From: Mark Apoapsis <mapoapsis@excite.com>
Date: 16 Mar 2003 11:52:02 -0800
Subject: New: "Jimmy Bondage" Part 11/17 (M/M)
Source: atxc

Title:   Jimmy Bondage 
Author:  Mark Apoapsis
Website: http://Mark.Apoapsis.wants.to/write/slash/
E-mail:  MApoapsis@excite.com
Rating:  NC-17 for m/m erotic contact (consensual and otherwise), 
         mind games, mild torture.  Some slightly disturbing scenes, 
         but any regular X Files viewer has seen *much* worse. 
Status:   Complete 
Disclaimer:  This is a work of fan fiction. 
             All characters belong to 1013 Productions
                          and are borrowed here without authorization.
Fandom:  Lone Gunmen series + X-Files series
Pairing: Krycek/Jimmy, Byers/Jimmy
Feedback: Always welcome
Summary:  Our favorite Lone Gunmen wannabe is kidnapped by Krycek.
Category: Drama, Romance, First Time 

++++++++++++++++ part 11 ++++++++++++++++

[Saturday morning]

"Please tell me you've been to bed since I last saw you here," Langly said 
as he set a cup of coffee by Byers's elbow.

"You know I would never lie to you.  Is it morning already?"

"'Fraid so.  Are you any closer than we were last night?"

"I have some leads, but I still haven't found him."  He gratefully drank 
some of the coffee.  "I'm glad you're awake.  Could you--"

"Sorry man, but I've got treasure to steal, swords to brandish, potions to 
quaff, and all that."

"Langly--"

"I know.  I want to find him too.  Normally I'd just blow off the game.  
But you see, Lord Manhammer is trapped in the Dungeons of Despair with six 
giant tarantulas closing in on him.  If I'm not there today, the GM will... 
OK, I know how that sounds.  Don't look at me that way, Byers.  If we had 
any real chance of finding him, you know I'd put even Jimmy's life ahead of 
a stupid game.  But face it, man, we've lost the trail.  There's nothing 
left to do but decide whether to keep giving Krycek what he wants."  He 
picked up one of the beer bottles and reread the label.  "University 
research lab.  Piece of cake.  Want me to take care of this one real quick 
before I go?"

"We can still track him down, if you help."

"And miss the game for nothing?  I'm telling you, it's a lost cause."

"Jimmy dedicated his life to lost causes," Byers said softly.  "He joined 
us because he believed we do too.  You *know* he would search for *us*, no 
matter how hopeless it looked.  He's done it!   More than once."

Langly looked abashed, but made no move to sit down.  Byers buried his face 
in his arms on the desk.  He was so worn down that he was dangerously close 
to losing his composure.

"Oh, hey," Langly said softly.  Awkwardly, he put a hand on Byers's 
shoulder.  "The big dope really means a lot to you, doesn't he?"

Moved by the unusually gentle tone of concern in Langly's voice, Byers 
tried to ignore his irritation at his words.  Langly never had any respect 
for Jimmy.  If he couldn't respect his intelligence, at least he might 
respect his loyalty.  Jimmy had lent them his entire life savings to keep 
the paper alive, not even expecting it back.  And every time they repaid 
him, they wound up needing to borrow it back again, and he gave it to them 
gladly.  Once he'd even allowed his beloved car to be repossessed rather 
than let them miss an issue!  If he'd done that to keep the dream alive, he 
would certainly have given anything to keep his friends alive.  Byers said 
softly, "If anything happens to him, and there's anything I could have done 
to prevent it..."

"I know.  I've lost friends before.  I know how it feels."

Byers stared at him.  Langly had lost casual acquaintances before, like 
that guy in Las Vegas he knew from role playing games.  Byers felt that 
this trivialized his own closeness to Jimmy, but it would be in bad taste 
to try to compare one person's grief to another.  Surely Langly must have 
noticed his affection for Jimmy, even if he hadn't guessed how far it went.

"Or... maybe I don't know how it feels," Langly amended, obviously seeing 
something in his face.  "Okay, okay.  I'll stay.  On two conditions.  You 
let me make you some breakfast.  And you go to bed by noon, after you fill 
me in, and get at least a few hours of sleep."

"Thank you, Langly.  I'll never forget this.  No matter... how this turns 
out."

////////////////////
[Previous night, Friday night, after midnight]

Jimmy heard Krycek's sigh of relief from across the room.  He was probably 
doing something illegal on his computer and had just avoided getting 
caught.  Either that, or he was into computer games, like Langly.  Maybe 
his intergalactic empire had just escaped some particularly nasty fate.  
Whatever it was, he brightened up considerably, but instead of relaxing he 
started purposefully typing away.  Finally, he got up and stretched.

"Now that that's out of the way," he said, "let's check on your progress." 
Picking up his palm-top computer, he fiddled with it and then aimed the 
pointy part at Jimmy like a weapon for a few seconds.  Nothing happened, 
but Krycek seemed very pleased with what he saw on the screen.  

"Cool!  Looks like they're all set."  He stuffed the wash cloth back in 
Jimmy's mouth.  Whatever he had in mind, it looked like it was going to 
involve screaming.  Again he aimed the gadget at Jimmy.  Maybe it *was* a 
weapon, not a computer.  Nothing shot out of it, but Jimmy felt a painful 
sensation up and down his body.  Krycek watched him writhe, looking smug.  
The pain subsided, and Krycek leaned over him and, as Jimmy watched, 
lightly scratched his belly with his fingernails.  It felt like his skin 
was being clawed away!  But it wasn't; not a single mark appeared.   Krycek 
slapped him lightly in the chest, and it felt like Jimmy had done a 
belly-flop from the high dive.  He punched him on the shoulder, just a love 
tap Jimmy might give a buddy, and it felt like Jimmy had tried to tackle a 
brick wall.  A few light punches up and down his ribs, and he felt like he 
was being worked over with a baseball bat.  But his ribs were somehow still 
intact, and he had a feeling there would be no bruises.  Finally, Krycek 
pinched his nipple, and the world exploded in a blaze of pain.

When he came to, the gag had been removed.  "W-what have you done to me?" 
he whispered.

"I injected you with biomedical nanobots.  They've replicated over the past 
few hours and interfaced to your neural system.  They're programmed with 
coded RF pulses from this palm-top."

Jimmy nodded thoughtfully, not understanding a single word.  Somehow this 
was just the kind of thing he expected of Krycek -- whatever "this" was.  
He sure seemed well-equipped.  Handcuffs, drugs, that electro-jerk-off 
gadget, and now "manodots."   "Where do you get all this stuff, anyway?" he 
asked.  "Some catalog for evil-doers?"

"What kind of catalog do you think sells stuff like this?"

"Acme?"

Krycek stared at him.

"You know, the one the coyote was always--"

"I *know* what you meant.  I'm just trying to deal with the fact I walked 
right into it.  Gave you a straight line.  Just for that...."  He grinned 
viciously.  This couldn't be good.

He did something on his palm-top, pointed it at him, and nothing happened.

Until he reached out and touched him, ever so lightly.  Jimmy cringed, 
expecting a jolt of pain.  But it didn't hurt.  It tickled!  It tickled 
more than it had a right to.  Usually Jimmy wasn't all that ticklish; it 
usually took a couple of minutes to really get him laughing, and few men 
were strong enough to force him to hold still for that long.  Normally it 
took several guys ganging up on him, holding him down and working on him 
patiently, before he'd lose control and start laughing helplessly.  Not 
this time.  One light stroke along his side, and he was already laughing.  
His ribs were incredibly ticklish.  The center of his chest was ticklish.  
His forearms were ticklish.  His *elbows* were ticklish.  Everywhere Krycek 
touched him, from his throat to the soles of his feet, produced about ten 
times the effect that tickling his armpits usually would.  And he touched 
him just about everywhere he could reach.  Just the feel of his shorts 
being tugged down tickled his pelvis, but not half as much as a human hand 
did a minute later.  He thrashed around as much as his chains would let 
him, but couldn't escape Krycek's touch.  He managed to kick him once, but 
not hard enough to inflict any serious damage.  His shorts around his 
ankles impeded him, and he was weak from laughing.

Jimmy barely noticed Krycek leaving the room; he was too busy catching his 
breath.  As he lay there gasping, and stretching his legs just to make sure 
they worked again, he started thinking about what peaceful uses this cool 
invention could be put to.  "Tickle football" was the most obvious 
application.  The only trouble with regular football, he felt, is that you 
have to wear all that padding and a helmet, and even then, one unlucky 
tackle can cause a knee injury that ends your career.  Tackling is fun, 
most of the time, when no one got hurt, but there's always the risk.  With 
this gadget,  you could bring a guy to his knees by tickling instead of 
tackling him.  If only Krycek would turn his skills to useful ends, it 
could revolutionize Monday nights!

Krycek came back holding an ice bucket with ice rattling around inside.  
Jimmy noticed he had strapped on his prosthetic arm before going outside.  
Setting down the ice bucket, he did something on his palmtop, and pointed 
it at Jimmy again.  Nothing seemed to happen.  Then Krycek took out a 
single ice cube and put it in his prosthetic hand.  Jimmy realized right 
away what he was planning to do with it.  And he could keep at it for a 
long time.  His fake hand wouldn't feel the cold at all -- unlike Jimmy's 
naked body.  He forced himself not to whimper, not to beg, but his feelings 
must have shown on his face, judging by Krycek's gleeful grin as he met his 
eyes.  Krycek stuffed a washcloth in his mouth again, like he expected him 
to scream.  Jimmy felt insulted.  He'd had buddies stick ice cubes down his 
shirt lots of times.    How bad could it be?  He steeled himself and 
promised he would endure it stoically without moving or making a sound.

It was bad.  Way more painful than was physically possible.  Jimmy screamed 
into the washcloth and opened his eyes, surprised to confirm that it really 
was just an ice cube touching his chest and not a red hot ember.  His eyes 
told him that his skin wasn't being harmed, but it felt like it should be 
blistering, smoking, turning black.  He screamed himself hoarse as the ice 
slid slowly down his chest, down his belly, down his pelvis.  He pried his 
eyes open again to assure himself that his balls weren't really being 
burned away.  It was just ice.  Just ice, not flaming oil blazing a trail 
down the inside of his leg.

"It's over," Krycek whispered in his ear, taking the washcloth out of his 
mouth and started tenderly mopping Jimmy's brow with the washcloth.

"Leave me alone! Don't touch me!"

"Whatever you say," Krycek said cheerfully.

He watched Jimmy silently sobbing, watched him pull himself together again.

"In fact, I'll skip the rest of my experiments on you.  I've got another 
test subject, after all.  It's time for him to do his share."

"Byers?" Jimmy whispered.

"Who else?"

"Please, no!"

"What, are you volunteering to do it instead?"

"Yeah.  I can take it."  He thought Byers could probably take it, too, but 
he couldn't stand the idea.  "Whatever you think you have to do, do it on 
me."

"You sure?"

Jimmy was absolutely sure.  Not that he wasn't scared of what would come 
next.

"OK, then.  Just three more experiments.  And good news: They won't hurt.  
Here goes the next experiment."

He picked up the palmtop and did something.  This time there was an 
immediate effect.  Jimmy's whole body started itching -- at least, the 
front of it, from his shoulders to his knees.  He ached to scratch it, but 
his bound hands couldn't get anywhere near his body.  He thrashed around 
helplessly, then thought of trying to flip over so he could at least rub 
himself against the sheets.  But he was too exhausted to do even that.

"How does that feel?  It's supposed to itch."

"It itches like anything!"

"I could scratch it for you, but you asked me not to touch you."

"You're a sadist, you know that?"

He suffered in silence for a few minutes, hoping the itch would go away.  
If anything, it seemed to be getting worse.  "All right!" he finally 
yelled.  "You can scratch me!"  When Krycek didn't move, he added, "Please. 
 Please scratch me."

Krycek scratched his belly.  It felt great.  The itching there was 
immediately relieved, and showed no signs of coming back again.  The rest 
of his body felt jealous; it still itched fiercely.  "My chest?" he asked 
hopefully.

"Let me hear you beg."

"Oh, man!"  He saw that Krycek was not going to budge.  "All right.  
Please!  Please, please scratch my chest.  I'm begging you!  Ah!  Oh man, 
that feels good.  Higher, please!"

Krycek methodically worked his way around his body, but he made Jimmy 
continue asking for it, forcing him to undergo the humiliation of begging 
his captor to scratch his crotch, rub his balls, squeeze his cock.  
Finally, after he directed him to a few spots he'd missed, he was 
completely free of the itching.

"If you think you're under my control now," Krycek gloated, "just wait 
until you see *this*."  He fiddled with the palmtop and pointed it at 
Jimmy.

Immediately, Jimmy's arms and legs cramped.  Four charlie horses, all at 
once.  He involuntarily tried to curl into a fetal position, which made it 
worse.  The pain was excruciating.

Then suddenly he was able to stretch out again.  The cramping had magically 
disappeared.  His muscles felt a little sore as he stretched them, that was 
all.

"No more pain, you said.  I should have known not to believe you," he 
groaned.

"Sorry.  It wasn't supposed to work that way.  That's why it was an 
experiment."

"What was it supposed to do?"

"It was supposed to take over motor control."

"You stole my car, too?!"

"No, motor control of your muscles.  It was supposed to turn you into my 
puppet."

"W-what would you have done with me then?"

"Oh, I'd have thought of something."  He grinned down at Jimmy.  "Now, just 
one more experiment.  I hope this one works like it's supposed to.  I saved 
the best for last."

Jimmy didn't like to think about what might be "the best" in Krycek's mind. 
 He still felt normal after Krycek finished with the palmtop and set it 
aside.  He was exhausted, but lying there with the mild air currents from 
the air conditioner playing over his chest felt pleasant.  Krycek 
approached and reached out to touch him again with his bare hand.  Jimmy 
tensed, not knowing what to expect.

It was the last thing he expected.  As Krycek lightly touched his chest, 
ripples of pleasure coursed through his body.  He gasped and arched his 
back.  The guy wasn't even touching a nipple, just the center of his chest, 
and he was still overwhelmed by the sensation.  The hand moved to his 
belly, with the same result.  He ran his fingers around the rim of Jimmy's 
navel, and unseen fireworks seemed to spiral out, some going straight to 
his cock, some washing over his chest.  This fiend had no right to make him 
feel this good, after what he'd done to him and to Byers!  Jimmy tried to 
wriggle out of the way, but he still hadn't recovered from what had gone 
before, and his efforts were feeble.  Besides, he wasn't going anywhere, 
not while he was chained to the bed.

Krycek continued to merciless pleasuring, his hand roaming all over Jimmy's 
body.  He'd been naked and helpless so long now, he'd almost started 
getting used to it.  But this made him feel more exposed than even a naked 
man could naturally be, like an extra layer of clothing he hadn't even 
known he was wearing had just been stripped away.

It seemed to go on forever.  When Krycek finally got bored and stopped, 
Jimmy was surprised to find that he was only half erect.  It was hard to 
believe that he'd endured that much pleasure without coming.

"I think after that you owe me one more test."

"You promised--"

"I lied."  Big surprise there.  He pointed the gadget at Jimmy.  He felt 
perfectly normal now, until Krycek reached out to stroke him and he tried 
to cringe.  Nothing happened.  He couldn't move his chest muscles.  He 
couldn't rattle his chains.  His legs wouldn't move either.  Everything 
from the neck down was paralyzed.  He felt Krycek lightly stroke his chest, 
but it didn't feel intimate at all, compared to how it had a minute ago.

"Can you move?"

"No, I can't!  What--" he began, then had to stop for a second while he 
took another breath.  "What did you do to me?" His lungs weren't working 
right; his breathing continued by itself and he had to time his speaking to 
use the air as it came out.

"It's temporary.  I can turn it off with the press of a button, just like 
the other modes."  Krycek pulled Jimmy's shorts, which had been bunched 
around his ankles, entirely off his body, and then spread his legs out 
wide.  Jimmy felt the hand on his feet, but his legs still didn't respond 
to his will.  "Now, what shall I do with you?"

"If you're asking me, I'd say you should leave me alone."

"Unfortunately for you, I was talking to myself.  Are you sure you can't 
move?"

"Positive."

Krycek took Jimmy's balls in his hand, not hard enough to hurt, and rolled 
them around.  It was maddening for his balls to be resting in another man's 
hand without being able to make a single move to defend them.  Fortunately, 
his ball sac had a mind of its own and shrivelled as tightly against his 
legs as it could.  "Interesting, Krycek muttered.  "But you can't move your 
legs at all?"

"If I could, don't you think I would have?"

"Can you hold your breath?"

He tried.  "No," he gasped.

"So you're completely helpless.  This ought to be entertaining.  Maybe I'll 
drag Byers in here so you can watch what I'm going to do to him."

Jimmy's gut clenched.  "Please..." he whispered.

Krycek reached into his luggage and produce a large knife.  He held the 
edge against Jimmy's chest.  "Or maybe I'll bring him in here and make him 
watch while I flay you alive."  The sharp knife shaved off a few chest 
hairs.  Jimmy swallowed hard.  He could feel the cold edge scraping against 
his skin.

Krycek set down the knife and got up.  Jimmy was terrified that he was 
going to carry out his threat to bring Byers in here to watch him being 
skinned alive.  Compassion was Byers's one weakness.  Jimmy didn't think 
Byers would ever be whole again if he had to watch something like that.  
"Please, don't!" he begged.

But Krycek didn't go to the door.  He came back with a key.  Putting the 
knife between his teeth, he released one of Jimmy's arms.  It feel heavily 
to his side.  Pocketing the key, Krycek took the knife in his hand again 
and placed the edge against Jimmy's chest.  "Don't what?" he asked, 
breathing heavily.

"If you're gonna do something awful to me, don't make Byers watch."

"You got it."

Jimmy watched in horror as Krycek drew the blade very lightly across his 
skin and made a tiny cut, hardly worse than a bad paper cut.  A few drops 
of blood welled up.  Krycek put the knife back between his teeth and 
unlocked the other arm.  The only thing restricting Jimmy's movement now 
was those manodot things, but they did the job better than the chains had.  
He could only watch as Krycek put the knife against his chest again, seemed 
to change his mind, moved it down in the general direction of his crotch... 
Jimmy closed his eyes and waited for the worst.

He heard the knife being set down on the night table and opened his eyes.  
Krycek, looking relieved, was unlocking the handcuffs from his wrists.

"It works!"  he said.  "I can paralyze you anytime I want."

"You're not gonna cut me up?"

"No.  That was just a test.  I had to be absolutely sure you weren't faking 
it.  But do you know what this means for you now?"

"What?"

"It means I can let you use the bathroom, even take a shower.  And I can 
get you a real meal."

////////////////////

[Saturday noon]

Tired as he was, Byers lay awake for a long time.  He couldn't get his mind 
off of Jimmy.  Not only  the predicament he was in now, but the way he felt 
for him, all the things he'd never told him that he might now never get a 
chance to say.  He wasn't even sure he had it sorted out for himself. The 
way he felt about Jimmy was so different from the way he felt about the 
only other person he'd ever fallen seriously for, that it had taken him 
awhile to recognize the feeling.  Could it really be called love? Love was 
something he'd only felt at a distance, for mysterious strangers, not for 
close and intimate friends.

Susanne had been brilliant, mysterious, and elusive, and Byers had felt a 
strong desire to protect her, but it was hard to win her trust.  Sometimes 
he suspected she had used him. He respected her integrity in trying to blow 
the whistle on the black ops project for which she'd been developing 
chemical weapons.  But the fact was, she had accepted the black ops money 
in the first place to pursue her research. It had been easy to forget that 
little detail when he was with her, but to be honest, that would have 
bothered him sooner or later if he'd been able to have a long-term 
relationship with her.

Jimmy could hardly be called brilliant, but he was more open with his 
feelings than any man Byers had ever known.  Byers lived and worked with 
him and could spend time with him whenever he liked.  Jimmy trusted 
everyone, obviously too much for his own good.  And Byers had used *him* in 
his plan to rescue Langly, and he'd never complained.  It was obvious that 
Jimmy -- who had once turned down a job offered as a bribe -- would rather 
starve than work in a chemical weapons lab.  Even supposing, 
hypothetically, they they offered him a job he was qualified for.  Washing 
test tubes, perhaps. And while Jimmy seemed like he really needed a good 
friend to protect him from his own foolishness -- something Byers had just 
failed miserably at -- he could see that Jimmy was fiercely protective of 
him in return. Definitely a two-way relationship.

And whereas he could never have Susanne, he had *had* Jimmy up until now:  
his constant solid presence, his respect, his utter devotion, and even his 
affection.  Just not the kind of affection he truly wanted from him. He'd 
never dared to hint at that to him.

Byers turned onto his side, trying to get to sleep.  He felt a little 
ashamed to find himself doing this trade study on the loves of his life, 
even in the privacy of his own mind.  In any case, he couldn't count on 
seeing either of them again.  To keep them both safe, he had to try as hard 
as he could to find Jimmy.  And try equally hard *not* to find Susanne. He 
shouldn't be sleeping, not with Jimmy counting on him. But he was so tired 
that he couldn't think straight anymore.  As it were.

Holding on to pleasant memories of the good times he *had* had with Jimmy, 
he was finally able to drift off into a troubled sleep.

////////////

[Saturday afternoon]

Krycek had gotten very quiet again, and once again was fingering Jimmy's 
little toe thoughtfully.  He stood there for a long time, looking more and 
more unhappy, his face reflecting some inner conflict.  Jimmy was too cowed 
to ask any questions, not with Krycek was in complete control of his body.  
Suddenly Krycek turned and walked quickly to the bathroom, and after a few 
seconds Jimmy heard the sound of retching.

A long time passed.  When Krycek finally emerged from the bathroom, he 
walked slowly to his laptop computer and checked something.  Whatever he 
saw seemed to relief him.  He sat at the desk for a long time with his eyes 
closed, then took a deep breath and got up to put on his arm and his 
jacket.  "I've gotta get out of here for awhile," he said.  "I'll bring you 
back something to eat."

////////////

[Saturday afternoon, 30 minutes earlier]

Byers felt worse after his short nap than before it.  He took a quick 
shower, dressed in a fresh suit, and had some coffee, but he still wasn't 
at his best.  Langly filled him in.  He'd hit a dead end.  He'd managed to 
sniff out the packets Krycek was using to upload web pages to his server.  
It was running an FTP server after all, but it was firewalled against 
packets from most of the world.  Unfortunately, the packets were coming 
from an anonymizer in California, so Krycek's physical location was 
untraceable.

The next deadline was less than half an hour away.  He had no choice.  
Begging Langly to keep trying every trick he could think of, he sorted 
through the sixpack and chose one that seemed to involve some simple 
corporate espionage.  It was E-Com-Con; they probably deserved it for 
trying to invade consumers' privacy.  It wouldn't be the first time he'd 
tried to steal secrets from them.  He knew he was rationalizing.  That 
theft had been to expose a corporate conspiracy.  Anyway, that seemed like 
a lifetime ago.  It was before they'd met Jimmy.  It was hard to believe 
there was a time before Jimmy was in their lives.

Normally he could have handled it, or at least had the sense to know when 
he was out of his depth.  Langly was right there if he needed him.  But in 
his exhaustion, he screwed up.  He logged in through a back door without 
too much trouble, although it took longer than he expected.  But as he was 
downloading the required information, something nagged at him.  He checked, 
and realized he'd been detected by a security daemon almost five minutes 
before.  Plenty of time for it to trace his connection.  Too late, he 
called Langly over in a panic.  They covered their tracks as best they 
could and logged out, but they both knew it would do them no good now.

Half expecting either the FBI or some corporate hitman to break down their 
door within the next five minutes, they were startled when the phone rang 
instead.  He and Langly stared at it wide-eyed, as though it were a snake.  
Finally Langly answered it.  His apprehension turned to surprise a moment 
after he said "hello."

"How did you--  It wasn't *my* incompetent breakin.  It was Byers.  But 
give the poor guy a break.  He's--  We weren't *doing* it for money.  ... 
No, *you* listen!  Someone kidnapped Jimmy.  He made us do this.  ... Of 
course we tried to locate him! ... Yes, as a matter of fact, that did occur 
to us.  Byers got desperate, because we're up against a deadline.  Krycek 
threatened to-- Yes, that's exactly why we were sniffing around that 
anonymizer site.  Krycek's hiding behind it.  That one was me.  Wait a 
minute, how did you know-- hello?"

Langly hung up the phone, the connection obviously having been broken in 
disgust from the other end.  "Apparently, the division of E-Com-Con you 
broke into hired Yves to do their security.  It was her that the daemon 
notified.  She had some choice comments about how obvious a trap you fell 
into."

"I should have let you do it, Langly.  But it seemed easy compared to 
trying to track Krycek down."

"Did you at least get the information?  Because that countdown timer is 
reading twenty seconds."

Fingers trembling, Byers pasted the stolen information into the web form.  
The numbers hit zero and turned red, counting up, just a few seconds before 
he hit the Submit button.  A dramatic touch, but at least the time Krycek 
spent setting up that detail was time he wasn't spending torturing Jimmy, 
or so Byers hoped.  He fretted as he waited for the server to respond, 
willing the server to stop spending precious bandwidth and cycles sending 
the red digit graphics that were still counting up and spend it on 
receiving the data and alerting Krycek.  He didn't dare try to mess with it 
at this point.  Finally, he got an acknowledgement page ("Your complete 
submission has been noted.")  Less than a minute late.  Surely Krycek had 
waited.  All he could do now was hope. 



++++++ to be continued in next post ++++++

++++++++++++++++ part 12 ++++++++++++++++

////////////////

[Next morning, Sunday, 8am]

Krycek had woken up in a good mood this morning, or whatever time it had 
been when they'd woken up.  That wasn't entirely good news for Jimmy.  It 
meant that instead of the silently brooding Krycek looming at the foot of 
the bed, occasionally fingering his toe, he had to deal with a playful 
Krycek determined to torment him just for the fun of it.  He used his magic 
palm-top to do something that completely paralyzed him, and set about 
tickling him.  Every part of his body was unnaturally ticklish once again, 
but he couldn't resist, couldn't even move a single muscle, except the 
involuntary muscles forcing laughter out of his burning lungs.  It seemed 
to go on for hours.

////////////////

[Sunday 10:50am]

"I hope I never need to break into *this* site again," Langly said, 
stretching, and popping open the beer bottle for the assignment he'd just 
completed.  "They're on high alert after that other military site figured 
out we stole their satellite data. It took forever, tiptoeing around."

"Well, the important thing is that you did it," Byers said.  He wished they 
hadn't been forcef to do this.  He was worried about the use the 
information on secret biochemical weapon research would be put to.  Would 
it be used by other countries to develop antidotes -- or to make their own 
versions of the weapons?  At least they could publish a story about it, now 
that they could prove the U.S. government was engaging in research they'd 
denied.  Byers knew he was rationalizing.

"Yep," Langly said lazily, sipping his beer.  "Made it with ten minutes to 
spare."

"Are you sure Krycek's beer is safe to drink?"

"Oh, lighten up," Langly said, already taking his last swig.  He tossed the 
empty bottle toward the glass recycling bin, but missed.  Fortunately it 
didn't break, but just rolled away.

"Have you posted it to Krycek's web site yet?"  The doorbell had buzzed a 
moment ago and repeated itself now, but Byers was reluctant to leave 
Langly's side until he saw the job completed.  It was probably Frohike.

"Plenty of time," Langly said, copying the data and pasting it into the 
form at entirely too leisurely a pace to suit Byers.

"If you guys can't open the door, at least give me a hand with these," 
Frohike grumbled, awkwardly entering with his hands full.  He'd been 
questioning people around the "neighborhood" yet again, looking for someone 
who had seen Krycek leave with Jimmy.  On the way in, he'd picked up a 
large stack of the newspapers they subscribed to.  Byers realized they'd 
gotten a few days behind in bringing them in, and it didn't take long for 
them to grow into a safety hazard outside.

Before Byers could get up to help -- he'd gotten so used to Jimmy leaping 
up to help with everyone's burdens that he'd gotten out of the habit 
himself -- Frohike's feet flew out from under him and he fell backward, 
papers flying everywhere.  The beer bottle he'd slipped on shot across the 
floor.  It would almost have been funny, but on his way down he knocked a 
piece of equipment off the table and it crashed to the floor beside him.

"Was that what I think it was?" Byers asked apprehensively.  A glance at 
the screen showed that the browser was still trying to connect to Krycek's 
server.

"The network router," Frohike said sheepishly.  "I hope you don't mind 
being off--"

"Get the laptop from the van!  Quick!" Byers urged.  It was the only thing 
that could be connected to the wireless network in the eight minutes and 
ten seconds the countdown showed they had left.  Already Byers was judging 
whether it would be faster to type in the data by hand or set up an 
infrared link to copy it.  He starting looking around for the infrared 
device.

Frohike seemed to understand that seconds counted.  He picked himself up 
with amazing speed, if not grace, and sprinted to the door.  On the way, 
his foot caught on a power cable that the falling router had dragged into 
the pathway and that the newspapers had covered, and he went down again.  
Out of the corner of his eye, Byers saw the screen go dark.  Its power 
hadn't been cut off -- that would have been fine -- but the power to the 
computer supplying its video signal had.

"No!" Langly cried, sounding almost as upset as the time Frohike had wiped 
out his game by pulling the wrong plug.

"You saved the information to disk, didn't you?" Byers asked, already 
suspecting the answer.

"I'm sorry, man," Langly said miserably.

////////////

[Sunday 12:05pm]

After finishing the tickle torture, Krycek had checked his watch and gone 
straight to his computer.  Ever since then he'd gotten increasingly moody, 
and spent a lot of time pacing the room and rechecking his laptop about 
every five minutes.  Finally, taking a deep breath, he  went searching for 
something in his luggage, looking as if he was determined on doing some 
unpleasant task that had to be done.  Then he approached Jimmy, looking 
very grim.  He was holding the small knife that he had nicked him with 
yesterday.  The cut had already just about healed.  By the look on his 
face, he wasn't going to just nick him this time.

"What are you gonna do?" Jimmy asked hoarsely.

"Your friends have missed a deadline.  By over an hour."

"So you're gonna kill me?  Or just carve me up a little?"  Anger overcame 
fear, but he was too weak to put as much volume into the sarcastic words as 
he normally would.

"I'm just going to cut off one toe."

Jimmy felt a chill as the horror of that sank in.  He'd be mutilated 
forever.  Even worse, the only reason he could think of for Krycek to cut 
off a toe was to send it to Lone Gunman HQ.  What would that do to Langly 
and Frohike, getting something like that in the mail?

"It's only a toe," Krycek said, almost pleadingly.  "Just a little one.  
You'll be able to walk just fine.  It's no worse than what frostbite could 
do to you.  Plenty of mountain climbers lose their toes."

"Yeah, but those guys choose to take the risk.  What gives you the right?"

Krycek shut his eyes and took a deep breath.  He crouched down at the foot 
of the bed and held his foot, using his prosthetic hand and two free 
fingers of the hand that was holding the knife.  Jimmy kicked his foot 
free, and flailed it around so Krycek couldn't catch it.  Krycek sighed and 
went to the palm-top computer and did something.  Jimmy's legs went limp.

Once again Krycek knelt down at the foot of the bed and grabbed his foot.  
He ran his pinky over Jimmy's toes.  "Can you feel this?"

"Yeah.  It feels normal.  Tickles a little."

"I'm sorry.  I guess I don't have a setting that blocks feeling.  I wish I 
could turn the pain messages into something else, maybe even pleasure, but 
I'm not set up for that."

In a way, that would have been even worse, Jimmy felt.  To have pieces 
carved off of him and actually enjoy it!  He shivered.  Then he tensed as 
he felt the cold steel resting against the base of his toe.  "Don't do this 
to me, Alex!" he pleaded.

"I'm sorry.  I'll make it quick, and it won't hurt all that much."

Jimmy screwed his eyes shut.  Clenched his teeth.  This was it.

There was a knock at the door.

"Help!"  Jimmy cried out immediately.  It didn't come out as loud as he'd 
intended.  He took a deep breath to try again, but Krycek quickly stuffed a 
washcloth back in his mouth.  He'd had it ready to staunch the flow of 
blood, Jimmy realized sickly.  But now -- maybe he was being rescued!  Talk 
about the nick of time!  Who could it be knocking at the door, but his 
friends, or maybe the police?

"Housekeeping," a woman's voice called from behind the door, revealing a 
flaw in his logic.

"Come back later!" Krycek shouted, much more loudly and clearly than Jimmy 
had managed.  There was a pause.  Krycek put his hands on Jimmy's foot 
again.

Then the knock repeated.  "Housekeeping," the voice said again.  The knob 
turned, and there was a sound of the door being rattled, but Krycek had 
double-locked it.

"Go away!" Krycek shouted.

She knocked and called a third time.  Then the deadbolt clicked and the 
door opened a crack.  Jimmy's heart pounded even harder.  Maybe he'd be 
rescued after all!  She'd surely call the police.

Krycek just muttered "Damn it, they never figure out that those can only be 
locked from inside."

The door hit the chain.  "Oh, I'm so sorry!"  The voice had a strong 
Hispanic accept and sounded vaguely familiar somehow.  That was odd, 
because the only Latinos Jimmy knew well were all guys, and that was back 
on Long Island.

The door was open an inch, but Jimmy couldn't see out, and with a sinking 
feeling he realized that that meant the maid couldn't see him either.  And 
if she did get a glimpse of a half naked man stretched out on a bed, there 
was no reason for her to guess what was going on unless she saw that he was 
bound and gagged.  Maybe not even then; maids probably saw all kinds of 
stuff.  Jimmy desperately tried to cry out, but she didn't seem to hear the 
muffled sound.  The door closed, and Krycek breathed a sigh of relief.

"Do you remember what I told you?" Krycek asked him quietly.

Jimmy hoped he was talking about beating him the next time he yelled.  The 
prospect of a few more lashes across his back didn't seem so bad, if it 
would buy him a reprieve.  At least that would heal.

"Roll over," Krycek ordered.  Jimmy struggled to comply, but his legs 
weren't working.  Krycek saw his problem and temporarily gave him back his 
control over his own body.  He put the knife aside and got the belt.  Then 
he pulled Jimmy's shorts down.

//////////////////

[Sunday 1pm]

Frohike had been trying for an hour to repair the router and estimated it 
would take him another hour or two hour to finish.  In all fairness, Byers 
knew, that was fast service and would have made him a highly prized 
employee at any one of a hundred well-paying companies, if he'd been in 
that business.  It didn't matter, though, because meanwhile Langly had 
almost finished stealing the data again, using the wireless connection.  
Armed with what he had learned the first time, it had gone much faster, but 
not nearly fast enough.

Byers felt useless for the whole hour, but after what happened with 
E-Com-Con he felt he would only make things worse if he tried to help.  His 
concentration was completely shot now.  All he could think about was what 
the lost hour was costing Jimmy.  On the beach, Krycek had hinted darkly 
about exactly what he would do to him if they missed a deadline.  Byers 
remembered how frustrated Jimmy had been in the long weeks recuperating 
from a knee injury he'd gotten once in the line of duty.  He'd taken it 
cheerfully enough, but his joy when the cast had come off and he'd finally 
recovered the full use of his leg had been obvious, at least to Byers.  
Would Krycek really be cruel enough to rob him of his mobility by cutting 
off a foot?  Or, possibly even worse, would he take something every man 
instinctively feared to lose?  Or would he do something to his face, to 
ruin his good looks?  Byers felt sick.  Or would Krycek saw off an arm, to 
make up for the one that was taken from him -- taken, according to Mulder's 
theory, by well-meaning kids trying to save him from an even worse fate?  
Surely that would make a normal man even less willing to put someone else 
through the same thing, but Krycek was a cold-blooded killer.

"A foot would be even worse," he thought.  He saw Langly turn around and 
realized he'd spoken aloud.

"Relax, Byers.  I'll have it uploaded it two more minutes.  Maybe he'll 
give us some slack.  We only missed one deadline.  And worst case, I'm sure 
he'll start with something Jimmy doesn't use much."

"Better hope not," Frohike said, without looking up from his repairs.  
"Removing his brain would kill him immediately."

"Hey, Byers.  Come take a look at this, man."  The relief was palpable in 
Langly's voice.

Byers looked over Langly's shoulder.  He had the information pasted in and 
had the mouse over the Submit button  To his relief, Byers saw the 
countdown timer had been reset and showed five minutes left, and new bold 
lettering had been added:  "We still have a complete inventory of parts 
available!  Act now and take advantage of our limited time offer, because 
they're going fast!"  There were pictures below the form, showing Jimmy's 
muscular body spead-eagle and helpless on the bed, every single part still 
very much in evidence.

After Langly had clicked the Submit button and the response to the post had 
come back, he took a well-earned break while Byers carefully backed up to 
the form and saved the pictures to study later.  To search for clues in the 
background, of course.



++++++ to be continued in next post ++++++

++++++++++++++++ part 13 ++++++++++++++++

//////////////////////

[20 minutes earlier, Sunday 12:30 pm]

After Krycek had finished whipping him, he left him stretched out on the 
bed on his belly, still unable to move a muscle, while he went back to the 
laptop and checked the Internet again.  Jimmy was able to watch him, since 
his face was turned that way.  He could tell Krycek didn't like what he saw 
on the laptop.  After swearing under his breath, he paused to think -- 
causing Jimmy to steel himself for the worst -- and then began typing.  
When he approached Jimmy again, it was with a camera instead of a knife.  
He arranged him face up, with his arms and legs spread, and took another 
series of humiliating pictures to show to who knows who.  Maybe just to the 
other guys, like he'd claimed, but that would be bad enough.

//////////////////////

[Sunday 2pm]

While Frohike was testing the repaired router, Byers went looking for 
Langly.  He hadn't expected his break to last an hour.  He wasn't in the 
kitchen or the bathroom.  He found him in the living room area.  Not 
listening to music or watching TV, just silently sitting and staring at 
something in his lap.

"What have you got there?" Byers asked him.

"One of Jimmy's comic books he left on the couch," Langly said.  "Can you 
believe the guy still subscribes to comic books at his age?"  As Byers took 
it to flip through it, Langly said quickly, "Don't lose his place."  Byers 
smiled sadly at his friend's optimism.

Laying it down with a sigh, Byers said, "Great.  So one of the last things 
he read before he was kidnapped was a comic book with Jimmy Olsen being 
rescued yet again by Superman."

"You think he might identify with Jimmy Olsen?"

"Well, given that he's in the same profession and has the same first name, 
I don't think that would be too much of a stretch."

"I guess he does kinda think of us as his heroes.  Too bad he didn't pick a 
hero with super hearing and X-ray vision, and who can fly."

"Still, we should do our best.  Let's check the satellites again."  As 
Langly sat down at a keyboard and started typing purposefully, Byers added, 
"They may not see in the X-ray band, but they're the best we've got."  He 
sighed.  "It's bad enough that we haven't been able to find him, but 
knowing how much he must be counting on us makes it even worse.  I think 
Jimmy has an exaggerated faith in our abilities."

"I know," Langly said, not missing a beat in his typing.  "The guy totally 
idolizes us."

"But not in quite the way I would like."

Langly's rapid-fire keystrokes suddenly fell silent.  Byers looked up and 
realized Langly was staring at him, rather than at anything on his screen.  
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," Byers said.

"Wait a minute.  Does this have anything to do with what you told us a few 
years ago, that you think you might be bi?  I almost forgot about that."

"Forgot?  I wouldn't have thought that was something you could forget so 
easily.  Do you know how hard it was for me to work up the courage to tell 
you guys?"

"Well, sorry, it's not like you talk about sexual feelings often enough to 
remind me.  And it really isn't a big deal."

"It was to Frohike."

"Oh, that bit about how 'gay sex' when he was in college meant the girl was 
wearing a party hat?  That's just Frohike being Frohike.  He got over it, 
and you're still friends."

"He still seems a little uncomfortable with it to this day, whenever I even 
hint at it.  I think that's why I avoid mentioning it."

"Well, it doesn't make any difference to me at all.  Who you have your 
repressed sexual feelings about is none of my business."

"That's a very tolerant attitude for you to take, given that you risked 
your life to save the last person I had major repressed sexual feelings 
about."

"Susanne?  Sure, I'll be glad to shoot your lovers anytime.  Who's next?  
Jimmy?"  When Byers didn't deign to answer, he teased, "So you really do 
have the hots for him!  Are you only turned on by people who've been 
kidnapped, or have you always felt this way about him?"

Byers answered seriously.  "Maybe it's because I've never in my life had 
anyone look at me the way he does.  I didn't know how to deal with it at 
first, especially coming from just the type of guy that everybody used to 
idolize in high school as much as they looked down on good students like 
me.  And he's got to be the nicest guy I've ever met."

"Yeah, you two are the softest-hearted guys I know.  I'm just a little 
surprised.  I always figured you'd go for someone with brains."

"Well, you can't have everything."

"Tell me about it.  I don't have anything.  And it's not like I'm holding 
out for much in the brain department, either, just a couple of decent 
sized--"

"Langly, sometimes I wonder if you developed a fixation with mammary glands 
by being forced to milk too many cows."

"And I suppose you developed an early fixation on football players?"

That hit a little too close to the mark.  He said stiffly, "I'd rather not 
discuss it."  He'd never told anyone about that crush on the quarterback in 
high school, the one who'd almost treated him like a human being until his 
teammates started ribbing him about spending too much time with the faggy 
nerd.

"Oh.  So did you ever tell him?"

"Jimmy?  Of course not."

"I'll bet you haven't even told him you're bi."

"I was working up to it.  I'm afraid of how he'd react.  I think it might 
shatter his illusions about me."

"You really think it'll bother him just to know you swing both ways?"

"I don't know.  Homophobia is certainly something I associate with football 
players."

"He wasn't bothered at all by Carol."

"That's completely different!  A man who loves men is not the same as a 
person born as a man who should have been a woman."

"I know that.  But were any of those homophobic football players cool about 
your roommate wanting to change sex?"

"You have a point.  There's some correlation there.  I don't know too many 
people who are uncomfortable with gay and bi men but comfortable with 
transgendered people."

"You know what?  *I* was bothered by Carol, a lot.  But it's not that I 
have anything against transgendered people.  I was just freaked by the 
thought that this woman I had the hots for was genetically male and 
surgically altered.  Especially since I know they can't give them a real--"

"We've already talked about that, remember?"

"But here's the thing.  Jimmy didn't care at all.  I think that's because 
he wasn't the least bit attracted to her.  Unlike me and Frohike."

"I assumed he was turned off because he saw right away that she used to be 
a man."

"What *I* think is that Frohike and I saw a beautiful woman in need of our 
help, because that's what we wanted to see.  Jimmy doesn't seem to think 
the same way.  You think about that."


++++++ to be continued in next post ++++++

++++++++++++++++ part 14 ++++++++++++++++

[Sunday 2pm]

"Do you think Byers would look good without a beard?" Krycek asked 
suddenly.  He had been in the bathroom, shaving, and still had shaving 
cream on his face.

"Huh?"

"I was thinking of shaving him."

"Why would you want to do that?"  Jimmy asked numbly.  Byers could grow it 
back, he reminded himself.  Of all the things Krycek could cut off while he 
had Byers in his power, this was really a mild threat, not worth getting 
worked up over.  Still, it just seemed like such a violation, for Krycek to 
presume to alter Byers's appearance.  Just another form of control, another 
way for Krycek to mess with them both.

"It scratches when I make him give me a blow job," Krycek said casually, 
wiping his face with a washcloth.

Silently, Jimmy fumed.  He'd been afraid something like that was going on, 
on top of everything else he'd been doing to Byers.  Krycek wasn't even 
worthy of having Byers as willing partner, or even a friend, let alone as 
his sex slave.  If there was any justice in the world, he would rot in 
prison for this, for a very long time.  That might not prevent him from 
having sex slaves, but better he be doing it to other criminals than to a 
good man like Byers.

"You've probably noticed that yourself," Krycek taunted.  But Jimmy 
recognized that for what it was:  meaningless locker-room talk.  He knew 
Krycek was sure that Jimmy would be insulted at the implication that he'd 
been having sex with Byers.  Little did he know that Jimmy considered it 
exaggerated flattery -- or would if he'd thought Krycek believed it.

"Look, Krycek," he finally said, "if it's a blow job you want, let me do it 
instead."

Krycek seemed surprised and amused.  "You, the big football jock, are 
offering me a blow job?"

"If that's what it takes to keep you from forcing Byers to do it.  In fact, 
let him go, and I'll do whatever you want."

"I suppose you've had lots of practice?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact."  That was an exaggeration.  He'd actually 
never done it with a lover, but there'd been that one time he did it on a 
bet.  Somehow an argument got started in the locker room over whether it 
was true what someone had heard: that men give better blow jobs than women 
because they knew what felt good.  One of the guys boasted that his 
girlfriend gave the best blow jobs in the world (and no, his teammates were 
not welcome to a sample), and how no guy's mouth could ever feel as good as 
a woman's mouth.  Somehow, over beers after the game, the guy been goaded 
into to making a bet.  The bet was that if a few guys and his girlfriend 
each sucked him off, he would be able to tell which was which.  Most of the 
team placed money on the bet, one way or the other, and three of the guys 
plus Jimmy himself agreed to put their mouths where their money was.

He'd made two hundred dollars off that bet, and never had he felt so 
gleeful at taking money from blind men's disability checks.  Especially 
with other blind guys getting their share too. He'd invested his winnings 
in the stock market.  He'd picked a some company that sounded 
lesbian-owned; it had seemed appropriate.  Some bookstore starting with an 
"A," as he recalled.  Had to sell it to pay for the printing of *The Lone 
Gunman,* though.

That night behind the bar had been a lot of fun, both fooling the macho guy 
and all the warm-ups they did with each other beforehand.  With a creep 
like Krycek, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun, but he'd gladly do to spare 
Byers.  Byers seemed like the type who had only done it for men he really 
loved, if he'd ever done it at all.  Jimmy had certainly felt a lot of 
affection for all the guys he'd sucked off, even the macho jerk, but it 
wasn't love, exactly.  Maybe could he get through this by pretending Krycek 
was the nice guy he'd seemed to be at first, trying to start a team for 
disadvantaged youth.

But he was almost relieved when Krycek laughed disbelievingly and went into 
the adjoining room, shaking his head.  At least he didn't take the razor 
with him.

///////////////

[Sunday 2pm]

Byers drank yet another cup of coffee, fighting to stay awake.  He needed 
to keep trying to find Jimmy.  The sleep he'd skipped over the past few 
days was catching up to him.

Frohike's coffee was weak and bitter compared to Jimmy's strong, rich, and 
full-bodied brews.  Yet another reason they desperately needed to find him, 
Byers thought, but the grim humor failed to cheer him up.

What if they never saw him again?  Byers wondered if Frohike and Langly 
expected the three of them to just go on with their lives, just like old 
times, as if Jimmy had never existed.  The three of them had done that for 
months in the case of Mulder.  They'd each thought of him from time to 
time, of course, but by tacit agreement had stopped discussing what had 
happened to him, and had gone on with life.  But fond as they were of 
Mulder, he had never exactly been a daily part of their lives.

Maybe Langly and Frohike, after a few months, would go on as if nothing had 
happened and Jimmy had never existed, but Byers was convinced that he'd 
never go through a day without being painfully aware of the huge gap left 
in his life where Jimmy used to be.

//////////////

[Sunday 4pm]

Krycek barely glanced up when Jimmy emerged freshly scrubbed from the 
shower with a towel wrapped around his waist.  He was working at the desk, 
with his laptop and two palm-top computers sitting in front of him.  He 
looked relaxed and unguarded, with his shirt half unbuttoned.  Actually, it 
wasn't rightfully *his* shirt, but another one of Jimmy's shirts. One of 
his favorites, in fact.  He wore nothing underneath, and as usual he'd left 
his prosthetic arm off.

Instead of going back to his bed, Jimmy walked closer to Krycek.

"What are you doing?" Krycek said sharply, picking up one of the palm-tops.

"Getting a pair of clean shorts," Jimmy said in his best innocent voice, 
reaching for his own overnight bag.

"Lie down on the bed," Krycek ordered.  "When I decide you need shorts 
again, I'll put them on you myself."  He waved the palm-top at him.

Jimmy turned away, making a loud theatrical sigh, at the same time 
tightening his stomach muscles.  The towel slipped down off his hips.  
"Oops," he said, grabbing it.  In one smooth motion, he whirled around and 
hurled the balled-up towel at Krycek's face.

Krycek clawed it free and was frantically stabbing at the palm-top when 
Jimmy reached him two seconds later.  Krycek's eyes widened in surprise, 
and he dropped the palm-top on the desk and reached for the other one, 
muttering, "Damn!  Wrong remote!"  Jimmy knocked it off the desk, then 
grabbed Krycek by the armpits and hauled him out of his chair.  His muscles 
protested at being used so suddenly after a long enforced rest, but he had 
no trouble wrestling Krycek to the ground.  In fact, he held back a little, 
savoring the struggle, the play of muscle against muscle, as Krycek tried 
unsuccessfully to overpower him.  It felt so good to be moving -- to feel 
his heart pounding to power his muscles and not out of fear, to be matching 
strength with another man -- that he almost forgot that he was wrestling an 
enemy and not a friendly opponent.

But after a few minutes he got him firmly under control.  He straddled him 
and pinned his wrist with one hand.  Now Krycek was immobilized and Jimmy 
still had one hand free.  Normally he would have felt guilty about that.  
It seemed unfair, as bad as sneaking up to a blind guy and playfully . . . 
well, okay, he'd done that a few times too.

Helplessly pinned beneath Jimmy's weight, Krycek didn't seem so menacing.  
He struggled uselessly, breathing hard.  Was that a soft whimper Jimmy 
heard?

"You're going down, my sneaky spy friend," Jimmy gloated.  "I'm gonna call 
the cops, and they're gonna put you away for a long, long time.  But you're 
not wearing my favorite shirt to jail.  I want it back."  Jimmy used his 
free hand to unbutton it the rest of the way.  He hauled Krycek to a 
sitting position and pulled the shirt off his shoulders and over his arm, 
being careful not to tear it.  Then he planted his hand in the center of 
his chest and pushed him down again, enjoying the feel of his erstwhile 
captor's panicky heatbeat under his hand.  And as long as he had his shirt 
off, that gave him an idea.  He slid his hand up to Krycek's right armpit.

"No-o-o..." Krycek moaned.



++++++ to be continued in next post ++++++

++++++++++++++++ part 15 ++++++++++++++++

[Sunday 4:05pm]

He knew he had him now; there was no way he was getting away.  Jimmy could 
take his time and savor his victory.  After all the indignities he'd been 
put through, Jimmy wanted to indulge in a little payback before he called 
the police.  Keeping Krycek's wrist firmly pinned above his head, he began 
tickling him lightly under his arm.  He quickly discovered Krycek was more 
ticklish than Jimmy naturally was.  Not the most ticklish guy Jimmy had 
ever straddled like this, but close.  Having his erstwhile captor under him 
-- struggling uselessly, and begging him, between sobs of laughter, to stop 
the tickling -- was really turning Jimmy on.  But if Krycek even noticed 
that he was being prodded in the stomach on top of his armpit being tickled 
by Jimmy's fingers, he didn't waste his scarce breath in objecting.

If only Jimmy could think of somethign to interrogate him about, if only as 
an excuse to prolong the tickling.  He wondered if Krycek knew any secrets 
that anyone would be interested in.  He had no idea what questions to ask.  
But it didn't matter; Jimmy had worse mistreatment to make up for, besides 
tickling.  He stopped and sat up.  He watched Krycek slowly catch his 
breath, staring up at him apprehensively, and tried to decide exactly what 
he should do to him.  He considered using his belt, but that wasn't in 
reach.  But something much better was.

"Before I turn you in, I'm gonna teach you a lesson."  He grinned 
triumphantly down at Krycek, who looked terrified.  He leaned over and 
grabbed the palm-top from under the desk.  Studying the controls, he 
drawled, "You're gonna get a little taste of your own medicine."

The display was surprisingly user-friendly.  There was a menu with items 
labeled Pain 1, Pain 2, Ticklish, Paralysis, and so on.  He selected Pain 
1.  "Please select pain level," it prompted.  There was a little slider 
labeled "Discomfort" to "Agony".  He selected a value one notch above 
"Discomfort" and one below "Suffering."  There was also an "Immobilize" 
section below the slider, with checkboxes for head, arms, torso, and legs, 
and a "More choices" button.  He checked them all.   That should hold him 
while he rescued Byers, assuming he was in the adjoining room he'd seen 
Krycek enter.  If he was being somewhere else, he might need to edge the 
pain slider up little by little until Krycek told him where.  After 
double-checking the settings, he aimed the pointy part at Krycek's exposed 
chest and pressed the "Go" button.

Immediately Jimmy's body went limp, and he collapsed on top of Krycek.  He 
felt the man's cheekbone bash him in the chest like a hammer.  At the same 
time, his entire body felt like it had landed in searingly hot water, but 
he couldn't move to escape from it.  He lay there helplessly, feeling 
Krycek's cheek scraping away at his tender skin like sandpaper as the man 
tried to wiggle out from under him.  Krycek managed to slide his hand free; 
Jimmy moaned as it scraped painfully along his side.  He grabbed Jimmy's 
shoulder, crushing it in the process (or at least that's what it felt like) 
and pushed, rolling him onto his back.  The carpet felt like wire bristles 
poking into his side as he rolled over, but felt soft on his back.  The 
front of his body continued to burn painfully.

Then the pain suddenly was gone.  Jimmy found he could move his head.  The 
rest of him was still immobilized.  Krycek was kneeling beside him, holding 
the palm-top, breathing like he'd just sprinted fifty yards, sweat running 
down his chest.  Then, as his breathing returned to normal, he started 
laughing.  He held up the palm-top.  "Did you think it was a ray gun, 
Flash?  I *told* you how it works.  I probably shouldn't have told you 
anything, but it doesn't seem to have mattered."

"Oh, right," Jimmy said, mentally kicking himself.  "Is has something to do 
with those manodots, doesn't it?"   It was obvious now.   "Guess I'm not 
cut out to be a spy."

"Your parents must be so disappointed, after giving you a name like that.  
Get up."

Jimmy found he could move now, but one leg and one arm dragged uselessly.  
Krycek made him crawl over to the bed.  He struggled up on one knee and 
awkwardly managed to pull himself onto the mattress.  Meanwhile, Krycek had 
plenty of time to put his shirt back on and button it all the way up.

"Do you want me face up, or on my belly?" Jimmy asked humbly.  His back and 
butt still felt a little sore when he thought about it, and he had a 
feeling the pain was about to be renewed.

"Face up," Krycek ordered.  Jimmy was a little surprised, but then he 
realized that Krycek didn't need to whip him anymore.  He had a much higher 
tech way to torment him.  Sure enough, once he was on the bed, Krycek 
paralyzed him completely from the neck down.  He was helpless to resist as 
Krycek spread his arms and legs out.

"I could kill you," Krycek told him.  "You know that."

Jimmy nodded, swallowing hard.  Of course he knew that.  Krycek had had him 
completely in his power from the beginning, except for that one brief 
chance he'd thrown away a minute ago.  Now he was as defenseless as it was 
possible for a man to be.  He was suddenly very aware of his nakedness.

There was a knock at the door.  "Housekeeping!" came that voice again.

"Not again!" Krycek grumbled.  He quickly made an adjustment on the 
palm-top.

"There.  Can you talk?"

Jimmy tried to respond, but he couldn't make a sound.  He tried to shake 
his head, but it remained turned toward the door, which he had 
automatically looked at when he'd heard the knock.

Krycek pinched him on the nipple and twisted.  It hurt a little, but Jimmy 
was unable even to grunt or squeeze his eyes shut in reaction.  Meanwhile, 
there was a second knock.

"If you're faking it, if you manage to make a single sound, this time it'll 
be Byers who gets punished for it.  Got it?"

Jimmy tried to nod, but without success.

Krycek went to the door and opened it a little without  removing the chain. 
 Jimmy could see a sliver of achingly blue sky.  A fresh breeze swirled 
through the room, and a ray of sunlight slipped past Krycek's dark form 
blocking the doorway as he looked down at whoever was standing there.

"Oh!  I am sorry to disturb you, sir," came the same accented voice he'd 
heard a few hours ago, "but would you like your room cleaned?"

"No thank you," Krycek said politely, and started to close the door.

"But sir, I finished my other rooms.  If I leave one uncleaned, I get in 
trouble."

"I can explain things to your supervisor, Miss..." he bent down further and 
leaned even closer to the door to peer at something, "Miss Walsh y Delora.  
I'm sorry if you had to stay late."  He took a bill out of his pocket and 
handed it out the door.

"But sir--"

"Unless you'd like to explain to your boss why you ignored my Do Not 
Disturb sign?"

"I am sorry, sir," she said, sounding frightened.  "But she tell me to 
clean all of my rooms before I go for the day."

"Tell you what.  Why don't you leave me some fresh towels and take away the 
used ones.  If anyone asks, I'll say the room was cleaned."

"Well--"

He handed more money out the door and said, "I'll be right back with the 
dirty towels," closing it firmly.  "Same damn thing in every hotel in the 
world," he muttered.

A few minutes later the door was closed for good and they were shut up in 
the room again.  Krycek dropped the pile of fresh white towels on the table 
by the door and returned to the bedside.  "Now, where were we?"


++++++ to be continued in next post ++++++

++++++++++++++++ part 16 ++++++++++++++++

[An hour earlier:  Sunday 3pm] 

 "Byers!  Wake up, man!"

Byers realized he'd fallen asleep at his keyboard.  Langly was gently 
shaking him awake.

"I think I'm onto something.  I found a phone that's been making dialup 
connections at the same time as packets have been going to Krycek's web 
server."

Byers was instantly wide awake.  "That's great!  Are you sure?"

"Well, it doesn't prove anything, but the correlation's pretty convincing.  
It's worth checking out physically, at least."

"Good work, Langly!  Superman himself couldn't have done better.  Where is 
it?"

"A motel in Greensbelt."

"The Western Comfort?" asked Frohike, entering the room.

"How the heck did you know that?" asked Langly indignantly.

"Yves just called and asked us to meet her there."

"Looks like Catwoman beat Superman to it," Langly grumbled to Byers.

///////////////

[Sunday 4:30pm] 

Krycek had Jimmy by the balls, literally, but so far he hadn't physically 
hurt him.  He'd just made a lot of sickening threats that Jimmy was 
powerless to react to.  Finally he seemed to get tired of that.  He put the 
manodots back into Pain Mode and amused himself by lightly stroking Jimmy 
on the chest, belly and legs.  Each touch on his raw nerve endings set off 
waves of pain, but Jimmy was unable to react.  He couldn't squirm in a vain 
attempt to evade the merciless fingertips.  He couldn't even cringe.  
Without trying to be stoic, he was taking it all in silence, without so 
much as a single moan.

After what might have been a minute of that, Krycek sighed.  "This is no 
fun.  The only way I can tell I'm getting to you is by your breathing.  I 
like watching your arm muscles flex when I torment you.  He handcuffed him 
back to the headboard and  adjusted the controls.   Jimmy found he could 
move again.  Krycek reached out and stroked him one more time, and seemed 
to enjoy watching him thrash around uselessly in reaction.  After just a 
few strokes, though, his tormentor stopped and made another adjustment.

"What are you gonna do to me now?" Jimmy asked, feeling completely 
defeated.

"I've decided not to punish you anymore.  I don't blame you for trying to 
escape.  Anyone would have.  And I don't like to hurt men that I like."  He 
ran a finger lightly down the center of Jimmy's chest.

Jimmy gasped.  The creep had set it back to "pleasure" again, and the 
slightest touch brought unwanted waves ecstasy.  Jimmy thrashed and tried 
to knee Krycek.  Krycek backed off and did something with the controls, and 
Jimmy's legs went limp again.

"This should be a good compromise.  You don't have to wear yourself out 
resisting anymore.  You've got no choice."  He touched Jimmy's helpless 
body again.  Jimmy shivered and bit down on a moan.  He didn't want to give 
Krycek the satisfaction of a response, any more than he could help.

"C'mon, why don't you relax and enjoy it?  I might as well set it back to 
pain mode, for all the gratitude I'm getting."

"You're gonna use this to control other people, aren't you?  And you're 
forcing me to help you try it out."

"Oh, it'll be useful for controlling people, sure.  I've even used an 
earlier version that way, to extort things from a man in a powerful 
position.  That one didn't come out quite right.  The nanobots took hold in 
his cardiovascular system instead of his neural system."

"His cardy-what?"

"His blood vessels.  It worked out to almost the same thing, just clumsier. 
 I could push a button, and presto:  instant heart attack.  I could also 
cause pain, or cut off his blood flow and make him collapse.  But the 
version you've got gives me much more direct control."

"You gonna offer this guy an upgrade?"

Krycek laughed and patted his stomach, almost affectionately.  It felt 
weird, something like doing a belly-flop, but the sting was replaced by an 
odd sort of pleasure.  The closest thing Jimmy could compare it to was the 
way his cock felt when squeezed hard by a strong hand.

"Do you expect me to like the idea that you're gonna put other guys through 
this after you finish experimenting on me?"

Krycek paused, then said, almost bashfully, "I haven't told you the main 
reason I'm doing this experiment."

"You said--"

"Controlling people is just a useful spin-off application.  What I'm really 
interested in is inventing a cybernetic arm."

"Oh.  You mean like the bionic man, on TV?"

"Exactly.  A prosthetic arm hooked up to my nerves through nano-machines, 
so I can actually feel with it!"  Krycek sounded enthusiastic, and wistful. 
 "Then I just need to figure out how to do motor control."

"I... I didn't know.  Did you invent this stuff yourself?"

"Of course not.  I've got connections to a startup company that's doing 
proprietary -- that means secret -- experiments on worms and frogs, and 
slowly working their way up to mice.  But at the rate they're going, I'll 
be an old man by the time they get permission to experiment on human 
subjects."  He looked grim.  "If I live that long.  If anyone on Earth 
lives that long.  So I've been doing it for them, and slipping the 
researchers data."

"I had no idea that's the reason you kidnapped me."

"Well, it's not.  I'm mostly holding you hostage until your friends do a 
little work for me.  But as long as I had you, you were too good to waste." 
 He stroked him again.

It was hard to speak with that going on, but Jimmy managed to get out the 
words, "I'll make you a deal."

"A deal?  You think you're in a position to make a deal?"  More stroking.

"Let Byers go, and I'll help you.  Willingly.  For as long as you need to 
experiment."

Krycek stopped in mid-stroke and stared at him.  "You'd do that?  It could 
take a year."

"Yeah, exactly, and you can't count on holding me prisoner that long.  
Sooner or later I'd escape.  Or someone would find me.  Isn't one willing 
slave better than two unwilling ones?  I'd be glad to do it, knowing I was 
saving Byers.  Besides, it's even a good cause.  I might have even 
volunteered for a few weeks in the first placed if you'd just asked nicely 
when you came in."

"Yeah, right."

"I would have!  I *liked* you.  And it would be an incredibly cool 
invention that would help lots of other people like you.  I would have 
wanted to help."

"This is all easy for you to say now, when I have it set to feel good."  He 
traced circles on Jimmy's sensitive belly to emphasize the point.  "But it 
wouldn't always be like this. Remember how you cramped up when I tried 
motor control mode and it didn't work right?"

"What you're -- oh god! -- doing to me now doesn't feel 'good,'" Jimmy 
managed to say.

"No?"  Krycek's fingers lightly traced a line from his chin to his navel.  
Jimmy moaned.  "Doesn't feel good, eh?" Krycek asked mockingly.

"OK, so it feels good.  But it's disgusting!"

"Can't stand the thought of another guy making you feel this good?" he 
taunted, running his fingers through Jimmy's pubic hair.

"I told ... told you before--"

"Maybe you should close your eyes and try to pretend I'm--"

"What I can't stand is the thought that you've got a man I really care 
about tied up in another room and that you've been torturing him!" he 
roared.

"Maybe you should close your eyes and pretend it's actually a decent human 
being who's touching you," Krycek said quietly.

"I *wish*!"  Jimmy thought Krycek looked almost hurt, like he actually 
cared about his captive's opinion of him.  He added honestly, "But you know 
what?  I think you do have a decent streak in you, Alex.  I wish I could 
see more of it."

Krycek actually looked a little ashamed.  "You know, it's not often I deal 
with people like you.  I'm used to people who mistrust everyone.  But 
*you*... I break into your secret headquarters and sneak up behind you, and 
you want to make friends.  I kidnap you and torture you, and you still 
believe I have a streak of decency."

"I guess I do.  Or at least, I *want* to believe."

Krycek winced and turned his face away.  "Some people," he said, sounding 
wistful, "are suspicious from Day One, without knowing the first thing 
about me."

"Maybe they're just a better judge of character than me."

"Somehow I doubt that.  No, he's just paranoid."

Jimmy wondered who Krycek was talking about, but didn't interrupt.

"I showed him nothing but friendliness.  Well, maybe I was a little too 
pushy when he tried to take the case away from me.  But as far as he knew I 
was a young agent on one of his first assignments for the FBI -- yeah, 
don't look so surprised; you knew there's some shady stuff going on in the 
government -- I was an eager new agent, and all I did was point out that 
technically it was my case, and insist on going with him.  Maybe if I'd 
come on a little less strong he'd have been a little more trusting, and 
things could have turned out different."

"Well... sounds to me like you were within your rights.  I felt the same 
way on my first story.  Man, I was so excited!  When Byers handed me--"  He 
stopped.  For a minute there Krycek had almost got him to like him again.  
"I can't believe you would hurt a man like Byers, take him prisoner, treat 
him like a slave!  Yeah, I trusted you.  And look where it got me.  I was 
wrong.  No one with a shred of decency would do things like that to anyone, 
especially not to a man like that."

Krycek was silent for a long time.  Was he actually feeling guilty, or was 
he coming up with some new threat to make against Byers, just to see 
Jimmy's reaction?

"Let my friend go, Alex," he whispered.  "Please.  I'm-- I'm begging you."  
Damn, he was on the verge of crying again.

"Let me show you something," Krycek said quietly.  He went and got his 
laptop and spent a few minutes with the mouse.  Jimmy dreaded what was 
coming next.  Krycek was probably about to tell him that he couldn't 
release Byers, because it was too late.  He could be bringing up a 
coroner's report or a news article right now.  Or a later picture, taken 
after...  after...

He disconnected the laptop and brought it over to the bed.  Jimmy forced 
himself to look.  It didn't show him any new horrors, just the same picture 
of Byers that had been haunting Jimmy since Krycek had stuck the original 
under his nose.

"So you scanned it," Jimmy said tearfully.  "You gonna put it on the 
Internet or something?"

"Watch the picture, Jimmy."  He did something with a menu, and the picture 
was replaced with another picture of Byers.  In this one, he was in the 
same position, but magically healed of every bruise and every cut.

"I don't understand," Jimmy said, staring at his friend's healthy and 
unblemished skin.

"This one was the original picture.  I cropped it from this."  Krycek 
zoomed out to show Byers lying on a beach towel on the sand, wearing 
swimming trunks.

"So...  the first picture you showed me is a fake?"

"Byers is perfectly OK.  He was never my prisoner in the first place.  I 
told him to meet me on the beach if he ever wanted to see you alive again."

"So *that's* what it takes to convince the guy to get out in the sun.  But, 
why the beach?"

"Supposedly that was so he couldn't hide any gadgets in his clothes, but 
really I wanted to get a picture of him in a bathing suit."

"So you could fool me with a fake picture?"

Krycek grinned.  "It took about an hour of editing."

"You can do that on a computer?  I know you can paste pictures into 
newspapers, and fiddle with the color balance and stuff, but making up a 
fake picture?"

"You're working for too honest a newspaper.  With the right software, you 
can do almost anything to a picture.  See, here's a picture of you.  I can 
make your skin look green, like this...  Even distort it make you look thin 
as a post."

"Cool!"  Jimmy said, impressed despite himself.  "But that wasn't a 
printout you showed me.  It was a real picture!"

"I have a printer in the next room that can print right onto photographic 
paper, the same type a film development lab would print onto.  It's just 
another kind of paper stock."

"So Byers isn't in the next room?  That's--" he stammered excitedly, "This 
is-- Byers is really okay?"

"You look awfully happy for a guy who's been kidnapped," Krycek observed 
with a grin.

"And Langly, and Frohike?"

"I haven't touched a hair on any of their--" Krycek stopped short, and 
chuckled.  Jimmy wondered if he saw something funny about Langly's hair.  
"Um, let's just say I haven't hurt them or kidnapped any of them.  As far 
as I know they're safe at home right now."

"Oh, man, is that a relief!"

"Still think I'm such a bad guy?"

"Can I have my shorts back now?"

Krycek laughed.  "OK, as a gesture of good faith."  He pushed Jimmy's feet 
together.  The touch of his hand on Jimmy's bare feet made itself felt all 
the way up to his knees.  The feel of the soft cotton shorts being slowly 
drawn up his legs and over his pelvis was almost too much to stand.

"Feel a little less naked now?"

"Not really," Jimmy admitted, every nerve still tingling.  The parts of his 
body that were still exposed felt every bit as sensitive as anything that 
had been covered.

"It's too bad I don't really have Byers.  It might have been fun to see how 
he reacted to the nanobots in pleasure mode."

"Why did you tell me you had him?"

"I had to do something to keep you under control until the nanobots took 
hold. Would you rather I'd held a gun to your head and threatened to blow 
your brains out?"

"Yes."

Krycek looked taken aback.  "Well... *I* wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as 
much as I enjoyed messing with your mind.  And I'm in charge here."  He ran 
his finger lightly down Jimmy's chest again.

"Wait.  You thought you could control me better if you had Byers tied up in 
the next room?  That doesn't make sense.  It just made me try to take you 
out so I could rescue Byers."

"Why do you think I did it, then?"

"I think you enjoyed having that much extra power over me.  Making me 
suffer.  You've got a real mean streak in you."

Krycek laughed nastily.  "Just a streak?"

"Well, yeah.  Like I said, I don't think you're that bad a person deep 
down.  I think other people have hurt you, and you're trying to get back at 
them.  Like, maybe you were kidnapped yourself once."

"I suppose you could say that.  Technically.  Yeah, I was beaten up and 
kidnapped by an agent of a foreign government."

"Wow!"

"Twice.  Once at the Hong Kong airport.  Where are the local authorities 
when you need them?  And once..."  He shut up, seeming upset by the memory. 
 Jimmy noticed that his eyes flicked down to his missing arm.

"Does it have to do with how you lost your arm?" he asked gently.

"Yeah."  He drew a ragged breath.  "And the thing of it is, I still respect 
the guy who got me into that situation.  He and I, we're really after the 
same thing.  We just go about it differently."

"What do you mean?"

"We're both trying to prevent some really horrible things from happening.  
Things that most people don't want to believe are even possible.  They're 
living in their safe little illusory world where nothing really bad ever 
happens, while some of us are fighting behind the scenes to stave off a 
nightmare."  He sighed.  "And I've had to do some horrible things in that 
fight.  Things I'm not proud of."

"To that foreign agent?"  Jimmy asked eagerly.

"No.  Never to him.  I've had to... hurt some of the people around him.  To 
protect him.  But I've never wanted to hurt him.  I hope I never get 
desperate enough--"

Jimmy was surprised to realize that Krycek was actually weeping.  He turned 
his face away now to hide it, but Jimmy could still hear it in his voice.  
Very softly, he said, "It's okay to cry in front of me, Alex.  I'm not 
gonna tell anyone."  Thinking about that, he added wryly, "Especially 
seeing as how you're gonna kill me."

Krycek laughed and cried at the same time.  "I'm not gonna kill you, Jimmy. 
 You're no threat.  The one man who I really need to kill is the one man 
I--" and he broke down again.  Jimmy let him cry.  There was only so much 
comfort he could offer while chained to a bed with his legs paralyzed.

Finally Krycek calmed down.  He looked around the room, maybe for a box of 
tissues, but the only tissues were in the bathroom.  Instead, he spotted 
the pile of clean fluffy white towels that the maid had made him take.  He 
went over and grabbed a small one from the top and wiped away his tears.

Then he dropped it and doubled up, choking and scrubbing at his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Jimmy asked.

Krycek didn't answer, but groped his way back to the nightstand.  He took 
his hand away from his eyes, which were shut and streaming far more tears 
than before, long enough to feel around for the palm-top.  He fumbled with 
it, trying to hold it and work it one-handed, and dropped it.  It bounced 
off Jimmy and came to rest propped up against his armpit.  Jimmy managed to 
grab it with his mouth and transfer it to his hand.

At that moment, the door lock clicked, and the door was opened a crack by 
someone on the outside.  Some kind of gadget on a pole poked in through the 
opening.

Before Krycek could get it back, Jimmy smashed the controller against the 
headboard as hard as he could.  That wasn't as hard as he would have liked, 
because of the limited windup the handcuff chain allowed him, so he tried 
again.  One the second smash, the pointy part broke off.  On the fourth 
smash, the screen went dark.  On the seventh, the whole thing fell apart in 
his hand.  Satisfied, he watched as the gadget poking in past the door felt 
around and grabbed the chain and slid it back.  The door opened all the 
way, revealing the three faces he wanted to see more than anything else in 
the world.  The guys rushed into the room and grabbed Krycek, who was 
kneeling on the floor, scrubbing at his eyes with the edge of the sheet 
Jimmy was lying on.

"Oh, man, am I ever glad to see you guys!  How'd you do that?  He was 
wiping away his -- um, his sweat," Jimmy said, remembering his promise just 
in time, "and he just doubled over and started clawing at his eyes."

"Chalk it up to the latest in chemical magic," Frohike said.

"It's basically powdered tear gas," Byers explained.

"And it's got the Good Housekeeping seal of approval," said Langly.

"She tricked me!" Krycek said, still wiping his eyes.  "How much did you 
pay her?"

"She drove a hard bargain," Langly said.  "We promised her the data from 
your laptop.  And we get nothing.  As usual!"

"I wouldn't say we get nothing," Byers said, looking at Jimmy.

"What would a maid--" Krycek began.  Frohike punched him in the stomach, 
hard, ordering him to shut up.

"Hey, go easy on him!" Jimmy pleaded.  "He roughed me up a little, but 
nothing too bad."  This wasn't like Frohike, to hit a man when he was down. 
 Jimmy tried to swing his legs over the bed, but found that they still 
didn't respond.  That was strange.  He'd smashed the controls.  He glanced 
at the broken pieces, but it was obvious they didn't need any more 
smashing.

"That wasn't for you, it was for Scully.  This is the man who murdered her 
sister.  In Scully's apartment, thinking she was Scully."  He kicked him.  
"He also killed Mulder's father."

"The authorities will see that justice is done, Frohike," Byers told him 
gently, putting a hand on his arm to forestall another punch.  But instead 
of placing himself between Frohike and Krycek, he stepped over to Jimmy's 
bed and leaned over him anxiously, his hand resting on the sheet just 
inches from Jimmy's bare shoulder.  Jimmy looked up into those blue eyes 
he'd been afraid he'd never see again.  Byers looked haggard, and the knot 
in his tie was slightly askew.

"You look like hell, buddy," Jimmy told him hoarsely.  That was only half 
the truth.  His familiar features were also the most beautiful sight in the 
whole world right now.  But he looked like he'd been through something 
worse than Jimmy had.  "Are you okay?  Krycek told me he was lying about 
having captured you too.  Or was he lying about that?"  He paused to try to 
untangle the convoluted thoughts of whether a liar can lie about lying, 
then gave up.  "He showed me how he faked the pictures on that computer 
there."

"What are you talking about?" Langly asked.  He let Frohike sit on Krycek 
while he inspected the laptop.  After a few seconds Langly said, "You were 
fooled by this crappy work, Jimmy?  The lighting is totally fake looking."

Byers went to look over his shoulder, and winced at what he saw on the 
screen.  He looked back at Jimmy with that look of compassion Jimmy had 
seen him give to so many people.

"This doesn't even look like real blood," Langly continued.

"Langly!" Byers said warningly.  Langly shut up.  Byers went back to Jimmy. 
 "Krycek never had me," he said gently.  "The picture is a fake.  If I look 
tired, it's just that haven't been sleeping much lately."

"Because of me?"  Jimmy was touched.

"Because of you.  And now I have you back.  I mean, *we* have you back.  
There's nothing wrong with me a good night's sleep can't cure.  The 
important thing is, are *you* okay?  This must have been pure hell for 
you."

"It was no picnic, but he didn't mess me up half as bad as what he made it 
look like he did to you."

"He did torture you, then?" Byers asked grimly, glancing at Krycek, whose 
arm was being twisted behind his back by Frohike.

"Believe me, the worst thing he did to me was convince me he was torturing 
you.  Sure, he roughed me up a little, but it coulda been worse.  Don't you 
think you should get him a wet washcloth to wipe his face?"

"Langly?  Could you see if you can find an untainted one, or a tissue?"  
When Byers turned back to Jimmy, he hesitated, then admitted, "I was really 
afraid for you.  Are you sure you're okay?"

Then he did it.  He put his hand on Jimmy's shoulder.  Man, this was 
intense!  The manodot stuff had definitely not gone away when he smashed 
the control.  The warmth of the friendly touch radiated down his chest, 
rippled through his stomach, tingled in his groin, bounced back to sizzle 
up his sides, and wrapped around his neck like a hot washcloth.  At the 
same time, the firm pressure of his friend's hand went right through his 
shoulder muscles, through his armpit, and spread down his chest.  His whole 
chest felt the illusion of flesh pressed against flesh, as though Byers had 
gathered him up in his arms and was pressing their bodies together.  After 
taking off the jacket and shirt he was wearing.  And all he'd done was put 
a hand on his shoulder!

Jimmy had never felt anything like it.  It was like the difference between 
a teammate patting you on the shoulder on the field when you're wearing 
shoulder pads, and the same teammate resting a warm hand on your bare 
shoulder in the locker room.  After all, there's a good reason that the 
shoulder is not a football player's favorite place to pat his teammates.  
Now Jimmy felt like he'd been wearing invisible shoulder pads all his life, 
and Krycek had forcibly stripped them away.  Maybe he'd done it for his own 
reasons, like because he wanted to torment Jimmy.  But it was worth it now, 
just to feel the touch of a friend with nothing in the way!  He heard 
himself moaning, and realized he'd squeezed his eyes shut to concentrate on 
the feeling.  Then he felt the waves of sensation begin to ebb and realized 
Byers had taken his hand away.

"Does that hurt?  Did Krycek break your shoulder?"  He whirled around and 
took a step toward Krycek, who was smirking at him.

"No," Jimmy gasped.  "It's-- oh man, you have no idea."

"Let's get you out of this, and we'll take a look.  Where's the key, 
Krycek?"  A minute later he had him uncuffed.  Seeing the marks the cuffs 
had made in his wrists -- little did he know that those were from Jimmy 
struggling to get loose when Krycek had claimed that Byers was his prisoner 
-- he took Jimmy's wrist between hands and began rubbing circulation back 
in.  "Sorry, I know this hurts."  It didn't hurt.  Just the opposite!  He 
could hardly believe it was only his wrist that was being rubbed.  The part 
about blood rushing through his veins in response to his friend's touch was 
easy enough to believe, though.  He half expected to feel the arm to fill 
up and get three times as long, just like the other body part it felt like. 
 And then, just when he thought he couldn't take any more, he felt him 
start on the other wrist!  Oh, man!  To have two of them!

"Sorry.  All over.  Just rest there a minute, and I'll get your clothes," 
Byers said.  Carefully avoiding his shoulder, he patted him in the middle 
of his chest.  Jimmy arched his body involuntarily, and Byers jerked his 
hand away.

"Krycek!  What have you done to him?" Byers demanded over his shoulder, 
without moving from Jimmy's side.

"He injected me with these manodot thingies," Jimmy was finally able to 
explain.  "They let him shoot different stuff at me from his palmtop 
computer.  The last thing he did made me really sensitive.  It feels 
like..."  He lowered his voice for Byers alone; this was something he was 
embarrassed to say out loud.  "The entire front of my body is as sensitive 
as -- well, the underside of my cock," he whispered.

Byers recoiled a little and stared at his hands.  "I'm sorry, I had no 
idea!"

"The trouble is, it's also keeping my legs from moving."

"Can you feel them?" Byers asked, sounding alarmed.  He put his hand on 
Jimmy's leg.

"Ah!  Oh man, can I ever!  I just can't move them.  I thought that when I 
smashed the controls, everything would go back to normal."

"Oh, Jimmy..." Byers said despondently.

"It always works that way in the movies," Jimmy said lamely.

"Well, in real life," Langly put in, "it means you're stuck with whatever 
setting the nanobots were in, and there's no way to control them," 

"You mean I'll be this way for the rest of my life?  My legs, and, and the 
rest?"

Byers sighed.  "It wasn't supposed to turn out like this, Jimmy.  We 
assumed Krycek would use the towels the next time he took a shower, so he'd 
be empty handed.  We're lucky he didn't go for the knife.  Well, relatively 
lucky."

Jimmy pictured Krycek being naked, dripping wet, and shivering right now on 
top of everything else, and almost felt sorry for him.  But at least he 
wouldn't have dropped the controls right where Jimmy could smash them.

"I can reset the nanobots," Krycek said suddenly.  "I have the command 
codes memorized.  I can program my other palmtop to shut them off."

"At what price?" Frohike growled.

"All you have to do is let me walk away."

"Murderer!"  Frohike said, wrenching Krycek's arm.

"You need me, or your friend will never walk again," Krycek said through 
gritted teeth.

Frohike sighed and eased up on the pressure.

"Looks like Krycek is going to get away scott-free," Langly observed.  "As 
usual!  And all thanks to Mr. Smash Everything You Don't Understand."

"Maybe not."  Everyone looked at Byers, who went on thoughtfully, "No one 
would design an experimental system to stay in its last commanded mode in 
case of communication failure."  While Jimmy was trying to work that out, 
Byers looked directly at him and explained, "Think of a cell phone.  If you 
destroy it in the middle of a call, the system breaks the connection a few 
seconds after it loses the signal."

"Wow!  How do you know all this stuff?" Jimmy asked him, impressed as 
always.

"I've read the specs, so I know the theory.  Also, I've seen it happen once 
or twice while I was talking to Mulder."  He turned to the others.  "There 
must be a command loss timeout.  That's how autonomous spacecraft are 
designed.  Nanobots would be designed the same way.  They'll go into a 
neutral 'safe mode' if they don't hear any commands after a set period of 
time."

"Is that true, Krycek?" Frohike demanded, twisting his arm again.  Krycek 
clammed up.

Langly went to the desk and disconnected and untangled some computer 
cables.  He began winding them around Krycek's ankles.  "Let's leave him 
tied up here for a few hours with Jimmy.  If Byers is right, the paralysis 
will time out and Jimmy can kick his ass."

"No!" Krycek said.  "Byers is right."  Jimmy felt a little insulted at the 
panic in his voice, like he was sure Jimmy would tear him limb from-- well, 
limb from torso.  Sure, he'd like to even the score a little.  Maybe a few 
lashes with his belt, to match the stripes Jimmy could still feel as a dull 
ache across his back and his butt.  But all in all, his former captor would 
probably be better off left to Jimmy's mercy than anyone else's.  He'd been 
the one to tell Frohike to go easy on him.  Frohike still looked about 
ready to kill him.  Jimmy would settle for humiliating him.

"What's the command loss timeout?" Byers asked him.  Even Byers, 
compassionate and ethical Byers, looked like he wanted to carve Krycek into 
little pieces.  Someone had already carved one big piece off of him, and 
Jimmy felt that was enough for one lifetime.

"Half an hour from the time it was smashed," Krycek whispered.

"I think we're better off waiting it out before we move Jimmy," Byers said. 
 "We'll attract less attention if he walks out than if we have to carry 
him."

Jimmy imagined how it would feel right now to have Byers's hands gripping 
him under his ultra-sensitive armpits while Langly took his limp but 
equally sensitive legs.  He shivered with pleasure at the thought.  And if 
they dressed him first ... all that cotton sliding over him, the hands 
everywhere...

"I'm sorry, Jimmy," Byers said.  "I know you must want to get out of this 
room.  We can at least get Krycek out of your sight."

Frohike and Langly hauled their prisoner roughly to his feet.

"Will you be okay staying here for just another twenty minutes or so, 
Jimmy?"

"As long as you stay with me, Byers."

"Of course," he said, taking his hand.  "Oh, sorry.  Your hand too?"

Jimmy squeezed his friend's hand firmly to try to keep him from letting go. 
 The pressure felt better than a warm embrace along his entire body.  A 
warm, naked embrace.  His fingertips could feel every soft hair on the back 
of Byers's hand, and could sense the blood pulsing through it.  It tingled 
all the way down to his shoulder.  His own pulse tried to race to keep up 
with his friend's heatbeat.

"You're a lucky man, Byers," he heard Krycek say.

"What do you mean?" he heard Byers ask him, but he didn't hear an answer.

Hearing the door open, Jimmy opened his eyes to gaze longingly at the brief 
glimpse of invitingly blue sky.  Later, he told himself.

"I have information you'll really want to hear," Krycek was saying as they 
left.  "It would be a big mistake to turn me in."  The door closed.

He was alone with Byers.  Same room, but it no longer felt at all like a 
prison.  Simon had been so right!

Byers squeezed his hand and let go.  "Just hang in there another fifteen or 
twenty minutes.  I know you must want to get out of this room more than 
anything else in the world."

"You know, you're wrong about that, Byers," Jimmy said.  "There's something 
else I want a whole lot more."

"Something you can have right now?"  Byers leaned over him.

"I sure hope so, buddy."  He watched to see if Byers would take the hint, 
and also to see if he objected to the familiarity.  He didn't exactly see 
himself as Byers's equal, but they'd been through so much together that 
Jimmy was beginning to feel he deserved to use the word.

Byers didn't seem to mind being called his buddy, but he seemed slow to 
figure out what Jimmy's desire was.  "Whatever it is, you deserve it, after 
what you've been through.  Is it something I can get for you?"

"Sorta."  He grinned hopefully at his friend.

Byers raised his eyebrows and waited for him to explain.  He could be 
really dense about certain things.

"For the next fifteen minutes, the whole front of my body is a sensitive as 
the underside of my cock.  How often does a man get a chance like this?"

"Oh...  You want to be alone for awhile."  Byers was blushing.  "I thought 
you said--"

"Um, no.  I don't know how to put this..."  He hadn't expected him to be so 
clueless about this.  Byers was usually the first one to put the clues 
together, like that thing about the loss timer.  "I, uh, kinda thought you 
might help me out here."

"I don't think there's time to hire someone, if that's what you mean," 
Byers said uncomfortably.  "I would if I could.  The very best."

"I don't want some stranger!"

"Well," he said doubtfully, "Yves is still here, but I don't think--"

The thought of letting Yves see him like this did not appeal to him at all! 
 "Um, Byers?  What I'm getting at is..."  This was hard to say, since he 
wasn't sure Byers wanted to hear it.  But he was sure being slow-witted at 
picking up on Jimmy's hints.  So it was the direct approach, or nothing.  
He reached up and squeezed his friend's shoulder, feeling the expensive 
fabric and the muscle underneath.  "It feels good... it's hard to explain, 
but it feels good when *you* touch me."

Byers's jaw dropped.  OK, so now he understood.

Jimmy let his fingers stray to the nape of his friend's neck, just above 
the starched collar.  "It's indescribable.  I wish..."  Impulsively, he 
unknotted Byers's tie.  "I wish there was some way I could make you feel 
the same way."  He pulled the tie off, the silk sliding sensuously against 
his hand.

Byers stood up and backed away a few steps.  Then he rushed over to the 
door.

Oh man, now he'd done it!  He'd screwed up everything.  This was exactly 
why he'd been afraid to say anything all this time.  It was so important to 
him to be able to work alongside these guys, where he could really make a 
difference in the world, that he'd been afraid to lose it by making a pass 
at Byers.  Now he'd lost that, and Byers's friendship, and everything in 
the world that mattered.  He'd sacrificed what could have been a lifetime 
of friendship, all for a few minutes of pleasure.  For a minute it'd seemed 
worth a try, and he didn't exactly have all day to work up to it before the 
effect wore off.  But man, what a stupid gamble!  Why would he think a man 
like Byers would ever be interested in someone like him, even if he was 
gay?  "Byers--" he began, but his voice caught in his throat.  He struggled 
to a sitting position.

Byers was at the door.  He didn't reach for the doorknob.  He picked up the 
dangling chain and attached it, then double-locked the deadbolt.  Jimmy 
breathed a sigh of relief and watched as Byers peeked through the drapes, 
staring down at something and muttering, "Good, she took the bug away," 
then fiddling with them to make sure they were completely drawn.  After 
checking the door to the adjoining room carefully, he turned back to Jimmy, 
looking nervous.  "Jimmy..." he began.

Jimmy didn't want to push his luck by opening his mouth again, but  
finally, when Byers didn't go on, he  said tentatively, "If you feel weird 
about this, you don't need to do it just cause you feel sorry for me."

"It's not that, Jimmy.  It's just the opposite."

"The opposite?"  Could that possibly mean what he wanted it to mean?

"I feel I'm taking advantage of you.  I wouldn't exactly call this an 
appropriate time."

"The clock's ticking, buddy.  You gonna just stand there with the ball in 
your hands?"

Byers blushed again.  "It's just that I can't believe you know what you're 
asking.  Why now, of all times?  Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I spent a lot of time thinking of what I missed most, being held captive.  
And if he killed me, what I would feel sorriest about never having done.  
Or said.  Like:  Do you know how crazy I am about you?"

"You've always said how much you admire the three of us."

"Well, that's sure true.  I still can't believe I have the privilege of 
working with you guys.  *All* of you,  dedicating your lives!  Fighting for 
the lost causes!  You're my heroes.  But *you*, Byers.  You're the only one 
who actually believes you can *win* those lost causes.  And you really seem 
to care about the people you help.  Even me."

Now Byers approached him, and knelt by his side.  He didn't seem to know 
what to do with his hands.

"I think my face still feels like it usually does," Jimmy suggested.

Byers reached out and tenderly touched his cheek.  "How's that feel?"

"Normal."  He grinned.  "Natural."

Byers took his hand away, looking uncomfortable.

"Maybe we should just shake hands."  Jimmy offered an outstretched hand, 
grinning.

Byers looked amused.  "I see.  Why have the appearance of impropriety when 
you can have the real thing and make it look innocent?"  He took Jimmy's 
hand in a standard handshake grip, but of course it didn't feel at all like 
a standard handshake.  Jimmy closed his eyes and sighed in pure 
contentment.  Then his eyes flew open as he felt a new sensation: Byers was 
stroking the palm of Jimmy's hand with his thumb.  He moved up to the 
wrist, then along his inner arm.  Jimmy moaned.  But Byers stopped entirely 
too soon.

"Can I really make you feel that good just by touching your arm?"

"You can make me feel good just by smiling at me like that."

"Then I'll have to try to smile at you more often.  I like making you feel 
good."

"Well, I'll tell ya, you're never gonna have an easier time making me feel 
good than right now."

"Jimmy..." Byers said with an exasperated sigh.

 "C'mon!  Just a little more?  Please?"

Byers smiled.  "Did I ever tell *you* how much my heart melts whenever I 
see that puppy-dog expression?"

"Really?" he asked hopefully.

Byers gave an affectionate laugh.  He reached out hesitantly, looked at him 
for encouragement, and then stroked his fingertip down Jimmy's chest.  
Jimmy gasped, his back arching.  The pleasure was so intentse he actually 
blacked out for a few seconds.



++++++ to be continued in next post ++++++

++++++++++++++++ part 17 ++++++++++++++++

[4:45pm]

Byers withdrew his hand and stared at it in wonder as he watched a spasm of 
pleasure run through his friend's body.  Did *he* do that, with a simple 
touch?  While Jimmy still had his eyes squeezed shut, he  stuck his hand 
down his own pants and made a quick adjustment.  His own body was 
responding to the intimacy in a way that was getting uncomfortable.  He 
waited until Jimmy recovered his voice.

"Oh man!  That was incredible!  I thought felt good when Krycek touched me 
-- I didn't want it to, but those manodot things were in control.  When you 
do it, it's like ten times more intense."

"Jimmy... The nanobots can't tell the difference between my hand and 
Krycek's.  They don't know that Krycek was doing it to humiliate you and 
I'm doing it because I...  because you asked me to.  They're just blindly 
amplifying whatever nerve signals they receive."

"Oh yeah?  I know you know a lot more about science than I do, Byers, but 
you can't tell me that science is gonna explain how I feel when you touch 
me."

He was right.  Jimmy's body wasn't some kind of simple stimulus-response 
machine, but a very complex organism with all kinds of feedback mechanisms 
that science couldn't pretend to model.  Byers had retreated into 
reductionism because he was afraid to accept what Jimmy was telling him.  
It just seemed too good to be true.  He'd been attracted to Jimmy for a 
long time, but it had never occurred to him to admit it to him.  He knew 
Jimmy well enough to be sure he'd never react violently if he told him, the 
way some stereotypical football player would.  But what would happen to 
that fierce, innocent devotion if he found out his hero lusted after his 
strong young body?  Honesty would have been nice, and maybe after he'd 
known him a few more years he would have told him, and hoped he'd be 
understanding.  The last thing he expected was for Jimmy to be interested 
in him too, let alone for him to be the one to take the initiative.  It 
must be only Krycek's nanobots were amplifying his physical reactions until 
he didn't know what he wanted.

He noticed Jimmy had a bulge in his shorts to match his own.  He could try 
to explain it away with signal processing theory.  Krycek could even have 
injected him with alprostadil, which would cause an erection whether he was 
aroused or not.  But the simplest explanation was that Jimmy really was 
turned on by his touch, at least as much as Byers was by touching him.

"But if it makes you feel better," Jimmy interrupted his thoughts, raising 
his voice mockingly the way he occasionally did when he got worked up about 
something, "you can hook me up with some electrodes to measure my reactions 
while you touch me."

"Jimmy!" Byers protested laughingly.

"Sheesh, no wonder you never get any dates, dude!"

"I just can't believe you're in control of your feelings right now.  What 
you're feeling could be an emotional reaction to what you've just been 
through.  Or for all we know, Krycek hypnotized you, or gave you some, some 
kind of drug to make you think you're attracted to me."  Great.  Now he 
recognized who he sounded like.  Here he was, trying to find a rational 
explanation for Jimmy's feelings, when human emotions were never rational.  
He sounded just like Scully.  It was typical of Scully, at least to hear 
Mulder tell it, to try to explain how the alien spaceship they were 
standing right in front of was really some experimental military aircraft 
lit up by swamp gas.

"You think he mixed up some kind of love potion?" Jimmy asked.  He didn't 
sound skeptical or worried; he seemed filled with wonder at the possibility 
that they had uncovered some cool new use of biochemistry.  What a guy!

"When you put it like that--" Byers began sheepishly.

"Is that even possible?"

"Well, probably not."

Jimmy was silent for a moment.  Then he asked softly, "Suppose it was.  
Could it affect my memory too?"

Byers was taken aback.  For the first time, he entertained the notion that 
this wasn't entirely some new impulse Jimmy had had while he was in 
Krycek's clutches.  He thought back, reinterpreting dozens of affectionate 
gestures and looks.  At the time, he'd never dared hope... Finally he 
asked, "Did you really mean what you said about admiring my idealism?"

"Like I would lie to you!  Yeah, I just never wanted to single you out, 
cause I was afraid you'd freak out if you knew.  It seemed safer to talk 
about all three of you together.  But you're the one who really believes 
this country can work, if men of integrity fix what's wrong with it," he 
said earnestly.  "I love that about you."  He grinned.  "Plus, I think 
you're really hot."

He couldn't mean that.  "Oh, come on.  I'm not--"

"Oh, man, if you only knew how hot you really are!  Although I wish I got 
to see you out of that suit more often.  I had to walk into Death Row to 
get to see you naked.  Worth it, though."

"I'm glad you can joke about it now," said Byers, laughing.  He poked him 
in the ribs, and Jimmy moaned in pleasure as the nanobots translated the 
playful touch into some more erotic sensation.  Byers jerked his hand back 
again, embarrassed.  Jimmy looked at him, silently pleading for more.

This was too good to be true.  Getting Jimmy back again, alive and healthy, 
was all he'd hoped for.  To suddenly find out that he wanted the same thing 
Byers had longed for was too much to accept.  But how could he resist that 
well-muscled body laid out helplessly before him, and that look in those 
big gray-blue eyes, hungry for his touch and his alone.  How could he deny 
him that?  And Byers wanted very much to find some way to communicate to 
him how good it felt to see him safe.  He'd spent his whole life holding 
back, imagining how bad the other person would feel if his attentions were 
unwelcome.  He had to take a chance sometime.

He leaned down slowly, watching Jimmy's face closely, just for the sheer 
delight of seeing his eyes light up when he saw what was coming.

/////////

The first thing Jimmy felt was his friend's warm breath, which seemed to 
flow over his entire chest like a jungle breeze, stirring every hair along 
the way.  Impossibly, it even slipped under his shorts; he felt it caress 
his pelvis and travel down his legs all the way to his toes.  Then came the 
brush of soft whiskers against his belly, which set waves of pleasure 
coursing through his body.  Then he felt his lips against his skin.  Like a 
pebble tossed into a still pond, the light kiss sent out ripples all the 
way up to his shoulders and all the way down to his crotch.  Before they 
died out, another kiss at another spot set out a set of overlapping 
ripples, and then another.  At the same time, one hand reached up and 
caressed his chest.  Jimmy wanted badly to get his own hands under Byers's 
shirt, or stroke his hair, or the back of his neck, anything to return the 
affection, but he was so helpless under the onslaught of pleasure that he 
might as well have still been chained up.  Byers slowed down now, as if to 
give him time to feel every individual kiss.  His lips were barely touching 
Jimmy's skin at each place they came to rest.

Then, without warning, he used his tongue!  Jimmy wasn't even sure where.  
It felt like his whole body had been enveloped in warmth.  If he'd been 
shrunk down to the size of an action figure and Byers had stuck his naked 
body in his mouth up to the shoulders, it would have felt a lot like this.

When he came back to his senses, he saw a welcome sight:  Byers was 
standing up and stepping out of his pants, dressed only in his underwear, 
and very obviously turned on by this too.  He then peeled off his 
undershirt, and sat down on the edge of the bed to take off his socks.  
Jimmy enjoyed the view of his back -- not an athlete's back, but 
well-muscled enough -- and reached out to feel its warm solidity with his 
sensitized fingertips.  Then Byers was climbing onto him, carefully 
lowering his bare chest down until it rested on Jimmy's own.

If the illusion of skin-to-skin contact along the entire length of his body 
had felt good, the reality was even better.  He could almost count every 
hair on his friend's chest where it brushed his skin.  Not that it was an 
especially big number.  He could probably have even counted that high, 
under ordinary circumstances, but he was too busy enjoying the sensation to 
concentrate on math.  With their bodies in contact, he felt on some deep 
level that he'd never be cold or lonely again.  He didn't think it was 
physically possible to get closer to someone than this.   And he couldn't 
have asked for a better man to do it with.  This was too good to be true, 
lying here with him like this.  His hero, maybe the smartest and most 
compassionate man he'd ever met, cuddling up with *him*!  He wrapped his 
arms around Byers and hugged him so tight that he felt the man's muscles 
suddenly tense up in pain.  "Sorry," he whispered, his lips stretching into 
a grin against Byers's ear.  He ran his fingers lightly down his friend's 
spine.   Even without the benefit of Krycek's little toys, Byers shivered 
in response.  The shiver transmitted itself into Jimmy's body and 
stimulated him all over.  He squirmed, and their sweaty bodies slid 
pleasurably against each other, which set him off even more.  He'd never 
experienced such intense pleasure without coming.  He must be close.  Byers 
began kissing his shoulder, which he felt all the way down to his 
fingertips.  Byers began working his way slowly down his chest.  The 
feeling kept building.

Then suddenly, nothing.  Byers was kissing the center of his bare chest, 
and he hardly felt it.  He might as well have been wearing six layers of 
clothes.

"What's wrong?" Byers asked, looking up.  "Did I do something wrong?"

"No.  It wore off.  All of a sudden.  No warning."

"The nanobots must all be running off molecular clocks and synched to each 
other."

He bent his knees slightly and wiggled his feet.  "At least my legs work 
again."

"Want to see if you can walk now?"  His sky-blue eyes looked down at Jimmy 
questioningly, seeming to plead with him to stay.  A minute ago Jimmy had 
been eager to run outside into the sunlight and enjoy his freedom.  But he 
could do that anytime.  This moment with Byers might never come again.

"It can wait.  I'd rather lie here with you awhile longer, if that's okay."

"I was hoping you'd say that."

"Really?"  Jimmy hugged him, feeling only the faintest echo of the feeling 
of physical closeness he'd had before.  "Man, it feels I'm like wearing 
armor, by comparison."

"Evolution designed us to be armored against the world."

"Yeah, I guess so."  He nuzzled Byers's neck and inhaled his scent.  At 
least he could still appreciate his other senses, which had never been 
revved up.  They cuddled quietly for a little while.

"I have a feeling it's going to be a few days before I stop waking up from 
nightmares that he still has you," Byers said softly.  "I imagined all 
kinds of tortures he was putting you through, even worse than the reality."

"You and me both.  He really had me convinced he had you too."  Before he 
thought better of it, he added half jokingly, "Maybe if we sleep next to 
each other for awhile, that won't happen."

To his delight, Byer's reply was "Sounds good to me."  He sounded as 
surprised as Jimmy felt.

"Man," Jimmy murmured, "it's gonna be so great to get outside later today 
and be able to do stuff again.  I think I want to spend the whole day 
tomorrow outside, doing stuff."  He added shyly, "I'm hoping you'll do some 
of it with me."

"Oh, I think we can find some physical activities we enjoy doing together."

"That'll be fantastic," Jimmy whispered, excited at the idea of doing some 
fun things together with the man he was holding.  Find a park and maybe 
toss a football around, or a Frisbee, or just go running.  The 
possibilities were endless.

"Um, Jimmy?"

"Mmm?"

"I had a particular activity in mind.  An indoor sport."

"Basketball?"

"No.  What I'm trying to get at is, I'll bet there's one part of your body 
that's still as sensitive as the underside of your cock."

"Really?"  No part of his body felt any more sensitive than normal.

"Yes.  Exactly as sensitive."  Byers scooted down and hooked his thumbs in 
the waistband of Jimmy's shorts.

"Oh."  Now he got it:  it was a riddle.  *What part of your body is exactly 
as sensitive as the underside of your cock?  Answer:  the underside of your 
cock.*  He said, "No way, buddy!"

"Oh, sorry, I thought--"

"It's your turn now."

"Oh.  No, look, I want this to be for you, Jimmy.  You're the one who--"

"Your turn!"  Jimmy insisted, rolling their bodies over so that he was on 
top.  Byers grunted  and put up what Jimmy suspected was just a token 
resistance, but it was hard to tell.  Man, it felt good to be able to move 
again!  But not half as good as it felt to have a nearly naked Byers 
squirming under him.  Soon to be completely naked.  He grabbed his 
opponent's shorts.  There was a brief uneven struggle, both of them 
laughing softly, and then Byers's shorts were in Jimmy's hand, and both his 
arms were pinned over his head by the other hand.  Jimmy waved the shorts 
in front of his captive's face and grinned.

"You really don't have to--" Byers began, but lost track of what he was 
saying, softly moaning in response to what Jimmy's fingertips were doing to 
his balls.  Or maybe it was Jimmy's lips on his throat that did the trick.

"Does this feel good?" Jimmy whispered.

"Incredibly good."

"What you did to me a little while ago?  Figure that felt ten times better 
than this."

"Oh, god!"

Jimmy slowly moved his mouth down his throat, heading toward his chest.

"Jimmy?" Byers murmured.  "Are you glad I was willing to do this with you?"

"Are you kidding?  I never thought I'd be so lucky!"

"Figure that I feel at least as lucky."

"Really?"

"Really."

Jimmy basked in that reassurance as he continued inching his mouth slowly 
down his hero's exposed body, fully intending to take his own sweet time 
getting to his eventual destination.  He had no idea what time of day it 
was or when checkout time was, but he was willing to risk Krycek getting 
stuck with an extra night on his motel bill.

 *The End*