Title: Acranon Part 1 (was Fortune Cookie of Death)
Author/pseudonym: Drovar
Email address: drovar@mediaone.net
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: XF
Pairings: Spender/Pendrell
Date: 9/9/98
Other website/archive: The Ferret Cage
URL: http://parkers-place.net/ferretcage/
Summary: An answer to Carl Stoneburner's Fortune Cookie challenge on X/Story
Category: was Slash/humor-action. Now?  Slash-action-x-file (Mythos AU)
Warnings: Only if you don't like ferrets & lab-mice

Disclaimers: They're mine dammit, well not really, but it'd be awfully nice. Still 
standard disclaimers apply.  I'm not trying to steal these characters from their 
rightful owners.  (I wonder how much of a bribe it would take though?)

Notes: Another Spender/Pendrell story, it was meant to be a quick answer to a funny 
idea. It has become entirely something else. Thanks to Elizabeth for a slash-writer's 
public beta, her rock solid word-sense was very helpful.  Still any shortcomings are 
mine alone. Features Jeffrey Spender SUPERagent. This started out as humorous 
action caper featuring ferret & labmouse, only to veer off into a deadly serious game 
of pursuit.  It also landed with a resounding plop into the Mythos universe.  So here 
it is my first ever Mythos story.  I've tried to fill in some back-story about the Cadre 
but I've had to leave much unsaid.  Thanks to Carol Stoneburner for the original 
inspiration, even if this is totally not what she had in mind.

-----

Jeffrey Spender enjoyed the thrill of the chase; even if it was just trying to snag an 
errant snow pea with a chopstick.  He cornered the tiny vegetable next to the remains 
of his Sweet & Sour chicken and speared it.  Quickly downing the morsel, he 
grabbed a fortune cookie and looked across the table at his dinner partner, while he 
unwrapped the confection.

Sean Pendrell was eagerly mopping up bits of his dinner with the sloppy remains of 
an egg roll. He popped the soy sauce soaked mess into his mouth and chewed 
happily.  He caught Spender's eye across the table, gave him a sated grin, smiling 
happily, without ego, or guile and raised the last dregs of his tea in a mock toast.

Spender grinned back. He popped a piece of his cookie into his mouth and munched 
as he unfurled his fortune.  He smiled ruefully at the cellophane bag sitting at 
Pendrell's elbow. Pendrell had insisted, at length, on taking a bag home.  Spender 
hefted the bag regarding the bland brown cookies doubtfully. He couldn't imagine 
Pendrell actually liking the nearly tasteless things. 

He was about to ask Pendrell exactly why he wanted them when the red-haired agent 
popped his entire cookie into his mouth.  Spender watched with amusement, then 
growing interest as Pendrell rolled it around making luscious sounds as he mouthed 
the large cookie, turning it over and over with his tongue while staring straight across 
the table into Spender's widening eyes.

Spender felt that familiar warmth and sudden tightness of arousal he felt whenever 
Sean got 'playful'. The man could be damned embarrassing.   Spender didn't want 
deal with this right now. Not here in the restaurant, sparsely populated with late night 
browsers, dawdling over menus and lingering over lukewarm coffees, as it was. But 
when Sean got into full 'slut-mode' he could be incorrigible.

Spender took a quick look to see if anyone had seen Pendrell's embarrassing antics.  
No one seemed to notice or care what they were doing.  A desultory gaggle of high-
school kids occupied a booth along the restaurant's long main wall.  A shabby, 
stringy-haired man of indeterminate age sat in the nearest booth.  Spender noted that 
he was locked in an intense whispered conversation on his cellular phone. 

Spender felt vulnerable without his cell-phone or gun.  Sean had demanded that they 
be left in the rental car. Vacations were vacations, he had insisted, not the place for 
guns or phones. Spender had reluctantly left both behind.

Pendrell cracked the cookie in his teeth and grinned as he reached up and slowly 
pulled the small strip of paper out, tugging at it gently with his lips as it slid between 
them.  He pulled the damp paper completely out and turned it over to read.

"What does yours say Jeff?

Spender started.  He'd been concentrating on calming his upstart libido and had 
forgotten the fortune cookie's paper prognostication.  He dropped the bag of cookies 
into his lap and oriented the slip of paper so he could read it.  Instead of some inane 
generalization about travel, love or career it had a small single word message.

Duck!

Quack, was his immediate thought.  

Duck? What did that mean? 

He looked up at his dinner partner, intending to ask him about his fortune.  Pendrell's 
eyes were cast over Spender's shoulder, his expression rapidly changing from 
confusion to fearful surprise.  Spender heard the soft scuff of a chair on carpet . . . 
someone standing . . . a metallic click.

Spender reacted, dodging forward into an open space to his right, dragging Pendrell 
with him and pulling the table up behind them.  The shooter's first bullet went high, 
shattering the restaurant's large front window. People began to scream and run, 
moving away from the gunman, thankfully.

Spender could see the stringy-haired assassin approaching the overturned table, gun 
pointed forward. They were trapped in an alcove, next to the coffee pot island. 
Luckily the table was large and gave them some cover from the attacker. Spender 
cursed at the thought of both their guns and phones locked securely in the trunk of 
the car. He'd have to do this the hard way. The man advanced closer, foolishly at 
ease, already counting his bounty. Spender could see Pendrell moving around 
awkwardly in the back of the alcove, the unexpected tumble had apparently stunned 
him.

Spender reached up and grasped a coffeepot handle; taking care to stay shielded from 
the gunman's sight. It wasn't much of a weapon, not against an armed, trained 
assassin, but it would have to do.  

Another step, just one more, he thought.

The shooter thoughtfully dipped the barrel of his gun downward as he grabbed the 
edge of the table and pulled.  Spender leaped up, slamming his foot into the table, 
bringing it down hard onto the man's shin. He was satisfied by the shooter's scream, 
and the meaty scrape of skin and tendon giving way beneath the table's hard edge. 
Spender applied his weight to the table as it gouged deeply into the man's shin. He 
slammed his right hand into the gun forcing it upward and sending the next bullet 
into the ceiling.

The gunman tried to pull away, cursing, his greater weight was beginning to pull 
Spender off balance.  Spender kicked forward, the broad base of his shoe slamming 
into the man's wounded leg.  The shooter screamed again and fought to bring the 
gun down to Spender's level. He screamed once more before Spender brought the 
steaming pot of coffee slamming into his temple. The assassin finally crumbled into 
a bloody steaming heap.  Spender grabbed the assassin's gun and turned to check on 
Pendrell. 

"Sean?" Spender pushed the tumbled chairs away and knelt down.  His knee 
crunched down on another fortune cookie as he checked Sean for injury.  No 
spreading bloodstains or broken bones from what he could see, just knocked silly 
during the tumble.  Pendrell groaned slightly as he sat up, rubbing a sizable lump on 
his forehead.

"Jeff, what happened?"

"I'm not sure." Spender answered, as he looked back, making sure the gunman was 
still out, and checking the gun's clip.  Four shot's left, not much, but it was better 
than nothing.  Maybe they'd gotten lucky and the moron was acting alone.

"Cadre assassins, maybe," he said.

"Cadre, here?" Pendrell's face flushed with a mixture of anger and anxiety.

"Yeah, maybe" Spender replied, thinking of the precognizant fortune cookie.
Things always get a little weird when those guys are around."

He helped the shaky Pendrell to his feet and brushed the crushed cookie crumbs from 
his knee. Pendrell still clutched the bag of fortune cookies that had somehow 
survived the ordeal.  Spender picked an errant fortune off his knee and was about to 
crumble the miscreant up and toss it when the words caught his eye. He steadied 
Pendrell against his side, momentarily enjoying the contact of solid flesh, and took a 
closer look.


Four approaching
Leave kitchen

"Aw shit," he spat. He took a quick look out the broken window; a dark van was just 
turning into the parking lot. He started herding the only slightly mobile Pendrell 
toward the kitchen doors.

"Come on Sean, we've got to move." Pendrell's movements seemed heavy and 
lethargic, as if he were carrying some great weight on his back. Spender wondered if 
that bump on the head might be more serious than it looked. However, there was no 
time to think about that, not with a truckload of Cadre goons hauling ass in their 
direction.

Spender pushed the burnished kitchen doors open and dragged Pendrell inside.  He 
could hear the thudding tread of the hired Cadre guns as they funneled into the 
restaurant. He only hoped the patrons had made their escape while they could. 
Chances were that the assassins wouldn't shoot bystanders if they could avoid it.  He 
and Pendrell were the targets. Best to lead the killers away and just maybe find some 
way to avoid ending up dead.

Spender quickly surveyed the kitchen.  Typical restaurant conditions, not so clean, 
not dirty enough to make you sick.  More importantly there were no Cadre assassins 
and no civilians. There was a phone mounted to the back wall. Spender fought down 
an urge to leap at the phone, screaming for rescue.  He could hear the gunmen 
quickly making their way through the restaurant, toward the kitchen.  Trapped, 
boxed in, they'd be dead before he got a call out.

'C'mon Sean," he whispered.  You've got to help me here."

Pendrell's only answer was to moan softly and lean against Spender, his voice rising 
briefly above an inarticulate mumble. Spender searched the back of the kitchen 
franticly, looking for an escape, even an option.  A small alcove behind a group of 
tall bread racks held a water fountain, restrooms and an employee lounge.

"Can't go, need . . . want sleep."

"Not now, Sean!" Spender hissed.  He was trying to instill some sense of the peril 
they were in without raising his voice above a few sparse decibels.

"We've got to get out of here."

Spender felt Pendrell's weight sinking toward the floor. He'd become progressively 
more lifeless as the last precious moments slipped away.  Outside he could hear that 
the assassins had grown silent.  Spender knew he and Pendrell had only moments of 
life before the Cadre assassins flooded the kitchen with gunfire. 

He could hear the careless mumbling of the hired guns as they argued over killing 
rights, just outside the kitchen door. He felt Pendrell's hand on his thigh.  A quick, 
effervescent thrill shook him. Even after all this time, Pendrell's touch never failed to 
arouse him, even facing death or worse. 

Pendrell was holding up a fortune from one of the cookies in his bag.  Spender was 
surprised to see that Pendrell still held the cellophane package clasped tightly to his 
chest. Spender grabbed the paper.


Backdoor Lounge
Alleyway right

Spender grabbed Pendrell under the arms and began dragging him toward the lounge.  
He could see that Pendrell had slipped into unconsciousness, as if producing the 
fortune had consumed the very last of his energy. He reached the door as the Cadre 
assassins burst into the kitchen, guns firing.

He pushed into the lounge as bullets filled the small alcove.  He felt chips shattering 
off the old painted cinder blocks as the bullets rained in.  He felt slicing pain as one 
chip cut across his face opening his right cheek in a slurry of blood.  Spender fought 
down the pain and forced the door open only to scream as he felt something slam 
into his right shoulder. His gun flew from his numbed fingers and clattered onto the 
alcove floor.

He caught a glimpse of the exit door as the force of the shot spun him around, 
breaking his grip on Pendrell, and spilling them both to the floor. The lounge door 
swung slowly closed as cadre gunfire continued to flood the alcove.  The assassins 
couldn't see that they had almost accomplished their mission. 

Seconds Jeff, keep your act together for just two more fucking seconds, he scolded 
himself.  The lounge door loomed ahead of him, swimming wildly in a lake of 
flowing pink. He could just make out a locking-latch on the door. God, he hurt.

I'm . . . we're bleeding.

He crawled over Pendrell's bloody body.  He didn't have time to check whose blood 
it was.  He threw the latch closed, locked it, and grabbed Pendrell, as best he could, 
under the arms again. He began to scoot, half on one knee, half on his ass, toward the 
exit door.

He finally reached the door as the gunfire subsided.  Spender pushed ineffectually on 
the latch, trying to force the door open. He was losing both blood and strength, 
rapidly.  He slammed his left forearm against the latch, and felt it budge.  A second 
slam forced the latch and the two men tumbled over into the dark alleyway.

Through the mist of his own blood he could see a pair of dumpsters and huge piles of 
pallets filling the alley, effectively hiding the exit door.  Spender grabbed Pendrell 
and pulled.  He felt Pendrell's, seemingly lifeless body slide a few inches.  He pulled 
again and felt a torrent of relief as Pendrell moaned slightly when an open cut on his 
arm scraped against the doorframe.

"We aren't going down like this, Sean," Spender whispered to Pendrell as he leaned 
forward and rocked back, gaining a few precious inches. "Not like this, not now. Not 
after all the shit we've been through."

Thoughts of his mother, lost in the fight, along with nearly all Scully's and Mulder's 
families, momentarily overwhelmed him. The cadre, fucking mind assassins, had run 
them down, one by one.  They were caught as they went about their lives, unaware 
that death was stalking very close. 

He scooted back and was pulling Pendrell's feet free of the doorway when a cadre 
gunman kicked the inner lounge door open.  Spender yanked and allowed himself 
just a second of hope as Pendrell's feet finally came clear and the door began to 
swing shut.

Spender pulled again, feeling the first shards of pain in his numb shoulder, and 
dragged Pendrell along as he staggered to a crouch. Bullets ricocheted off the door as 
Spender scrambled away as fast as possible.  He veered to the right side of the door, 
dragging the unresponsive Pendrell, remembering the fortune's cryptic instructions.

The back door to the restaurant slammed open and disgorged a tangle of angry, 
black-clad bodies into the night.  Spender felt a moment of vertigo, as the Cadre 
gunmen raised their weapons to fire.  He thought that here at the last a blood-drained 
faint would spare him the final agony of death.  Then they were falling.

The dim square of starlit night shrank away as Spender felt the nothingness of the 
fall.  Time seemed to expand as they fell, stretching out in long taut threads.  There 
was one brief moment of pain, and the realization of landing, that was swept away in 
the deeper dark of unconsciousness.

End Part 1