and what I'm doing here. And he is gorgeous.
"Pull over." He stares at me incredulously for a moment. Then he shrugs and does as I told him. I lean over to kiss him, and it's just as good as it was the first time.
"You are twisted," he whispers.
"Always was," I whisper back. His hands are already roaming, and I'm burning where he touches me. So this is how it's going to be. I can live with it. He'll hurt me, and I'll forgive him because I have to. Not perfect, but perfectly okay.
Just another city, another stinking backstreet alley. Sounds of a fight draw my attention, I smell blood. And there he is. Xander. Skinnier, older, harder, colder. Nevertheless, one helluva blast from the past. And from the look of it, in one big world of shit. Black-clad, spiky of hair, cut and bruised and bleeding. Giving as good as he was getting, sure, but there were three of them and he was faltering.
Alex next to me, noticing my interest. His eyes narrow. He thinks I'm being soft again, caring about a stranger getting his ass kicked. Then he sees my face. He is a sharp man, very quick in grasping the content of expressions.
"You know that guy?" His voice, husky and dark, as always sending delightful little tingles down my spine. Not now, not now. I nod quickly, giving him a wiggle of eyebrow, and big puppydog eyes. A plea. Not that I really have to ask. He might do it just for fun.
He shrugs casually, and is off without another look. Sleek as a panther and twice as deadly. Lightning fast. I can see his distaste in the contemptuous curl of his mouth, but I know it's not for Xander. Alex's contempt is reserved for the sorry assholes that are about to die. Being the force of nature that he is, Alex despises thugs like that, who go about their dastardly deeds in craven numbers, three huge leathermonkeys against one lost teenager. Three big, ugly, reeking pushers pimps gangbangers. I can smell death in the small alley. The adrenaline of fear coming from Xander. The adrenaline of excitement from Alex. The adrenaline of violence from the men. Blood, garbage, bile.
They are too preoccupied with turning Xander into a bloody pulp to notice Alex coming up behind them. Even if they weren't they might still not notice him. Stealth is not something he has to work on, it's the way he exists. I press my back into the wall, the anticipation of imminent violence, imminent death, making my head spin.
Alex could take these stupid thugs with one arm tied behind his back. Snakebite punch to the face, angled just right for that lethal bonechip-to-the-brain effect. There - his arm around the next guy's neck - they don't know what the fuck hit them, and one's down already. And what did he do with his legs just now? Too fast, too skilled to follow, but there is a satisfying crunch, and the beefy thug hits the ground with a broken neck.
So far, not much blood spilled. I know Alex likes to splatter it around a little for effect. Yes, I am aware that he might enjoy this a little too much, but what can you do? I wait and see what he'll do with the one remaining walking dead man. The animated corpse in question has caught on finally, and is making a mad dash for the street. Coming towards me, in fact. I have no fear of him. Alex is coming for him, and there is nothing between the man and his demise. Like a fox pouncing a mole, Alex is on the guy, and there, the flicker of the switchblade. A pregnant second when nothing happens, and then suddenly the guy has a new, red grin across his throat, matching the grimace of fear that twists his face. I've never looked into the face of a dying man before, and I can't turn away. I can see him lose consciousness just before he falls.
And Alex, avoiding the spray of blood with practiced ease, wiping his blade. His eyes are dilated, his face shining with the euphoria of the hunt. I know what he feels. We are kin, after all. Although there is nothing supernatural about him, he's as much wolf as I am. He keeps it wrapped tightly most of the time, but when there is need it steps forward and revels in the shedding of blood by the bucketful. The wolf in me can smell a natural born killer like that a mile away.
His eyes, black and huge in the murky lighting, seek mine. I peel my back off the wall I've been leaning against, and step into his arms. With something like a growl, he attacks my mouth with his, leaving me breathless and panting. He is delicately flushed and horny as hell. I know that if I let him, he'd fuck me senseless right here, in front of three dead bodies. In front of Xander.
Xander. With an effort, I tear myself away, ignoring Alex's disappointed hiss, ignoring the throbbing in my groin, and face Xander. He is staring at Alex with eyes turned waif-like in a face bonier than I remember. He doesn't see me, which is no surprise. I am so small and dun, practically invisible next to the colorful menace that is Alex. His choirboy-gone-bad looks and his air of barely contained violence make him a magnet for attention. Even when he's trying to be inconspicuous, dulling the magic sheen of his charisma, he still eclipses me.
Xander is slowly backing up, never taking his eyes off Alex, resisting an impulse to flee. He reeks of blood and panic.
Alex's hand around my waist, slipping down, cupping my ass. A bolt of lightning straight into my aching cock. Damn, I just can't think when he's touching me.
And then Xander's eyes shift, and he sees me, really sees just who the hell Alex is pawing, and his mouth falls open in a great big 'O' of surprise. I have to bite down a giggle. Leaner, meaner, perhaps, but still the same Xander.
I can feel his eyes on me. He is oddly limp - compliant - when we hustle him out of the alley, down the street. He doesn't speak; none of the usual Xanderisms are forthcoming. Only that half-dazed stare flickering helplessly back and forth between Alex and me. Alex is all business now, walking quickly, face closed and hard. I don't know if he's angry about this or what. Jealous? Wouldn't think so. I'm not the one crying out the wrong name in the heat of passion, after all. He can hardly blame me for grasping at the straw of my old life that Xander essentially is.
And me? I'm reeling with the awareness of Xander. Here. What in God's name is he doing here, after all this time? So very far from Sunnydale it might as well be another planet. What impossible twist of fate could have worked this? For me to find him here, exactly at the right moment. These things don't just happen. This is destiny.
I can't look at him without thinking about Willow. I don't know what could have happened to drive him away. I'm not sure I want to know. I do know that he's staring at me like I'm the Second Coming. Staring at Alex like he's a demon from the pit turned guardian angel.
Our car. An old beat-up piece of shit, stolen a week ago in some nameless town. The only home we have. We steal new ones at regular intervals. This one is a Ford, insofar as I can see under all the gunk. It might have been white once. We don't have anything valuable in it, we don't have anything valuable, period.
"Hey." Alex is staring at me, a little frown teasing his brow. His eyes are guarded. I try to draw my face into some kind of expression, but I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job of it. I feel bland, through and through. "Are we taking him with us?"
"Uh, well..."
"You know what it means." I do. Life on the run. Danger. Discomfort. No turning back.
"He doesn't have to be involved. They wouldn't know about him."
"Ask him, Oz." Alex can sound so much like an exasperated parent sometimes, and it always makes me remember that he really is almost twice my age. I have no business being with him. No business bringing Xander into his deadly orbit.
"Who is he?" Xander asks, and I realize that it is the first thing he has said at all. I look at Alex, trying desperately to come up with a good explanation for his presence. What is Alex to me, anyway? He kidnapped me, but I am not his prisoner. We have sex occasionally - well, a lot, actually - but we're not precisely lovers. Not in any deeper sense. We are both far too tangled up in our respective pasts to let this relationship turn into anything more than a temporary respite. Shelter from the storm. Alex is danger and blood and violence, fear and pain and lust. He is everything Willow isn't, and that's what I want. And I could leave him in a second if I only could figure out how. Xander doesn't wait for me to fabricate excuses. He jumps to his own conclusions. On the dot for once in his life.
"He's that guy, isn't he? The guy that grabbed you - abducted you. Jesus, you've been with him all this time? Do you even care what it did to Willow?"
"It's not that simple, Xander," I mutter wearily. He glares at me with angry heat and something like disappointment. I can't take that from him. Shouldn't. Not from someone whose sorry streetkid ass I just saved in some garbage-littered alley. Fuck. This is Xander. Willow's Xander. Suddenly, all I want is for him to look at me with fondness again, the way he did sometimes when he forgot I was Willow's boyfriend. When he really saw me. "Look, Xander, you don't have to come with us. But I would like you to."
"Why? I mean, why would you? You've got your pet thug right there, haven't you? You don't exactly need a pet loser to dampen your party mood."
"Xander," I say as gently as I can. His lack of self-esteem is so familiar, so annoyingly adorable. I wonder if that's what made him leave. Everyone thought his pathologies were cute. "I didn't leave willingly. I didn't choose to stay gone. I've missed you guys. I've missed you." Soft voice, wheedling. Pleading. No way, I never plead. I can see Alex giving me a look of rather dismayed surprise. He, too, seems to be coming to his own conclusions.
"We need to move," he says softly, but not even his voice, that husky, painfully sexy voice, can make me feel safe right now. There's Xander, unannounced reminder of days forced into oblivion. A whole new definition to the word 'pain'. Xander, who also chooses to completely ignore Alex, a feat I so far have thought frankly impossible.
"What the fuck were we supposed to think?" he yells, spreading his hands in helpless exasperation. "After you just fucking vanished, everything started going to hell in a handcart. Things never went back to normal, never. And the cops pretty much closed the case, saying you'd run off with your lover. Someone spotted you checking into a motel in Nevada, holding hands. And leaving in the middle of the night, half-naked. We tried to believe, we really did. Willow ... she never got over it. She's in England now; she skipped out on us. I think she's doing okay now. But I'm not sure, cause I haven't heard from any of them in months."
"Xander..."
"Don't Xander me, Oz! I don't know you! Did I ever, really? I mean, I was so sure the cops were barking up the wrong tree. 'Not Oz, man', I said. No way he'd ever... And now... Well."
"It's not what it looks like, Xan-" I bite off that. What's the point in making excuses? It is exactly what it looks like. It just isn't what he thinks it is. It's not cheating. It's forgetting. "It's like asking you what you were doing in that alley."
He doesn't push it, so I figure I hit a nerve. When Alex flings the back door open with an annoyed flourish, Xander climbs in without another word. I crawl in next to him, avoiding Alex's accusing eyes in the mirror.
"Where are we going?" I ask, completely superfluously. Alex just shrugs.
"We'll find a motel and you boys can work out your differences. I've got some things I've got to do."
The city disappears behind us before I even dare to turn my head to look at Xander. His bruises are deepening, making him look somehow dangerous and badass. Like he's taken this much and he wouldn't mind giving some back. He doesn't look quite as badass as Alex does, of course, but then again, Alex has twenty years on him. I wonder again what made Alex what he is. Maybe there was no one to rescue him from that alley. The thought makes it hard for me to breathe for a while. So close. Too close. Alex's paranoia, his unpredictable moodswings between ruthless bloodlust and repentance, jaded callousness and desperate neediness. Something ... someone has hurt him. 'Mulder' is the name he cries out in his sleep, when he comes, when he's fucking me through the nearest wall. I don't know whether this mystery being is a man or a woman or a goat. We don't talk about it. Just like we don't talk about Sunnydale or anything that might remind me of it. I don't know if it's good for Alex to have saved me, to have kept me along like this, but somehow it doesn't matter. But now, with Xander thrown into the mix, the balance is disturbed. Alex doesn't act as if he needs me, but somehow I think he does. And Xander ... Xander won't make it on his own.
"What are you doing with this guy, anyway? Why did you stay?" he suddenly asks, and I startle and bang my head against the window. I wince, feeling utterly asinine. So much for cool.
His eyes are dark and serious, and I wonder what happened to the Xander I knew. Did wisecracks suddenly go out of style? Well, he's serious, better be serious. The question. How the fuck am I supposed to answer that, when I can't even figure it out for myself.
"He makes me forget." The truth, or part of it. I'm not going any closer.
"Yeah, makes you forget everyone's fucking phone numbers, I guess." I turn away, angry at his judgement and angry with myself for feeling guilty. It wasn't my doing. He grabs me and turns me back. I catch a glimpse of Alex looking ominous and threatening, and I shake my head violently. Xander is harmless. I think. He is just shaking me by the shoulders like a child. "Don't turn away from me! You just vanished!"
Yeah, I noticed. I was there. Dammit, Xander, can't you even try to give me chance? He keeps shaking me, and if I don't do something soon, Alex is going to pull over and shoot him.
I steel myself, and punch Xander in the face. A sharp, calculated jab that will hurt a lot and probably not break anything. His face is already ill-used, and it feels exceedingly bad to add to that, but necessity knows no law. But it hurts to see his eyes.
"You hit me," he mumbles through his hands. I have cracked open a closing cut on his lips, and fresh blood is streaming between his fingers. It's crimson and pretty. On a wild, irresistible impulse, I lean down and lick the blood off his hand. He stares at me, all wide-eyed and horrified. Seconds stretch like a teenager's bubblegum.
He just keeps staring. Alex is staring at me from the mirror. Dark, angry eyes; green, angry eyes. Whatever did I do to deserve all this anger directed at me? I want to break the stalemate. I reach out. Pull Xander towards me. Lap at the blood on his mouth. He doesn't resist, remains impassive, a wooden doll in my arms. I hold him and press my mouth to his ear.
"Don't ever touch me like that in front of Alex. Ever."
"Wha-- what?" His voice is meek, childish, confused.
"Don't make him think you're a threat. He'll kill you. I don't want him to." Xander pushes me away with an impatient gesture. It's glaringly obvious that he doesn't believe me.
"What is wrong with you? Why are you hanging out with this-- this--"
He trails off, obviously at a loss for a term scathing enough. I roll my eyes in frustration, and meet Alex's eyes. They're amused now, and I can breathe easier. Xander catches the exchange, and suddenly, his angry expression smoothens out, and I can see the boy I knew in there somewhere. He straightens up, turns his attention to Alex.
"So ... Alex. What is your take on this? What are you? The resident spree-killer with a penchant for teenage ass?"
I barely have time to close my eyes in mortification and voice a short, silent prayer to the god of werewolves and fucking morons, before Alex has hit the brakes. We come to a screeching stop in the middle of the dark road, and Alex has the door to the back seat open and he's pulling Xander out. His face is carefully blank, no rage showing. I fear him.
So there's Xander sprawled on the dusty grass by the side of the road, Alex crouching over him with a gun pressed to his forehead. I'm still in the car, petrified. I have no idea what Alex is up to. He might be gearing up for homicide; he might just be giving Xander a little mindfuck. He might be messing with my head.
"Alex!" I shout, trying to stall him while I think of something intelligent to say. He ignores me.
"Don't call me things, boy," he growls at Xander. Xander just stares at him with that mix of fear and mock bravado I remember so well from our past brushes with death. "Only one person can call me names, and you don't look much like him."
"Well, sorry I hurt your feelings," Xander deadpans, and I expect the crack of the gun going off any time now. "I'm just calling it as I see it, man. Maybe you'd like to explain your position? I mean, Oz is really taking this whole taciturn thing to new heights."
"We were fine," Alex hisses. "We were doing fine!" I can't see his face from where I sit, but his back is tense, and I can tell there's some kind of emotion being displayed. I'm just not sure which one it is. I'm not picking up any olfactory clues, either, so it's subtle. Alex is never subtle.
"Are you going to kill me?" Xander somehow manages to sound calm, although his smell is unmistakable. "I mean, if you're not, maybe you could, like, put the gun away? Cause you're making me really jumpy here. Please? Pretty please?"
I can tell Alex is trying to figure him out, decide whether he's being suckered or not. You can never really tell with Xander. I want to tell Alex that, but I can't quite work up the nerve. Yeah, just the opportune moment to go chickenshit.
"I'm not really a spree killer," Alex says quietly. "I'm not saying that I'm not a killer, but taking down random people for the fuck of it just doesn't do it for me." He is explaining himself. To Xander. Well, I never thought I'd see the day. Alex doesn't do explanations. He just doesn't.
"Uh, well, that's alright then," Xander mutters.
"I do get triggerhappy with people who piss me off," Alex adds. Xander yelps, and I have the tiniest little revelation. They both know they're just fucking with each other. What I'm looking at is not violence, it's foreplay. How did this happen? At what point did this thing become a threesome?
"Hey, can we get off this road before we cause an accident?" I grouse, letting just the right amount of tired annoyance creep into my voice to let them know I'm on top of the situation. Click of the safety, and Alex is actually helping Xander to his feet with rough-tender compassion. Xander winces and rubs his bruises, and gets in the car.
Before getting back behind the wheel, Alex comes around to my side to give me a hug and a quick, promising kiss. We're okay, I guess. We're fine, and things might go on just as they were. |
