GGB NIGHTCLUB AND LOUNGE,
DOWNTOWN WASHINGTON

Fox Mulder easily recognized the Pet Shop Boys song when he entered the bar, even though it had been remixed and sped up to facilitate the dancers who packed every available inch of floor space in the club.

'In denial, indeed,' he thought, his mind awhirl with memories, current events, and sensory overload from the lights, sounds and sweaty mass of humanity he had just entered.

He wove through the crowd with an ease and familiarity that surprised even him. It had been a long time since he'd been here, hell, since he'd been anywhere that wasn't quiet, secluded…'Intimate', his brain supplied helpfully, making him wince and shake off the thoughts that followed that word almost physically, like a colt shivering off a biting fly.

He scanned the crowd in a manner that suggested hunting rather than cruising, although he received a few choice leers from some men who mistook his hunger for answers for a hunger of a less noble sort.

At the back of the room he spotted his quarry, and wasn't surprised a bit.  Nothing this man did shocked him, and it seemed right and natural that Alex Krycek would be in the first place that Mulder had thought to look for him, the place where their ill-fated affair had begun with nothing more than two startled glances from two very closeted special agents…

Krycek was sitting at a small booth in the corner with a slight blonde man who might have been thirty, or might have been twelve.  As he approached, Mulder watched the man tease Alex over the rim of a wine glass, using his eyes and tongue in a suggestive way that was as old as time.  Krycek wore a smile that was more of a sneer, a mantle of condescension cloaking him in a way that seemed to fit him as well as the tight white t-shirt he was wearing-maybe better.

Mulder knelt quickly and released his gun from its ankle holster, slipping it into his jacket pocket where it would be more accessible.

As he stood, he was suddenly caught up in a tight embrace that he fought panicky for a moment, then relaxed into when he realized it wasn't Krycek, or some other Consortium goon.

A tall, thin drag queen with long dark hair, wearing a gold lame Madonna knock-off complete with matching cowboy hat had intercepted him with a hug and a kiss. Between the hug and the six-inch platform heels, the queen managed to block his view of Krycek's table completely.

"Marty!  It's been forever!  I thought you died, or something!"

"Not hardly," he muttered dryly, attempting to disengage himself from the embrace.

"Seriously, Marty, what happened to you? I heard you shacked up with some old man from the Hill, but I can't believe-" A sudden step back and a critical eye dramatically enhanced by a raised eyebrow and Mac cosmetics. "You got fat!" was the triumphant exclamation.

"Married life'll do that to ya," Mulder replied, deadpan, as he focused somewhere past one gold lame shoulder to note that the lithe blonde was now nearly sitting in Krycek's lap.

"Really, Marty, wedded bliss is no excuse to let yourself go-you used to be hot, you know." The look Mulder got suggested that he was still hot, and would do well to divorce the old man from the Hill and take up with a Princess from the north end.

"I have to go, hon." He ducked past lame and fake nails and continued towards his target.

The queen watched him walk away, wondered briefly if the space pants line would have worked on him, then dismissed him from thought completely when she realized her glass was empty.

Mulder didn't wait for an invitation, just sat down abruptly in the empty chair in front of Krycek and glared at him.

Alex pulled his attention away from the thorough kiss he was giving his blonde companion, gave Mulder a smoldering glance that was impossible to interpret, then turned back to his friend and nuzzled his hair.  He whispered something in Russian to the man, whose gaze also fell on Mulder, although it definitely wasn't a friendly look. Alex said something else, kissed the man on the cheek and gave him a careful plastic push. The man glared once more at Mulder, returned the kiss and slipped out of the booth.

"Nice company you're keeping these days, Krycek-who are you trying to kid?" Mulder pulled the gun out and held it under the table, making sure that Alex saw what he was doing. The move didn't seem to alarm his ex-lover in the least.

"Mulder, long time no see. Got tired of the federal closet and decided to do a little slumming, did you?" Alex sat back and nonchalantly stirred the clear drink in front of him, using the prosthesis, not because he had to, but because he knew it would get a reaction from Mulder, which it did.

Mulder knew that everything that had happened to the man before him had been a result of Alex's own treacherous actions and decisions, but he still harboured borrowed guilt over the Russian incident that had left Krycek with only one arm, and he grimaced as the man made a display of his amputation, even as he realized he was being played.

"Cut the crap, Alex. I think you know why I'm here."

"You've changed your mind, and you're here to pledge your eternal love to me, right?" His grin was positively angelic, all white teeth and wide green eyes, and for just the briefest of moments, Mulder thought that maybe Krycek wasn't kidding. The moment ended with Alex's next words. "Or maybe you just want to get laid."

"Oh, right, that must be it." Mulder's voice took on a bitter edge that only deepened when Alex took a sip of his drink, playing with him over the rim of the highball glass in much the same way as the departed blonde had played with him earlier. 

"Hmmm, let's see," Mulder continued, "my choices are a) a loving, secure relationship with a good, stable, strong man-"

"You forgot old, stuffy and closeted," Krycek pointed out helpfully, setting his glass down and sitting back in the booth, bringing his natural hand up to stroke his chest, absently playing with a nipple through the thin cotton.

Mulder pointedly ignored him.  "Or b) fucking the man who killed my father."

Alex rolled his eyes.  "Oh, not that tired old story again, Mulder!"

"Deny it, then." 

"What do you want, Mulder?"

"I want to know what you did to Kim Cooke, who you did it for, and how to reverse it."

Krycek seemed to consider his words carefully, still rubbing his chest slowly and deliberately, not having to look at Mulder to know that those changeable hazel eyes were tracking his movements. But he looked anyway, swallowed down the sudden lump in his throat, and shook his head, distracting Mulder from his body to look back up to his face, and he gave him another nasty smile.

"Kim? Nope, doesn't ring a bell. You must have me mistaken for some other adorable assassin-for-hire."

Mulder's arm moved, and Alex was sure he actually heard the gun cocking, even over the loud Erasure megamix now pounding through the club's excellent sound system.  Or maybe it was just in his mind.
He didn't allow himself to react to the threat, despite Mulder's darkening expression.

"Oh, come on, Mulder. You've had plenty of opportunities to kill me, and haven't done it yet. Why should your empty threat worry me now?"

"Walter is dying." Mulder spit the words at him.

The response was dry and bitter. "Boo-fucking-hoo."

Krycek had no time to react. One moment they were sitting glaring at one another, and in the next moment, Mulder had lunged across the table, knocking drinks and empty glasses away, and the gun he had been holding under the table was now embedding itself in the soft skin of Alex's throat. Not surprisingly, no one seemed to notice.  Or care.

"Fuck it!" Mulder hissed. "I don't need you. I'll get my information somewhere else, and the world will be well-rid of you!"

Krycek did what he did best under pressure-sweated, panted, and got harsh breath in his ear in reply. Mulder was getting off on this, in a way, and Alex knew it.

"You like this," he accused.

"Shut up."

"Does your precious Walter ever do this for, you, Mulder? Ever make your blood feel like it's boiling in your veins?"

Mulder dug the gun into him a little further, but his eyes were locked with Alex's, and he felt like his heart might be trying to pound right out of his chest.

"Does he ever get you hot like this?" Alex continued, almost purring the words.

"I said shut the fuck up!"

A nasty grin. "I didn't think so."

"All right. That's it." Steel shutters slammed down over the emotion Krycek had seen in Mulder's eyes, turning them flat and almost grey in the sketchy bar lights. He pulled back the hammer on the gun, and Alex shivered, as if from sudden cold,  suddenly realizing he had gone too far.

"Okay, okay! Shit, get off me!" He pushed at Mulder's body and felt hard resistance against the plastic for a moment, had himself a flashback so quick he couldn't even be sure it happened, and then Mulder was backing off, righting the chair he'd toppled in his earlier attack and sitting back down, with the gun taking up it's previous residence under the table.

"Now tell me what I want to know."

"You spilled my drink."

"Krycek…"

"Pushy bitch," he whispered, then louder, "more new technology."

"We got that far ourselves," Mulder replied, frowning. "I want you to tell me what it's doing and how we stop it."

"The name Suzanne ring a bell?" When Mulder looked confused, he continued. "She's the one to thank for these latest nasty critters. Beyond that, well, you and the old man aren't the only ones who practice 'don't ask, don't tell'. I just get the orders and cash the cheques."

"Bastard." Memory was distracting him as he tried to make sense of Krycek's words.

"I'll tell my mom you said that," Alex was back to teasing now, feeling some of the earlier threat dissipating as Mulder processed his words. "As the song says, Mulder, it's all about the money."

Mulder suddenly looked disgusted, and his voice took on an almost plaintive tone.

"Why, Alex?  You could have-"he groped for the words, couldn't find them. "We could have…" His voice trailed off, and Krycek barked harsh laughter at him, making him flinch.

"Too little, too late, Mulder." He waved him away airily with the prosthesis, making Mulder flinch again and relishing it. "Go find your old man and crawl back into the closet with him. Leave the rest alone for us big boys. It'll be safer for you and for all concerned."

"Fuck you."

"You said that already. Why don't you just put up or shut up."

Again Alex was surprised by sudden movement, and he cursed himself for forgetting just how quick his ex-lover could move, just before the gun butt came crashing down on his head, knocking him askew, and relieving him of all conscious thought as effectively as death.

Mulder slipped into the booth beside the unconscious man slumped over the table and began systematically patting him down, trying to ignore the sensory memory his fingers were supplying him as they ran over smooth muscles.

In the front pocket of Krycek's pants, he found a locker key, and almost laughed when he realized it was for the same set of lockers that the Russian had used to hide the MJ files.

"Same old Alex," he whispered. 

He stood and almost bumped into a waiter approaching their table.

"I don't think he needs another drink," he told the startled man, then sidestepped quickly and in a moment he was fairly running for the door, already planning to find whatever Alex had been hiding, then get over to the Lone Gunmen office. He knew that between them, Scully and himself, they'd find the truth.