**

The door buzzed, early on Thursday evening, and Frohike went to get it. He checked the video feed first, and was surprised by what he saw. A young man, not much more than mid-twenties, stood nervously, glancing up at the camera. Maybe five-seven, five-eight, slim, with light brown hair cut short and blow-dried, soft brown eyes, and a stylish suit that didn't quite seem to fit, even though it had clearly been tailored. Frohike grinned and opened the door.

The young man stood there, smiling hesitantly. "Mel, hi… I was in the area, and I took a chance…"

Frohike pounded him on the back. "J. Wayne, how the hell are you? What brings you here?" He grabbed J. Wayne's arm and dragged him inside, closing the door behind him. "Just a second, kid."

J. Wayne watched in fascination as Frohike relocked the door. Frohike heard him counting them under his breath and grinned. "Follow me. The guys'll be glad to meet you." He headed upstairs, giving the visitor barely a chance to look around—not that there was anything to be seen in the gloom of the office areas with all the lights out. "Everybody's upstairs. I'll give you the twopenny tour later. What the hell are you doing out here, J. Wayne?"

"I was in the area," J. Wayne said again, "and you and John both said…"

"Right, right," Frohike laughed. "You're Mr. Spontaneity, aren't you. That's fine, we'll drag it out of you. I can test that homemade truth serum."

"Homemade truth serum?" J. Wayne sounded unnerved.

Frohike snickered. "Okay, no, but I can always let Langly cook you dinner. Take a stronger man than you to withstand that. Why're you really here?" he asked, leading the way to the living area where Langly, Byers, and Jimmy were watching Get Smart. Byers looked relieved at the interruption, and Frohike stifled the smirk.

"Hey, look who's here!" he said cheerfully.

The three of them inspected J. Wayne. Finally, Langly said, "Who?"

"Boys, this is J. Wayne Arthur, the Third. J. Wayne, the guys." He gestured. "Ringo Langly, Jimmy Bond, John Byers."

Byers stood and offered his hand. "This is a surprise. It's nice to finally meet you, Wayne."

Langly leaned forward and offered his own hand, possibly as a ploy to distract J. Wayne from Byers. Frohike managed not to snicker. "Langly. Hi, J. Wayne. What are you doing in town?"

"I was just about to pry that out of him," Frohike said. "Have a seat, kid, and tell us what brings you here."

"A story," J. Wayne said, a little nervously. "One I'm hoping you can help with."

Langly shot him a look. "Did Yves put you up to this?" he demanded suspiciously. He'd quickly taken a serious dislike to the young man.

"Who's Yves?"

Frohike waved it off. "Tell us what you got."

"Well," J. Wayne said, trying to organize his story for maximum persuasion, "It started about three weeks ago. Zev, my editor—"

"Zev Allansu," Frohike put in.

"That prick's involved in this?" Byers put his hand inconspicuously on Langly's arm, silencing him.

"Sort of," J. Wayne offered. "He dropped a story on me, a phone message from a man in Seattle. At first it looked like a routine UFO sighting—"

"Why would that interest Powder Keg?" Langly asked belligerently. "UFO sightings are a dime a dozen."

J. Wayne colored slightly. "Zev and I, uh, we don't work well together. It was a fish file."

"What's a fish file?" Jimmy asked.

"Busy work," Frohike told him. "A story that stinks to high heaven."

"Oh."

"Right. He's been giving me fish files all along," he looked at Frohike, "like the Indiana conference. Mostly tabloid stuff. Possessed microwaves, ghost cars, and UFO sightings. First kind or lower," he clarified. "No trace, no occupants."

Byers made a small sympathetic noise. Langly came close to growling. Frohike tried not to laugh, and J. Wayne edged away a bit.

"But this one was a little different. A Seattle resident named Joe Rickson reported a sighting of a craft over Maury Island," he continued. Frohike took a breath, and Byers blinked. "Yeah, it, uh, rang a bell. I remembered some of the things Pete, you remember Pete Dodden, Mel?" Frohike nodded. "So I remembered some of what he said about that, and I started digging. Then I called Rickson, and he said he wouldn't talk about it. So I asked why he called in the first place, and he swore he didn't. So I dropped it." He shrugged. "And Zev docked me for the long-distance."

Frohike snorted. "Asshole."

"I don't get it," Jimmy began.

Langly interrupted him. "I hate to agree with him, but I don't get it either. If there's nothing there, why are you here?" From his tone, it was fairly obvious where Langly would have preferred J. Wayne.

"About a week later, Rickson called me back, at about three in the morning. At home," he explained.

"You gave him your home number?" Langly was incredulous. "I thought this guy was supposed to be smart," he sneered. Byers' grip on his arm tightened slightly, and he shut up.

"No, I didn't. I really didn't. And it's not listed, so I don't know how he got it," J. Wayne said earnestly. "I asked him, but he was drunk. I mean, really drunk. And he kept talking about what he saw, and it was obvious he did make the first call. But every couple of minutes, he'd say he couldn't talk about it, they told him not to talk about it."

"They," Frohike repeated carefully.

J. Wayne pulled out a Palm Pilot and read from it. "Three men, almost identical. They were all wearing black suits with sunglasses—at night—and, 'really stupid hats'. This is what he told me, remember. They visited him the day after he made the call to 'Powder Keg'. They knew all about his sighting. They didn't ask him about it, they told him about it. He was very clear on that. And they told him about his call, too, and then they told him not to talk about it."

Langly had leaned forward, suddenly interested despite himself. "Maury Island's where…" he said.

Byers nodded. "The first Men In Black."

"Wait," Jimmy started. Frohike cut him off.

"Yeah, like the movie. Sort of."

"They're not exactly the same as in the movie, Jimmy," Byers said. "In the movie, the MIB were supposed to be protecting people from aliens. In the lore, they go around actually threatening people who see things, and telling them not to talk about… it. Whatever it was. They don't turn up in every UFO case," he went on. "Not even in most of them. And the first report of MIB was from Washington State, in the Maury Island case."

Frohike took up the narrative. "A guy named, what was it, Byers?"

"Harold Dahl," J. Wayne said.

"Right. Dahl. He was Coast Guard or something like that,"

"Harbor patrolman," J. Wayne offered.

"Okay, thanks. He said one day he was out near Maury Island, which is in Puget Sound. And he saw six, I think it was," Byers and J. Wayne nodded, "toroidal—" he looked at Jimmy's expression and clarified, "—donut-shaped UFOs. One of them was hovering very close to the water, and spewing pieces of metal, with the other five apparently trying to help. Allegedly a dog was killed by the slag, and a boy's arm was burned."

"The boy was Dahl's son," J. Wayne said. "No one has explained what he was doing out on the boat."

"Take Your Son To A UFO Sighting Day," Langly inserted, snickering.

J. Wayne almost laughed at that. "So Dahl went back and reported this to his supervisor, a man named Fred Lee Crisman."

"Crisman!" Langly snapped his fingers suddenly. "He was at Dealey Plaza."

Byers glanced at him. "Are you sure it was the same man?"

Langly shrugged. "Has to be, right? The Torbitt Document names Fred Lee Crisman as one of the tramps at the railyard. The New Orleans District Attorney subpoenaed him. Called him an anti-Castro fanatic."

Byers cocked his head to one side. "Did he testify?"

"Nope. There were rumors he was a CIA asset."

Frohike sighed. "Everyone was a CIA asset if you listened to the rumors, Langly."

"Garrison said he was," Langly protested.

This silenced them for a few moments. Then Jimmy said, "Who's Garrison?"

"The New Orleans District Attorney who investigated the Kennedy assassination," Frohike explained.

"What about that Warren guy?"

"That was later," Langly said. "Except," he paused, uncertain. "Crisman wasn't harbor patrol. He was a radio host. And a preacher, I think."

Byers shook his head. "It can't be the same man."

"It was the same name." Langly stood up and headed for the nearest computer. "Let's find out."

"The Maury Island Crisman was a Hollow-Earther," J. Wayne observed. "He wrote to Amazing Stories, saying he'd fought Deros."

"Isn't Amazing Stories a movie?" Jimmy was totally lost now.

"Yeah, it was," Frohike said. "But first it was a science fiction magazine. The first science fiction magazine. The publisher was into UFOs. Fortean phenomena." He glanced at Jimmy. "Like, rains of fish, okay?"

Jimmy nodded, shook his head, nodded again, and finally shrugged. "I guess."

"Crisman was part of the Shaver Mystery?" Byers asked J. Wayne.

"After the fact," Frohike said thoughtfully. "He wrote a letter telling Palmer to drop it, it wasn't safe."

"Shaver was a nutbar," Langly put in. "Heard voices, saw aliens, got committed, the whole deal. Everybody was out to get him, he said."

"Yeah, but that sounds—"

Frohike tried to cut Jimmy off. "Don't say it, okay?"

"—like Agent Mulder," Jimmy finished.

Langly snickered, and even Byers had to hide a smile.

"Yeah, okay," Langly said, finally, "But Shaver said his aliens were intraterrestrial robots. And he also said he came up with the Theory of Relativity before Einstein, and invented lasers."

"He didn't say he invented them," J. Wayne corrected him, earning further enmity. "He said the Deros showed them to him."

"Deros," Byers sighed. "I'm not sure we want to start that again. The community barely recovered its credibility the first time around."

"If it's a story, it's a story," Frohike told him firmly.

Langly turned around and fixed J. Wayne with the hairy eyeball. "I haven't heard a story yet, though. All I've heard is a crank call and a bunch of paranoia campfire stories."

"Shut up, Punk-Ass," Frohike snapped. He turned back to J. Wayne. "Bring it home, kid. Where's the meat on this bone?"

J. Wayne took something out of his inside suit pocket and leaned forward to lay it on the table. A stack of photographs. "A couple of days after Rickson called me, I got an email from a Marcus Payter, in Tacoma. He described the same thing Rickson did, and he got pictures."

"Dahl had pictures," Langly said cynically.

"These came out," Byers said, picking them up. "Did he send you the negatives?"

J. Wayne handed him a small envelope. Byers passed it to Frohike. "See what you can do with these? These are good pictures. My initial impression is that they're not going to be easily explained away." He flipped through them and passed them to Frohike.

"Holy cow," he said, eyebrows raised. "These look good, really good."

"You ever see V?" Langly wanted to know.

"The show with the lizard aliens?" Jimmy asked.

"Yeah. They had footage of spacecraft moving, right? That looked pretty good too."

Jimmy yelped and bolted to his feet. "Those lizard guys are real?"

While everyone's heart rate went back to normal, Langly turned around and thumped his head on the desk. "No, Jimmy," came his muffled voice. "That's not what I meant. I was making a point."

"Just not a very clear one," Byers said, trying not to laugh.

"Oh," Jimmy sat down sheepishly.

The computer beeped. Langly glanced up and did a classic double take. "It's the same guy."

They were silent for a moment. Then Frohike said, "Doesn't surprise me."

Byers looked at him. "Doesn't it? It's quite a coincidence."

He shrugged. "I bet if you looked, he'd be Bay of Pigs, too."

Langly shrugged this time. "No bet. He's mentioned in the anonymous1968 OCC 'Bay of Pigs' letter to Garrison. There's a rumor he was Majestic12, too."

"MJ12 is a pile of crap," Frohike said dismissively.

"Mulder believes it," Langly snickered.

"Mulder's paranoid." Nobody bothered to comment on that.

"He was Riconoscuito's father's business partner," Langly offered, still reading.

Byers stared. "Wackenhut-Cabazon?"

"Yeah. That was connected with Reagan, right?"

"And Meese," Frohike observed. "And Wackenhut provides security for Area 51."

"Not to mention the Paperclip technology they were given," Byers added.

"Jesus. It looks like Crisman's into everything." Frohike stood up and walked over to Langly, laying the pictures out beside the keyboard like they were a royal flush.

"Damn, man." He picked up the first one and studied it closely. "These do look good."

Each of the four pictures showed a boomerang craft, in grays and blacks, with blue lights. The pictures were taken at dusk or dawn, evidently one after the other, showing the progression of the object across the sky. In each picture, trees could be seen, and above the craft was a formation of lenticular clouds. The craft was slightly blurry, due to what Langly assumed was the exposure time, while everything else in the frame was sharp. Either the pictures had been snapped several seconds apart, or the object was moving very fast.

Langly looked up. "No trace?"

J. Wayne shook his head. "Not from that."

They all turned to stare at him. "From what?" Frohike asked eventually.

J. Wayne reached into his briefcase and took out an oblong piece of grayish-white metal about the size of a pack of cards. It had irregular edges, looking charred and partially melted in some places. He set it on the table. Frohike reached out to touch it.

"Keep it away from the negatives. It fogs film."

Frohike dropped it and pulled his hand away like he'd been burned. "Radiation?"

"It's not dangerous." J. Wayne shook his head. "I carried it with me from Michigan, remember."

"Oh, that was bright," Langly said caustically. Frohike disappeared through a door for a moment. They heard him rummaging in a drawer, and he returned with an object that looked a lot like a large radio remote control for a toy truck or boat.

He flipped a switch and held it over the metal. It clicked, once, dispiritedly, and fell silent. Frohike checked the dials. "Normal radiation levels. Why does it fog film?"

J. Wayne shook his head again. "No idea."

Byers cleared his throat. "Where did it come from?"

"Payter sent it to me. The guy who took the photos," he clarified. "He sent them separately, about a week ago. He said the metal was from a pile on Maury."

Byers gazed at the metal for a moment. "Hanford. There's a theory that Dahl stumbled across an illegal dumping ground of radioactive waste from Hanford."

"Yeah, Keel's theory," Langly said disparagingly.

Frohike patted his Geiger counter. "This little baby'd be singing." As if in response, it let out another forlorn-sounding click.

"Are you sure that thing still works?" Langly asked.

"Yeah," Frohike snapped. "I test it on your cooking every month."

Jimmy giggled, and Byers held out his hands for peace. "I think we're getting ahead of ourselves here. There was also a mining operation on Maury, still is. In fact, they're looking to expand it, the press release from Deep Impacts just crossed my desk a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't this be from that?"

"It doesn't seem likely," J. Wayne said. "It broke two diamond blades while a friend of mine was trying to get a sample for the NMR. It looks like it's been burned, and torn, and melted, but we couldn't even make a dent in its surface. We still don't really know what it's made of."

There was a silence while they considered that. Then Byers said, "Are you certain it's an artifact?"

J. Wayne shook his head again. "Not certain, no."

"Could it just be anomalous slag?"

J. Wayne shrugged. "It could be six ballerinas on a pink circus pony for all I've been able to find out."

"I think we can rule that out," Byers said with a straight face. "It wouldn't fit on our table."

Langly stood abruptly, clearly irritated. "I need a Jolt." He stalked out the door Frohike had used earlier.

Byers raised an eyebrow at Frohike as J. Wayne cleared his throat. "You keep a Geiger counter in your kitchen?"

Frohike laughed. "Where do you keep yours?"

Byers stood, too, and gestured. "I think we could use some dinner." J. Wayne tried to hide his alarm, and Byers smiled. "Mel's cooking."

"I heard that!" came an outraged complaint from the kitchen.

"Good for you!" Frohike hollered back.

They gathered around the kitchen table, and Frohike started rummaging through cupboards. "Still vegetarian, J. Wayne?"

"Uh, yes."

"We'll find you something."

"Thank you. How is Agent Mulder?"

Mel gave him a fast glance. "He's fine. About the usual." He grinned. "I'm sure he'd like to see you while you're in town."

J. Wayne blushed slightly and Byers and Frohike exchanged amused looks.

Jimmy, who had been working through something for several minutes, spoke up. "I got a question."

Byers steeled himself. "Yes, Jimmy?"

Jimmy looked at J. Wayne. "So are you Jay, or Wayne, or Arthur, or what?"

J. Wayne grimaced. "Just call me Wayne."

Jimmy nodded, obviously still confused. "So you've got, like, three first names."

J. Wayne choked down the "James Bond" joke, everyone saw it in his face.

Byers hid a grin, admiring the young man's restraint. "So what did you need our help with, exactly?"

"I was hoping you could help me find out what's going on."

"That's pretty vague," Langly complained. "You want us to hunt down the Meaning of Life for you, too?"

"The pictures are only part of it," J. Wayne said calmly. "I did some digging. They're seeing at least three types of boomerang-shaped UFOs, or at least light formations, out there. One of the sightings in the daytime was of a 'pie-piece' type of craft. There's also apparently a formation of lights that turns up at night that's been described as outlining an equilateral triangle. And then the boomerang, in the pictures. The reports are very specific. They're not flying saucers."

"Saucers are rare," Frohike said. "The wedge sightings have gotten a lot more common in the last two decades. Since eighty-four, actually."

"Hudson Valley," Byers commented.

"Yeah. We're working on a story… Well. The wedges may be something completely different. Something—worse, maybe."

"Something more foreign to our understanding, in any event," Byers suggested.

J. Wayne nodded. "They're seeing other things out there. Besides the crafts and the MIB. Freak storms, lightning displays without any type of weather that would explain it. Abductions have been reported, and missing time. An investigator for Underground is already out there, and he's seeing somatic effects and irradiated objects, including film. And," he added, a little embarrassed, "cattle mutilations."

Byers thought it over. "That's… very interesting. All of this in Washington State?"

"Nearly all of it in and around the Seattle/Tacoma area." He paused. "You're doing an Eldridge story?"

Frohike grinned. "You've done your homework."

"It is interesting. And I wanted to know if it was worth bothering you with."

Frohike leaned against the counter. "Well, J. Wayne. This looks pretty solid to me. After dinner, we'll check your photos, see what we can do with your negatives. You can tell us exactly what you've done already, so we don't end up duplicating your efforts. Then Langly'll hit the computers, and Byers'll take the trace, and we'll see what we can find out."

"What do I do?" Jimmy asked eagerly.

"Get in the way and ask stupid questions, usually."

"C'mon, guys, I can help."

"You can help me with the metal, Jimmy," Byers said. "I still don't understand, J. Wayne. Why us? Is Powder Keg really going to just ignore this?"

"No, they're not. Zev already sent someone out there."

Byers raised an eyebrow. "Why did you come to us?"

"I, uh, don't work for them anymore."

Frohike blinked. "You quit?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"Personality conflict."

They all waited for a few moments, and then Frohike said, "Spill it, kid."

"He cut several of my stories," J. Wayne admitted.

"Big deal," Langly said.

"That's it?" Byers asked, a little surprised.

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean, that's all he did, really. But… That's not why I quit. Not just because he cut them. He sent me on at least four stories where this happened…"

Frohike sighed. "Just say it, already."

"I'd go out, and find something, something important, and he'd use it, for money."

"How?"

"I uncovered evidence that Pokémon digital watches cause violent impulses in males who take a specific combination of anti-depressants and over-the-counter cold pills. The drug company paid Zev to cover it up."

Langly leaned forward. "You got documentation on this?"

"Yes."

"Solid?"

"Yes. I brought the docs along." He sighed. "Since I seem to be freelancing now."

Frohike grinned. "Came to the right place. We'd love to scoop Powder Keg. You show us what you got, and we'll run with it."

"Thanks, Mel. It's important. But it's only one of the stories he did this on. He'd send me digging up stuff and then shop me. I also uncovered audio tapes of a Lansing hypnotherapist programming his patients to vote republican."

"The therapist paid Zev?" Frohike asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay, so Zev was selling you out. What'd you do?"

"Oh, I uh…" J. Wayne looked embarrassed. "I faked a story. I got a guy I know to go along with me—I did a story like he was a war criminal, okay?"

"He fell for that?" Langly demanded incredulously.

"Zev is not the brightest star in the heavens," Frohike reminded him.

"Well, it had to be something I could control. And something I could disprove, in case it escaped. I didn't want to just start rumors."

Byers nodded. "That's really quite clever."

Langly made another noise that was close to a growl, and J. Wayne edged even father from him. This time Frohike just sighed.

"So Zev tried to blackmail your friend?" he asked.

J. Wayne nodded. "And we got it on tape."

"What'd you do with the tape?"

J. Wayne's face fell. "I took it to the Tech ed, and he treated it like a joke."

Byers made a sympathetic noise, and Langly nearly snarled. "Do you have the tape?" Byers asked.

"Yes."

Frohike grinned in unholy glee. "That's even better than scooping Powder Keg. Boys, let's get Zev canned."

The option seemed attractive even to Langly, who stopped glowering briefly. "That prick deserves it."

"So you quit?" Byers asked.

"Yeah. Obviously I couldn't have kept working under Zev. So, I'm between jobs, and I thought I'd see…"

Langly glared at him. "So we help you get the story, and you use it to get you a job somewhere?"

"Uh, no. Not quite like that. I mean, I… Look, I don't need a new job right away. I mean, obviously getting this story would help me get on with a group, but…" He shrugged. "I'm hoping if it's a good story, you'll print it. If you give me a credit, and if it's a good story, that's only fair, right? Then I can take that with me when I'm interviewing."

Frohike nodded. "Seems fair enough. We get a story, you get a job. Everybody wins."

"Thanks, Mel."

**

The party broke up around two AM, with J. Wayne headed back to his hotel, leaving his cell phone number, his trace and his photos. Frohike's preliminary conclusion was that the photos were legit, and Byers had gotten nowhere with the metal. Langly had spent several hours listing everything Crisman seemed to be connected with, and organizing it into layers according to how directly he was involved, and how reliable the source material was. The chart had shocked even Frohike. Jimmy kept the coffee flowing, and flow it did, like the Mighty Mississip. The line between paranoia and caffeination was often blurred at two in the morning.

"'Night, guys!" Jimmy headed for his room, still wired.

"G'night, boys," Frohike said, yawning.

"See ya in the morning." Langly pulled the door shut and leaned against it, arms across his chest.

Byers hung his jacket neatly on the single wooden hanger in Langly's closet, and turned around. "What?"

Langly shook his head. "Haven't seen you this excited in a long time, John."

Byers nearly grinned. "This could be it, Ri. This one… feels big. The MIB, Arnold, Palmer. JFK, Bay of Pigs. Paperclip, Area 51. God, it all goes back to Crisman. This is—" he stopped, trying not to get carried away. "It could be big."

Langly wandered over and put his arms around Byers. "Big, huh?" he half-whispered. "How big?"

Byers sighed. "Puns again."

"That's plan B. Wanna guess what plan A is?"

Byers leaned into him. "Is it bigger than a breadbox?"

Langly sighed. "You sure know how to give a guy an inferiority complex."

Byers laughed and turned around. "Okay, so is it… animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

"Is this Twenty Questions?"

"Well?"

"Animal. Definitely animal." Langly growled a bit, setting them both laughing.

"Two down," Byers suggested, as Langly played with his tie.

"Is that a guess?"

"No… Just saying." Fingers slipped inside his shirt and he shivered. "Does it involve taking off our clothes?"

"You're good at this," Langly smiled, starting on John's buttons.

"Practice. Does it involve a bed?"

"Only if we get there soon."

Byers chuckled. "How many questions is that?"

"I lost track. I'm getting you a clip-on tie for your birthday."

John brushed his hands away and undid the knot on his own. "Stop being so impatient. I've got another sixteen questions."

Langly sighed melodramatically. "Okay."

"How many people does it take?"

"Foul ball."

Byers laughed. "Just trying to narrow it down."

"This is taking forever. Let's play Truth-or-Dare instead."

Langly was undoing his belt, fingers lingering too long—not long enough—stealing his concentration, but he rallied. "No way. I remember last time."

"So do I," Langly grinned.

"Does it involve… tongues?"

"Mm," Langly said hungrily. "God, I hope so."

"Is it hot?" he asked, as Langly slid down his body, taking his trousers with him to the floor.

"Very."

"And wet?"

Langly leaned in and scrubbed his stubble lightly across John's belly. "Oh yeah."

"And does it—"

Langly looked up, annoyed. "Johnny. Right now, at this minute, of all the possible things that I could be doing with my mouth, are you sure that you want me to answer questions?"

Byers leaned against the wall, laughing a little. "Are you calling a time out?"

"No. I'm hoping you'll forfeit."

"But I'm so close to getting it."

"So'm'I."

"This could be a lot bigger than we think," Byers said thoughtfully.

"It is," Langly informed him.

"No… The story. Wackenhut is into everything."

"Focus, John."

"I am. Do you remember the rumor about Wackenhut and Vince Foster?"

Langly sighed. "Not at this precise minute, no. Are you gonna keep this up? Should Fro and I fix you up with Mulder? You two can take your clothes off and argue the finer points of conspiracy theory all night."

Byers laughed. "Sorry."

"You should be. Focus, okay?"

"Mmm. Oh, wow."

Langly stopped and stared up at him. "'Oh, wow'?"

"Ohhhh yeah. Wow."

"What the hell has gotten into you, John?"

"Nothing, yet."

Langly slumped to the floor, laughing helplessly. "I give up."

John sighed and joined him. "Sorry," he chuckled.

Langly shook his head, too far gone for words.

John put his arms around him, grinning. "You don't usually give up this easily, though."

Langly rested his head against John's chest, gasping for breath. "You're… not usually… this weird."

Byers glanced down and realized there was an ear conveniently within reach. "Sorry. It's just this story… It could be everything." He ran his tongue over the outside of Langly's ear. "Almost everything," he amended as Langly leaned into him. "Or not." Langly's hand moved across to one nipple. "In fact," John shuddered, "really very little. Oh, God."

"You think you can focus now?"

"Oh, God."

"Is that a yes?"

"Oh, God," he moaned again as Langly's hands did things to him that could have been their own X-File. When Langly pulled them away, he was ready to commit homicide. "Ri!"

"I didn't hear a yes."

"Yes, whatever, anything, God, yes, okay?"

Langly laughed. "That was coherent."

"I really hate you sometimes."

"C'mon," Langly said, helping him to his feet. "If we do this here, you're gonna bitch about bruised knees again."

Byers flopped bonelessly on the bed. "Take your clothes off," he said softly.

Langly grinned. "You want a show, Johnny?"

The older man propped his head on one hand, eyes bright. "Mmm. Let's see what you've got."

"You've forgotten already?" Langly sulked.

"Knock it off. You're not Mulder, and The Pout doesn't work on me."

Langly played with the hem of his t-shirt. "It was a sulk. And it sure as hell does work on you."

"You're stalling," Byers accused.

"Some music might help." Langly grinned and went over to the stereo. Seconds later…

"It landed in a field in Idaho
Where it came from, I don't know
It did not look like it came from Japan
And out of the dark walked a strange man…"

Byers sighed. "'Zero Zero UFO'. I should have expected that."

Langly laughed. "You've been listening to my Ramones CDs?"

"Ri, when you listen to your Ramones CDs, people across town hear them."

Langly snapped his fingers. "Mood lighting." He plugged in his lava lamp, while Byers sighed in resignation.

"This had better be some show, Ringo."

Langly turned out the overhead light. "I gotta get a mirrored ball in here. Or a blacklight or something."

Byers stood up. "That's it. I'm going to my room, where it's sane."

Langly pushed him back on the bed, hands everywhere, and started singing against various bits of John's anatomy. "'You may be right/ I may be crazy/ But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for—'"

Byers pulled a pillow over his head. "Can you try to be insane to one song at a time, please?" he said plaintively.

"Okay. I can do that." Langly pulled the pillow off his face and began to slip his t-shirt up, a little at a time, giving John glimpses of lean flesh. "'A million miles from the Milky Way/ A hundred years, a month and a day/ Zero Zero UFO… Zero Zero UFO…'"

Langly twisted around to the beat and showed off a little shoulder, immediately flipping his hair over it and turning around to run his tongue along his own finger at John, who was reduced to helpless laugher.

Langly managed to wriggle half out of his shirt even with—Byers was almost positive—both hands on John. The lighting wasn't really conducive to close observation. And neither was John's less-than-dispassionate state.

He half-stood as the song started over again, and flipped his shirt over his head. With one hand, he pulled it off and blew John a kiss as he draped the shirt over him. He toed off a shoe and scooped it up, singing into it like a microphone. "'Zero Zero… UFO…'" The other shoe followed, smacking against a wall. "'Spaceship travels at the speed of light…'" One sock at a time, stuffed down the front of John's trousers with a casual grope. And then the tight jeans, good God. Byers watched as closely as he could, dying to see how the younger man would get out of them. Langly kept dancing, wiggling his ass at John, and turning around to undo his fly, one agonizing button at a time, revealing only bare skin. John wasn't laughing all that much anymore, and Langly was clearly enjoying it. "'Zero Zero… UFO…'"

Byers grinned and joined in. "'Out of the dark walked a strange man…'"

Langly laughed and slid a hand inside his own jeans, stroking himself as he started to shake the jeans off. Byers rolled over for a better view. Langly half-leaned against the wall and peeled himself slowly out of the jeans.

"Oh, wow," John breathed.

"You said it, baby."

"Ri… Come over here."

"What's the magic word?"

"Hard."

Langly blinked. "That'll do." He stepped out of his jeans and took the half-dozen steps to the bed at a pace that had John's heart in his throat.

"Jesus. Get over here. Please."

"Now who's impatient?" Langly chuckled.

"You're the one who wanted to play Truth-or-Dare."

"Truth or Dare, Johnny." The rasp in his voice went straight down John's spine, and he'd abruptly had enough of the games.

"Ringo. Please."

"Are you forfeiting?"

Byers was close to screaming in frustration. "Ringo, if you don't put your hands on me right now—"

Oh, and there they were, burning his flesh wherever they touched him—and they touched him everywhere. He was desperate, aching for it, aching with it. Even getting what he wanted, needed, didn't do anything to soothe him. Then Langly's mouth was on him, and holy heaven, there was never anything like this.

"Fuck, Johnny, I love it when you make those noises," Langly hissed into the hollow of his hip.

John moaned incoherently… Langly's teeth grazing the skin over his ribs… long fingers in his ass… constant mutters of encouragement… By the time Langly finally buried himself in John's heat, John was reduced to desperate whimpers. The tease had affected Langly too. He gave John barely a moment to adjust to the sensations and then he was thrusting, hard and deep.

Byers had just enough presence of mind to bury his face in the pillows to partly muffle his shout when he came. And to almost entirely muffle the sound of Frohike, next door, who chose to highlight the moment in his own special way:

"Nine-point-four from the American judge!"

Langly finally pulled away, resting his head on John's shoulder. "Asshole," he managed, laughing.

Byers winced. "My room next time. My room, Ri."

"You think Jimmy can't hear you?" Langly asked, staggering to his feet and yanking a blanket around his waist.

"At least he doesn't offer commentary," Byers said grimly, as Langly headed into the hallway.

Langly opened the door and glared in at Frohike lying in bed, obviously enjoying the free entertainment. "Listen, Elf, I don't care if you want to listen—"

"The way that boy is, I'd have to be deaf not to—" inserted Frohike tartly.

"—but keep it to yourself, or I'm showing Mulder your diary, got it?"

Frohike didn't stop laughing. "Just remember to turn the music off before you fall asleep this time, okay?"

Langly turned pink. "It was one time, okay?"

"Yeah, I know. He wore you out. That's no excuse for three hours of Plastic Bertrand!"

Langly grinned at a sudden thought. "If we're keeping you awake, we can take it downstairs."

"I booby-trapped my desk."

"You're just jealous." He headed back to his room and found it empty. "Damn." He left the CD on, and made a rude gesture at the wall he shared with Frohike, before going on to John's room. He opened the door and caught a wet washcloth right in the face. He spat it out, laughing. "That's a helluva greeting, John."

Byers snickered. "I thought I'd pre-empt any witticisms on your part."

Langly grinned and sprawled lazily onto the bed beside his lover. "Just havin' some fun."

"You left the music on, didn't you."

Langly rolled over and nuzzled the beard. "He was asking for it."

Byers sighed and reached up to stroke the blond hair. "You really are a bad influence on me, you know that?"

"Somebody has to be," Langly said happily. "Next time, you get to strip."

"Not to the Ramones, I don't."

"You pick the music."

"I like Woody Guthrie. 'This land is your land'," Byers sang softly, nearly giggling. "'This land is my land…'"

"Appropriate, but no thanks. 'Woodgrain'? Modest Mouse?"

"I don't know that one. 'Hard, Ain't it Hard'?"

Langly broke up. "Oh, man. Scruffy the Cat. 'Tiger Tiger'."

"I don't know that one, either. How about Gilbert and Sullivan? 'When I sally forth to seek my prey/ I help myself in a royal way/ I sink a few more ships, it's true/ than a well-bred monarch ought to do…'"

"What's that?"

John kept singing. "'And it is, it is, a glorious thing/ to be a Pirate King.'"

Langly snickered. "'Three little maids from school are we/ Pert—'" Which was as far as he got before a pillow ended up in his face.

"You promised not to mention that again," John sulked.

"Sorry," Langly nudged him aside and laid claim to more than his share of the blankets. "Couldn't resist."

"Try harder," Byers advised him. "What was that one you were singing the other day?"

"Which one?"

"The one Jimmy was singing along with."

Langly grinned. "'27 Things I Wanna Do To You'? That's Screeching Weasel."

"Screeching Weasel," Byers repeated. "Sounds charming."

"You have no idea."

Byers considered it. "I can think of twenty-seven things."

"Sicko."

"Hey, you just did three of them."

"Only three? That must be some list."

"Number eighteen involves painting you with raspberry jelly and making you into my own personal peanut butter sandwich."

"Oh, man. What's number nineteen?"

"I'm too tired to even explain number nineteen."

Langly swallowed. "Oh, wow."

"You said it, baby."