We Come in Peace (the Take Me to Your Leader remix)
a BtVS/X-Files crossover by auberus
rated R for mature language and situations (including slash).

Part I. Vampires, Assassins, and Aliens - Oh, My!

Alex moves cautiously down the alleyway, no longer bothering with the charade of keeping his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, his head slightly down. There's no one here he needs to look harmless for. If he's lucky, the shapeshifter ten feet in front of him won't even know he's there until it's dying. The shifters are unbelievably strong, with speed to match, but they're not too bright -- and not very observant.

Apparently Alex is not terribly observant either, because something steps out of the shadows less than two feet in front of the shifter, something that neither Alex nor his prey had known was there.

Whatever it is looks human enough - except for its face. There is nothing at all human about a ridged forehead, yellow eyes, and a mouth full of fangs, despite the black jeans and leather duster the thing is wearing. It seems to have materialized out of the shadows behind it, despite the shine of its slicked-back platinum-bleached hair in the dim light.

It - no, Alex amends, he - because whatever this thing may be, it'sclearlymale - he stops, blocking the shifter's way. There is a gleaming, predatory expression on his face, and the smile curling at one corner of his mouth would be enough to make Alex take a half-step back, even without the fangs.

The alien stops, pulled aside from whatever the fuck it was doing by the obvious danger in front of it.

" 'Scuse me," the thing says, in a lower-class British accent that's as incongruous as he is: "I'll just be eating you now." The words match his smile - and his teeth - and Alex pulls his gun from its holster. The alien doesn't move.

"Dumb as a post, I see," the whatever-he-is continues. "Well, no matter." He reaches out an arm with unnatural speed and grabs the shifter by the back of the head, even as he lunges for its throat and sinks his fangs into its neck. The next second, he pushes the shifter away with enough force that the thing actually staggers. He wipes at his mouth with the back of one hand, swearing and spitting toxic green ichor.

"Ow! Bloody hell!" He spits again, then raises his head to stare suspiciously at the alien.

But he isn't dying, isn't clawing at his eyes, and he's gotten a whole mouthful of the alien's blood. He's even swallowed some of it, from what Alex can see.

"What the-" he begins.

The alien cuts him off, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him up against the brick wall of the alley. Instead of widening in fear, though, the yellow eyes narrow with fury and he lashes out with his fists, growling curses through the stranglehold on his neck.

Alex takes advantages of the alien's distraction and moves, plunging the ice pick into the kill spot at the base of the thing's neck. It freezes and falls, dissolving even as it hits the ground. The thing it was holding falls too, but he lands neatly on his feet, staring at the dissolving alien with a combination of disgust and fascination.

"What the bloody hell was that?" he demands, his expression a combination of curiosity and disappointed disgust.

"Alien," Alex tells him, tightening his grip on both the ice pick and the gun in his other hand. "What the hell are you?"

"Vampire," he says matter-of-factly.

"Vampire, huh," Alex says. He doesn't really believe the guy, despite the eyes and fangs. Mutants and government projects are one thing; vampires are another. "Mulder'd love it."

"Who's Mulder? Who are you? And what the bleeding hell is an alien doing in my alley!" He's obviously frustrated; his voice rises to a near-shout as he finishes the last sentence.

"Trying to take over the world," Alex tells him, answering the most important question first. If this guy's got an immunity to the aliens' blood, Alex can use him, and that sentence is always a good hook. "I'm Krycek. And Mulder's... a long story."

The whatever-he-is looks briefly down at the mess on the pavement, then back up at Alex, inhuman eyes considering, weighing. Alex starts to bring the gun up at the expression on his face. Then it passes, slides from threat and hunger into a different sort of consideration.

"So, what would that mean, aliens taking over the world?" He says it casually, like a man asking what rain would do to someone's weekend plans, but Alex can see the interest in his face.

"It would mean everybody like that," Alex tells him seriously, gesturing at the rapidly disappearing green puddle with one foot. "The few humans left would be rounded up and enslaved."

"Everybody like them? They don't taste very good."

Alex is fairly sure that that's an understatement.

"No sense of humor, either," he says, and receives a terrifying, fanged grin in response that changes to a frown as the yellow eyes stare down at the remains of the alien.

"Any chance of stopping them?" he asks medatatively.

Alex smiles. "I'm working on it."

Another smile, and the man's face shifts, fangs disappearing as the ridges in his forehead slide into pale, flawless skin; a human mask drawn smoothly over the monster beneath, the disguise impenetrable. His new face is younger than Alex's own and breathtakingly handsome, with a sensual mouth and cheekbones as sharp as the knives Alex always carries.

Only his eyes give him away. They may be blue now, but there is something cold and dark and razor-edged beneath the surface warmth that shivers Alex's skin with recognition and warning. He steps across the remnants of the alien, and puts a hand on Alex's arm.

"Why don't you buy me a drink and tell me all about it," he says smoothly. Then, after a minute: "Got another one of those ice pick things?"

Alex can't keep the smile off his own face.

"I can get you one."

"Good." The satisfaction in the man's voice is palpable. "I'm Spike, by the way."

"Alex."

"Nice to meet you." He sounds completely sincere.

Spike pulls Alex into the first bar they come to, pushing his way through the crowd to claim a corner table. He starts to put his back to the wall, then stops, looks narrow-eyed at Alex and takes the other seat, sliding into it with deadly, arrogant grace.

Alex sits down across from him and looks him over. He's younger than he seemed back in the alley; younger than Alex, certainly. The only flaw on his pale, angular face is the scar slicing through his left eyebrow, and it changes him from a punk into something much more dangerous, even if Alex didn't know what that face hides.

Spike signals the waitress, and watches her walk off with their order, eyes intent, before turning his attention back to Alex.

"Sorry, mate. 'M starting to get a bit peckish." He rubs one black-nailed hand over his stomach, frowning slightly. "Those aliens of yours don't go down so well."

"Were you really trying to eat him?" Alex asks, and receives a Look in return.

"To borrow a local phrase, duh." Spike tilts his head to the side. "Well, to drink his blood, at any rate. Thought he was human."

"You're really a vampire," Alex says. He can hear the skepticism in his voice, and so can Spike, who chuckles; a low, dark sound that raises the hair on the back of Alex's neck even as it causes the first flutterings of desire deep in his stomach. The dichotomy is erotic enough to disturb even Alex.

"I really am." Spike slides one hand across the table palm up, his blue eyes gleaming with amusement. "Check my pulse."

Alex puts two fingers over the vein in Spike's wrist and waits for a heartbeat. And waits. Spike's veins remain silent, and even in the heat of a California summer, his skin is cool and dry under Alex's fingers.

Alex's eyes widen involuntarily, and the vampire - the vampire - smirks.

"We can do the whole mirror bit later," he says. Alex tries to repress a shiver at the darkly amused tone of the vampire's voice. He's not certain if his reaction is from fear or lust.

Belatedly, he realizes that his hand is still on Spike's wrist, and he pulls it away. As he does so, Spike lifts his own fingers slightly, letting the tips of them trace over the delicate skin of Alex's palm in a near-caress, curling them just enough to catch Alex's hand for a moment. The lingering coldness in the vampire's blue eyes has been replaced by a smouldering heat that causes Alex's heart to beat fast enough for both of them.

"What about sunlight?" Alex asks, keeping his voice even with some effort. It's a near-desperate attempt to distract himself, but he realizes once he speaks that he's nearly as full of questions as Mulder would be. "And crosses?"

Spike grimaces, but the intensity of his gaze does not lessen. "Those I prefer to avoid."

"You can't move around in the day at all?" Hauling a corpse around all day will prove a serious liability.

"Didn't say that, pet. Just have to stay out of direct sunlight is all, if you don't want to see me go up in flames." He smirks again. "I've even got a car. Painted the windows black and she drives as sweet as you please, though there is the occasional fatality."

Alex is certain that the last sentence is an understatement. He's also certain that most of the fatalities Spike is involved with have nothing to do with his car.

"What else?" he asks.

"Holy water, decapitation, an' wooden stakes," Spike shrugs. "We're none too fond of fire, either. An' once, there was this organ - but don't get me started on that one."

"How old are you?" Alex asks. He's betting Spike is somewhere in the neighborhood of forty or fifty, the vintage punk look a carryover from mortal life, so the answer is surprising.

"A hundred and twenty," the vampire says, "or thereabouts."

Alex does a quick calculation in his head.

"You were born in 1878?"

"1854. Turned in 1880." He doesn't elaborate, and after a second, tilts his head to the side and fixes Alex with a piercing stare. "What about you, Krycek? What's the story on these aliens of yours?" The sheer intensity of his regard is unsettling, arousing, and vaguely flattering.

"It's a long one," Alex warns him, surprised and

"'S not like I'm gonna die of old age, is it?"

"Sir?"

The hand holding the cigarette comes down; one finger taps the ashes free of the ember at its tip.

"Yes?" The word is exhaled dryly on a curl of smoke. Cold eyes fix on the man at his door.

"You asked us to keep an eye out for Alex Krycek - to tell you if he showed up anywhere. Two days ago, he was caught by a surveillance camera in a bar in Dallas."

"Krycek is here, in the back corner. As you can see, he is not alone."

One nicotine stained finger tapped the screen, where a platinum-haired man in a leather duster could be seen sitting opposite Alex Krycek. The blond was talking animatedly, gesturing with both hands as he spoke, the cigarette in his left scattering ash across the table.

"We have yet to identify his companion. None of our domestic law enforcement or intelligence agencies have any real information on him; neither does Interpol. There are...sightings, however." He placed a file on the desk, opening it with the careful precision that always attended his movements.

"In 1997, Czech authorities had to disperse a mob that formed in Prague and attacked two foreigners. One was a man fitting our new friend's description; the other was a woman with long dark hair. The reports stated that the two were suspected of more than 50 murders between them, all occuring within a six month period. In 1995, a man fitting his description was listed as a suspect in twenty two homicides in New Orleans. In 1992, his description was circulated in connection with eighteen unsolved homicides along the I-95 corridor from Miami to Richmond. In 1986, he and a dark-haired woman were being sought for questioning by the authorities in Vienna regarding a massacre in a hotel that left thirty-three people dead, and two severely wounded. In 1983 --"

"Just how far back does this man's apparent crime spree go?" one of the other men at the table interrupted.

"1978. Fourteen dead bodies in Whitechapel, and ten more in the Hyde Park area." A pause, as the speaker took a deep drag from his cigarette. "Nearly sixty percent of all of the victims suffered massive neck trauma and exsanguinated, without nearly enough blood being found at the scene."

The other man snorted. "Are you suggesting that that man-" He gestured toward the screen, where Krycek's companion had just lit another cigarette, and was apparently using it to emphasize a particular point - "is some kind of vampire? This sounds like something Agent Mulder would be interested in. It's nonsense."

The first speaker started to respond, then closed his mouth around the unspoken retort. Pointing the increasingly-obstructive Agent Mulder at Alex Krycek was the equivalent of personally delivering an ICBM, and adding a vampire into the mix would only increase Mulder's eagerness to track Krycek down. A vampire - especially one as obviously dangerous as Alex's new friend was - was far too dangerous an ally for an enemy to have.

The other alternative was to contact Maggie Walsh, but the Initiative was still in its initial phases and might not yet be equipped to handle a situation of this magnitiude. That course of action would also necessitate revealing the Initiative to his colleagues, and he preferred to keep his secrets to himself. No, best to set Mulder onto the Alex like a bloodhound onto the scent - and to keep this, too, close to the vest.

Author's Notes: The first part of this story is a remix of Cody Nelson's brilliant fic Take Me to Your Leader. Cody is one of the original pillars of the X-Files fandom, and I first read that story when X-Files fic was the only fic I read. (Cody is, by the way, still one of my favourite authors in fandom.) It lingered. Later, when I started reading BtVS fic, it came roaring back with this attatched to it.

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