"The Truth III: Out There"
By Viridian5

RATING: NC-17.  M/K.  If m/m interaction bothers you, you don't 
know what you're missing.
SPOILERS: none.
SUMMARY: A romp through the wilds of the New World Order 
as the boys use all their training to adjust to life alone together 
against damn near everyone.
DISCLAIMERS: All things X-Files belong to Chris Carter, Ten-
Thirteen, and 20th Century Fox.  I'm just sharing and not making a 
cent off it, I swear!  No infringement intended.  Suing me would be 
a waste of time and a mean thing to do.  I have no money.  At all.
FEEDBACK: All feedback can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com 
NOTES: Thanks to Te, my lovely beta-reader, who provided the 
summary when I couldn't and helped me through personal pronoun 
hell.  We've all been there.  The One Beautiful Thing *can* work!

==============================================
"The Truth III: Out There"
By Viridian5
==============================================

The tapping of keys sounded louder than usual in the darkness.  
Alex stood at the doorway, gun in hand, and silently urged his 
partner to finish this up faster.  Standing guard, he couldn't watch 
Mulder plunder the computer system's secrets but could recreate 
the scene from his imagination.  Long fingers in thin black gloves 
flying over the keyboard, green eyes scanning the lines on the 
monitor, lanky body leaning forward to miss nothing.  An almost 
inaudible sigh told Alex that Mulder had gotten the black ski mask 
caught in his mouth again when he bit his lip in concentration.

Only two months ago, Alex would have broken into the computers 
himself and done it much more slowly with his one hand.  Having 
Mulder's presence and talented fingers made such a difference, and 
in so many parts of Alex's life.

The door opened with a rush that knocked Alex over.  //Stupid!  
Got distracted--//  It all happened too quickly.  The guard's first 
shot hit the computer desk, and he got ready to fire a second--

Then his head exploded in a spray of gore.  The body fell to the 
carpet with a muffled thud.

Alex saw Mulder sitting calmly, facing the door, with his gun in 
hand.  Then Mulder turned back to the desk, ejected the last disk, 
and held it up.  Time to go.  Alex grinned and knew that his partner 
would be able to tell, even with the darkness and masks.

******************************************************

//Another glamorous day in the life of a Resistance freelancer,// 
Alex thought as the #7 train chugged up onto the elevated section 
of track and into the light of late morning.  The sunlight struck 
vibrant red and burgundy highlights in Mulder's dyed black hair, 
which brushed the side of Alex's face as the older man moved a 
little in his sleep.  Alex smiled through a yawn and shifted in the 
plastic seat to try to give Mulder a more comfortable angle on his 
shoulder.

Anya had outdone herself on the hair.  While she would never do a 
half-assed job on any of her customers, seeing Mulder's soft, silky 
chestnut-colored hair had made her even more determined to do 
right by him.  No flat, fake-looking black or brittle strands for him.  
She had cut and reshaped it a bit to give him a different silhouette.

The black hair made his eyes look darker as well.  From a distance 
he was unrecognizable.

Alex had wanted it auburn, but Mulder balked, seeing it as a joke 
about his name.  But when Alex called him "Ray" in public, 
another joke on "fox," Mulder let it pass even though he obviously 
knew where the name came from.

The FBI offered a ridiculously high reward for anyone who came 
in with information leading to Special Agent Fox Mulder's 
recovery to the loving arms of the law.  Alex bristled at what else 
his sources told him, that the FBI intended to take Mulder in 
despite any protests the agent himself might make, since the 
scuttlebutt said that Mulder had succumbed to Stockholm 
Syndrome.  An agent who already had an uncanny ability to get 
into the minds of criminals could only be more susceptible to 
coming to eventual empathy with his captors.  He had to be 
brought back for his own good.  Wonder how that rumor had 
gotten started?

If the FBI got Mulder back, it would be another mind wipe for 
sure.  Reprogramming in the most effective way possible.  The 
next mind wipe might be the one that fried that strange brain 
forever.

Alex would die before they got their hands on his lover again.  
They had done more than enough damage to him already.

The hot rage turned to a gentler warmth as a sleeping Mulder 
moved against him again.  Alex had been on the run for years now, 
living hand to mouth with his life constantly threatened.  The 
loneliness and perpetual danger had burned him out.  Sometimes 
he kept on going only out of spite, knowing that his death would be 
a cause for celebration for too many people he hated.

That had been a reason not to die, but until Mulder had dropped 
into this life with him, Alex hadn't had a reason to live.

Mulder started to thrash and whimper.  Another damned 
nightmare.  "Ray!  Ray!" Alex shouted and shook his partner to 
wake him.  It didn't work.  "Mulder!" he said into Mulder's ear.

Mulder came back to consciousness with a jolt that brought him 
out of the seat.  His panicked eyes tracked over the otherwise 
empty subway car searching for enemies and tormentors.  Shaking 
a little, he settled back against Alex's side and burrowed his face 
into his partner's neck.  

Alex stroked his hair.  "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Mulder usually woke him at least once a night, and he had become 
accustomed to being clutched tightly in his sleep.  It hurt Alex to 
watch this.  With all the traumas inflicted on him and the return of 
his once wiped-out memories, Mulder needed help, but he couldn't 
get it.  Not with his life as it was, and not while they were on the 
run from the authorities.  So he suffered through the horrible 
nightmares and had moments when Alex seriously feared for his 
sanity.

"It was awful," Mulder said against Alex's neck.  It made him 
shiver.  "They'd killed you and taken me back.  They were going 
to erase my mind completely and start over, but they promised me 
a pretty nurse for a nanny..." Mulder's hand slid down Alex's chest 
and under the waistband of his jeans.  Alex bit his lip as a callused 
thumb rubbed in circles.

An especially bad nightmare, then.  The really frightening ones 
always made Mulder insatiable for sex, maybe as a connection 
with reality.  As much as it made Alex worry, he couldn't entirely 
argue with the results...

"The drill slowly moved toward my head," Mulder said as he 
tongued Alex's ear.  "Slowly, slowly...  The cold metal just 
brushed my skin as you woke me up.  So you saved me again."

"Mulder, our stop is coming soon," Alex gasped as Mulder's 
fingers stroked the tip of his cock, and he helplessly bucked into it.  
//This isn't a smart idea...//  "We don't have time."

"I can bring you off quickly.  Please, Alex, I want to do this for 
you."

Who was he to argue with his own wet dream?  He couldn't speak, 
not with Mulder's hand reducing his brain to mush, so he nodded.
Mulder slithered down Alex's front until he knelt on the filthy 
floor next to their knapsacks and long case.  Mulder made little 
greedy sounds under his breath as he unzipped his lover's jeans 
and pulled the underwear away.  He gave his partner's cock and 
balls long, loving licks like a cat before taking one ball and then 
the other into his mouth and rolling them on his tongue.  Alex 
whimpered.

Then he took Alex's cock into his mouth and started to nibble and 
suck, humming all the while, before he deep-throated and really 
went to work.  Alex couldn't think under the overload and could 
only let the sensations and shards of his consciousness rip through 
him.  He had a shot of mingled fear and excitement at the thought 
of the conductor coming into the car and seeing this.  He had the 
sight of Mulder looking up at him as the sunlight through the 
windows cast flickering sparkles on his eyes and set his dark hair 
into red and burgundy flames.  He had the vibration and rocking of 
the moving train working with the reverberation of Mulder's voice 
to finally send him shouting over the edge.  Spent and breathing 
hard, Alex let his head fall back and bump against the window as 
Mulder licked him clean then refastened his jeans.

Mulder stayed kneeling on the floor and rested his head in Alex's 
lap.  Alex stroked his hair.  "What about you, Ray?"  He hated 
using the pseudonym, though Mulder had started to like the name, 
but he wanted to bring his lover back from wherever he went at 
these times.  //We have to put our public selves back on.  
Dammit.//

"I'm fine.  I love you."

"I love you too."

The train stopped at their station, and Alex helped Mulder up off 
the floor while his partner picked up their things.  As they walked 
down the stairs, each of them with a knapsack while Mulder 
carried the long case in his right hand, the older man said, "I have a 
bad feeling about this."

"I know.  So do I.  That's why we're getting there so much earlier.  
I want my favorite sniper to have the best spot possible."

Mulder's smile looked a little bloodthirsty.  Since learning that 
everyone he'd ever known had been lying to him all his life, he'd 
lost a large number of scruples.  While he didn't exactly enjoy 
killing, he had no problems with it.  The case he carried contained 
a disassembled rifle.

"If the Resistance doesn't trust these people, why send us to meet 
them, especially when the whole set-up screams 'trap'?"

"They're sending *me* to meet them.  If they knew I had you as a 
partner, they probably wouldn't, but I didn't tell them about you--"

"Trust no one."

"Dead on.  The Resistance is sending me because they don't trust 
me, making me expendable."

Mulder smiled.  "Now why wouldn't they?"

"I don't know.  I'm as pure as the driven snow."

"But driven by what?" Mulder turned serious.  "I don't think the 
Resistance has the kind of leadership it needs.  The first bastion 
against alien colonization, and they're too trusting, cautious when 
they should be bold, and reckless when they should be holding 
back."

"I know, I know.  If they didn't have the best resources available, 
I'd be tempted to go rogue.  If the people we're meeting with 
didn't have such incredible resources, we wouldn't be giving them 
the time of day."

"Now *there's* something neither of us are familiar with."

They walked until they reached the open lot where they would be 
meeting the representatives of the other organization.  Abandoned 
factory buildings bracketed it on three sides with the fourth being 
open to the river and some rundown piers.  Neither of them liked 
all the windows on the buildings.  Any of them could provide the 
perfect place for a sniper's rifle.

They picked a building based on where the sun would be in the sky 
by the time the meeting started.  Mulder ripped aside the boards 
over the door and picked the locks, making Alex proud of all the 
skills his partner had picked up from him in such a short time.  The 
rotted floors and stairs created some tense moments, but they soon 
reached the roof.  In two hours the sun would be behind Mulder 
and more likely to bother the other side's snipers. 

They set up Mulder's nest at the edge and decided the best place 
for Alex to stand during the meeting.  "Is it time to wire you up 
yet?  You'll need help to strip," Mulder said, licking his lips.

Alex grinned.  "Well, you did me a favor on the train earlier.  Sure.  
It's my turn."

Mulder walked over to Alex and claimed his lips with a rough kiss, 
nudging them open with his tongue.  His hands gripped Alex's 
black leather jacket, not so different from his own, and pulled it 
off.  Black suited Mulder's state of mind and matched his new 
lover's favored attire, so he went with it.  Prior to linking up with 
Alex, Mulder had thought black to be a single, monolithic color 
and never realized that it had so many shades.  Old black could be 
gray-black, purple-black, green-black, blue-black, brown-black, or 
pink-black.  You had new black, smooth black, textured black, 
matte black, shiny black, and lustrous black.  His multi-track mind 
flew off into sensuous trivia as his body took control of him, 
surrendering to the heat, pressure, presence, and sheer intangible 
essence of his lover.

As they struggled with one another's clothing, they looked more 
like they were grappling than stripping.  Being on-assignment, 
with the danger and the electricity of their paranoia heightened, 
usually made them less likely to take their time or be gentle.  //I 
feel so alive now.//  Mulder pressed himself to Alex's bare chest 
and thought that he could never be close enough to his partner.  //I 
don't ever want to be alone and isolated ever again.  Never ever 
ever.//

Alex carefully tripped him down onto the blanket they'd spread 
out.  The warming spring sun diffused into Mulder's skin, and the 
cool breeze emphasized all the still-wet places on his body Alex's 
mouth had been.  His neck, then trailing down to his nipples, then 
trailing down...  He moaned as Alex's lips toyed with the head of 
his cock.

"You're so beautiful," Alex murmured into Mulder's skin.

"You are such a tease."

Alex put his fingers to Mulder's lips and sighed as Mulder took 
them in and sucked, treating them the way he did his partner's 
cock earlier.  Alex removed his now-slick fingers from that orifice 
and slid them into a different one.  In response, Mulder promptly 
spread his legs and tried to adjust his body for a better angle.  Alex 
grinned.  Letting Mulder's movements and sounds guide him, Alex 
finger-fucked him thoroughly with prolonged, leisurely strokes.  

As Mulder bucked and writhed, he felt the last shreds of the 
morning's nightmare dissipate.  He knew it would be back, but 
right now it felt distant and inconsequential.

Mulder moaned when Alex removed his fingers at a time he felt to 
be premature but purred his approval when his partner replaced 
them with his cock, stroking in with the ease of familiarity.  He 
wrapped his legs around Alex to bring him in as close as possible, 
but it still wasn't enough.  The long, slow thrusts undid Mulder 
completely, and he came with a strangled scream.  Alex soon 
followed.

This time Alex licked Mulder clean before settling back and 
holding his lover close.  "Nice?" Alex gasped with a smirk.

Mulder kissed him.  "You have to ask?"

They stayed there like that for five minutes, just enjoying the 
afterglow, before Alex got up and started to get dressed again.  
Before he put his T-shirt back on, he had Mulder tape the wire to 
him.  If something went wrong, he wanted Mulder to know 
immediately.

Alex sighed and tried to swallow another surge of lust as Mulder 
"accidently" brushed one of his nipples again.  "I'm supposed to be 
getting dressed.  If you keep doing that, I'll never get anywhere."

"Sorry."  He didn't sound it.

After Mulder had dressed as well, he opened the case and put his 
rifle together with a practiced ease that made Alex want to jump 
him again.  //Down, boy.  We have less than an hour now.//  He put 
his ear plug in and watched Mulder put his own earplug and 
headset on.  The older man always joked that he felt like he was 
working drive-thru while wearing it.

After a last, lingering kiss, Alex left Mulder to go to the agreed 
position.
******************************************************

"Hi, can I take your order?" Mulder asked in his ear.

"That was funny the first 300 times a month ago.  On the one 
thousand ninety-seventh time now, it's just annoying," Alex said 
softly, his lips moving as little as possible.

"Sorry.  Here they come.  Five men--  Wait, two more coming 
from another direction.  Don't worry, I have them all in sight."

Alex stayed still as the group walked to and finally stopped in front 
of them.  "Do you have the disks?" the head man asked.

"Do you have ours?" Alex countered.  He suddenly heard a 
"silenced" gunshot in his earplug.  He felt his stomach plunge for a 
long moment until Mulder came back on saying he was fine.

The man gestured one of his henchmen forward.  The bodyguard 
opened a black carry-all and pulled out a notebook computer.  As 
he set it up, his leader said, "The disk, Alex.  We have to know if it 
has what you claim it does."

"I want to see your disk too."

"You seem to think you're bargaining from a position of strength.  
You're wrong."

"If I just give you the disk, you have what you want, and my life is 
over.  I don't think you intend to hold up your side of the bargain.  
Where's your disk?"

"Then we just have to kill you now." All of his men pulled guns 
out, but a distant gunshot distracted them.  "What the hell?" He 
stepped away as the bodyguard closest to him went down in a 
spray of blood.

Alex took advantage of the opportunity to draw his own gun and 
take down the three Mulder didn't get.  He left the leader alive but 
shot through the knee.

"All clear," Mulder said.

"Good work.  C'mon down." Alex favored the surviving man.  
"Did you really think you could just screw me over?"

The man smirked but then winced as the pain caught up with him.  
"If you must know, your own people sold you to me.  They said 
you worked alone."

Alex pushed the rage aside for later.  "They were wrong."  He shot 
the man through the head.  "What a stupid waste."

Mulder found him standing like that when he reached the lot.  "I 
heard.  What do you want to do now?" Mulder wiped the blood off 
the laptop and closed it up with a muttered, "This could be useful."

Alex hugged him.  "Do you remember when you were 
complaining about the Resistance's leadership earlier?  I'd like to 
stage a coup and put you in charge.  Are you up for it?"


***********************THE END**********************