New: "Goober & The Czar" by DBKate (1/5)

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~~~~~~~~~

Category: Humor, Story, Slash
Rating: R (profanity, adult situations)
Spoilers: Very slight for all Krycek eps up to US Season Four -
"Terma".
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, wish I did.
Archive: Nowhere right now, thank you.

Summary: The amazing adventures of Special Agents Alex Krycek and
Brian Pendrell as they endeavor to solve the mysterious case of
extortionist extraordinaire, Chuckles D. Clown.

(NOTE: This is 90% a humor piece, 10% slash. There's a little bit of
non-explicit smut at the end, but, hopefully more laughs than anything else.
It's also 100% *shipper safe. ;-) Author's notes, thanks & credits
are at the end of the piece.)

GOOBER AND THE CZAR
a "Comeuppance" Prequel

by DB Kate
dbk...@yahoo.com
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The day I left home to join the FBI, my beloved mother bestowed upon
me the traditional gift given to a child of the Krycek household upon
his or her inevitable flight from the tender nest of our loving and
close-knit home.

A very large bottle of vodka.

A very large bottle of vodka that was hurled with such accuracy at my
left temple that I still have the lump, just a wee bit above my left
eye, slightly to the right of permanent blindness. Happily, it didn't
break on contact; so, luckily, I was the last one to say goodbye.

And I'll bet she's still scrubbing the booze off of that dining room
wall.

Seven hours and three buses later, I entered Quantico with a light
heart and enough ambition for at least five twenty-two year-olds. I
ran through every obstacle set before me like a jackal on fire,
relishing each moment of competition and relative freedom from the
oppression of my parents' home. It wasn't easy by any means; there
were tests of every kind and even a bit of hazing from the second-term
students, but I not only survived, I flourished under the pressure.

Like all green-boys, I received a nickname within the first two weeks
of classes and it stuck. What was my nickname, you ask? Well, what
else could it have been?

The Czar, of course.

Yes, I, Alexander V. Krycek, descendent of illustrious, or at least
infamous, Slavic ancestors, was lording over the other hapless
agent-wanna-be's with a fake smile for my superiors and as many sneaky
kicks in the ass for my classmates as I could manage.

All this paid off in spades, for soon I was a full-fledged
agent-in-training who was on his way up the Bureau ladder by any means
necessary. I knew it was just a matter of time before I was ready for
that comfortable SAC position, working part-time on some tropical
island, hopefully Honolulu, even if it was at the expense of those
more deserving than myself.

Now, why did I make all these low-down and rotten plans to lie, cheat
and steal my way up the ladder, you ask? Well, you see, I *had* to do
it...because at that time I was desperately and absolutely in love.

With myself.

And what wasn't to love? I was a sharp-looking guy in those days,
even in those cheap, badly-fitted suits and ugly ties my father would
have thrown away without a second look. The terrible irony is that
today I can afford any suit in the world I desire: Armani, Versace,
Brooks Brothers...ten of them at once, each at five thousand dollars a
pop, without it making the slightest dent in my checkbook.

And I really can't be bothered.

But not back then. No, at twenty-two years-old, poverty-stricken and
completely convinced that the entire world and its measly occupants
were my own personal welcome mat, I simply wanted the items that I
believed belonged to me. Otherwise known as...

Everything.

And whatever I had to do to get what was mine, was fair game. Even if
it meant kissing the ass, among other things, of one Harold Blevins, a
fat, miserable slug of a unit leader, who called me into his office
the day after my formal classes had ended, looking just as bloated and
bad complexioned as ever.

And how I loved him. He motioned for me to sit down and my million
dollar smile, my adoring, coyly blinking eyes and my "I want your
baby" voice all magically appeared within less time then it takes to
say "Maui."

"Yes, sir?" I practically purred.

"I'm handing out the training cases today, Krycek. I've got yours
here. So sit down and be quiet so we can get the hell through this."

"That's great, sir. Wonderful. You know, I'm really..."

"Shut up and listen," snarled Fat-Ass, tossing me a file. "This is
the man I want you to bring in. His name is Clown, Chuckles D."

"Clown, sir? That's an interesting name, sir. You know, I was
thinking that.."

"Look here, Krycek. I have twelve other wet-behind-the-ears boys to
deal with today, so zip your lip and pay attention before I assign you
to the goddamn lunchroom."

I shut up.

Blevins tossed a large group of color photos at me. "As I was saying,
this is Melvin Fishenburgenheimer a.k.a. Chuckles D. Clown. He
legally changed his name to Clown in 1974."

I picked up the photos and examined them carefully. Well, he was a
clown all right, that much was clear. Yes, Chuckles was an actual
clown, one with green hair, weird white-yellow chalky skin and a big
red nose. And while that was all well and good in its own idiotic
way, I wasn't quite sure if that description would be very helpful for
actual apprehension.

I looked up at Blevins apologetically. "Um, sir? May I ask what he
looks like without his makeup?"

"He doesn't," muttered Blevins, flipping through the file with a beefy
thumb.

"Pardon me, sir?"

"His makeup is permanent," snorted Blevins. "Doesn't come off."

"You mean he -always- looks like this, sir?" I asked with honest
astonishment.

"Yep. Hair dyed green, tattooed makeup, the nose surgically
attached," replied Blevins, as though that were the most natural thing
in the world.

"Oh," I said, getting the disconcerting feeling that there just
*might* be one or two things in this world that I hadn't figured out
yet. But I shook it off. Even if I didn't understand why someone
would permanently turn themselves into a jaundiced version of Bozo,
that didn't mean that I didn't know everything else there was to know.

"Well, he should stand out in a crowd," I said hopefully.

"Not in his crowd," groused Blevins, pulling out more photos. Soon,
an entire troop of rainbow-haired, red-nosed loons started flipping
by. "This is the Shiny Happy People Society, an underground activist
group of circus performers, mostly clowns, who happen to be
homosexuals."

"A club of gay clowns, sir?" I said, trying unsuccessfully to turn my
laugh into a cough.

Perhaps this is the point where I should explain to you that due to my
own preferences, I was in no position to mock the alternative
sexuality of others...but, hell. A steam room loaded with gay clowns
in full makeup, I mean, I know you're laughing too.

Either that or you're calling your lawyer to see if you can sue me for
mental trauma.

"The group is legit. They do mostly political activism, marching in
gay pride parades and such, but because of people's unfounded
homophobia regarding gays who have proximity to children, they prefer
to stay anonymous," said Blevins. "However, it appears that this left
the members open to blackmail by one of their own."

Blevins leaned in toward me, with a malevolent expression lining his
jowls. "And that man is the one whose picture you are holding in your
hand, Agent Krycek. Chuckles D. Clown. Now, I want you to go to San
Francisco, find that damn clown and haul his ass in. And you're going
to stay there until you do. Do you understand me, Agent Krycek?"

"Yes, sir," I whispered miserably, understanding not only what Blevins
wanted, but something else as well.

I understood that this was the worst, the stupidest, the most
ridiculous case any FBI agent had been ever assigned to in the entire
history of the Bureau. What had I done wrong, I thought desperately.
The notion that the slightly more sophisticated minds at the Bureau
might have seen through my little egomaniacal charade at Quantico and
decided to take me down a peg or two didn't register at the time, but
now, makes a wee bit of sense.

But not back then. "Sir," I stuttered. "Do you think that I'm really
worthy of this case? I mean, you know that I..."

"Shut up and save it for your partner, Krycek," muttered Blevins,
without looking back up.

My partner? Yes, that's right, my partner, I remembered hopefully.
Of course, all freshmen are assigned to partners for their first case,
and with any luck, mine would be one who'd be either desperate enough
or stupid enough to earn his brownie points by doing all the work
while I took all the credit. Hot damn, I was saved.

Or so I thought.

A knock sounded at the door. "Come in..." Blevins yelled out and it
opened to reveal my new partner. That wonderful man who was going to
help propel me up the ladder of bureaucratic success and maybe even do
all the work while I sat back and figured out ways to snag that
Honolulu Bureau detail, in lovely, sunny Hawaii.

I turned toward the door with happy expectations, only to have them
shattered at the sight of the agent who entered, with an armload of
papers and a ridiculously wide grin. And it wasn't that I didn't know
him, because I certainly did know him, and -his- nickname, quite well.

It was Goober.

The genius-boy from Forensics, who'd passed a six-hour aptitude test
in sixty minutes and his firearm test by the seat of his pants. Who
actually used the phrase "okey-dokey." Who was allergic to coffee.
And ink. And dust. Otherwise known as...

Agent Brian Pendrell, FBI.

Now here was a guy who was a dozen freckles short of his own kiddie TV
show. If his eyes were any bigger, bluer or more puppyish, you'd
probably have to fit him with a homing collar, just so you could get
him back when he was snatched up and taken home by troops of adoring
little girls and their grandmas who would be chanting "what a nice
boy" all the way home.

Jesus Christ, I thought, with my mouth hanging wide open, I'm being
partnered with Agent Goober. This was the final insult. He and I were
about as compatible as a stick of butter and a fired-up Hibachi. As
an ice cube and a Zippo...

"How do you do?" he asked enthusiastically, sticking one arm out at
me, while dropping all his papers out from underneath the other.
"Brian Pendrell."

As a Goober and a Czar.

"Alex Krycek," I muttered back, wondering exactly who it was that I'd
pissed off so royally as to get stuck with a case and a partner like
this. Next time, *offer* the blowjob to Blevins, I chanted to myself.

Don't wait until he asks for it.

But Pendrell only pumped my hand and smiled, his entire face lit up
with such happiness and enthusiasm, you'd think that he'd waited his
entire life for this once-in-a-millennium opportunity to nab a
two-bit, green-haired, rubber-nosed extortionist, who had just enough
sanity to legally change his last name from "Fishenburgenheimer" to
"Clown" but wasn't quite lucid enough for anything else.

"Isn't this great?" he asked, his hand still shaking mine furiously.
"Great case, huh?"

I rolled my eyes and disentangled my hand with a horrible grimace.
Guess what, Krycek, I said to myself, he *has* been waiting his whole
life for this case.

Wonderful.

Oh, who gives a crap, I thought, pushing my way past Pendrell and out
of Blevins' office. I'll take the run to San Fran, nab the clown, try
to fuck my way into a better case when I come back...

And ditch Agent Goober as soon as humanly possible.

*******

You know, I hate flying.

Everything about it is bad. The tiny seats, the awful, sometimes
non-existent, food, and the fact that at any moment a kid might walk
into the cockpit and the last words on the little black box will be
"Mr. Pilot, what does *this* button do?"

On what other kind of transportation do you see people jockeying to
take the seat next to the nun? Or crossing themselves when the
engines are turned on? Or start to throw up before the damn thing
takes off? Not on a Greyhound, that's for sure.

My new partner, of course, disagreed. "Flying is incredibly safe," he
said reassuringly, as the engine started warming up and the inside of
my mouth turned into sandpaper. "Cars are much more dangerous."

I clutched the armrests tighter as the scenery started rolling by.
"Uh, huh."

He continued cheerfully. "Besides, if you *do* go down, it's over in
seconds anyway. The change in air pressure usually knocks you
unconscious before you die."

I stared at him for a very long moment. "Thank you so much for that,"
I snarled, wishing I could ask him for his own personal test of that
theory once we were up in the air.

"Look, I'd say the best thing to do is concentrate on your
destination," Pendrell continued with that same, bright smile. "And
you know where we're going..."

To a strange surreal hell, filled with criminal clowns and Agent
Nerdboys?

"To our first case as agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,"
he finished, every dimple glowing. "You and me, partner."

Oh, joy.

Thanks, Goober, I feel so much better now, I thought miserably as I
shut my eyes and the ascending plane took me up but left my stomach
somewhere behind on the cold tarmac of Dulles Airport.

Thanks a lot.

********

"All right, Clown, open up, it's the law."

I'd insisted on going straight to Chuckles' residence right after we
checked into the hotel. I figured that with any luck, I could nab the
freak and hop on a returning flight without even bothering to unpack.

"Federal Agents, Clarabell, open the damn door!" I yelled into the
offending wood that stood between me and the end of this ludicrous
nightmare.

Pendrell listened for a moment and then turned to me with a slightly
nervous expression. "Are you sure that's what you're supposed to say?"

I ignored him. "Open up, Bozo! I don't have all day!"

"Mention the search warrant," whispered Pendrell, ever helpful.

"I got a search warrant, Chucklehead, so you have until three to open
this door, or me and my partner are coming in!"

"We are?" Pendrell gulped. "Oh, I should call for backup then."

I turned to him with an utterly disdainful expression. "We don't need
backup. We'll just break down the damn door. Step back, I'll do it.
You'll probably snap your neck. "

Pendrell's eyes turned huge. "Break down the door? We're not
supposed to do that. We're supposed to call for a backup of local law
enforcement and a locksmith if no one appears to be in residence.
We're only supposed to make a forced entry in a perceived emergency."

"I perceive this as an emergency, OK?" I muttered. "So get your
weapon ready," I said, motioning for him to take out his gun, which he
did with obvious reluctance.

I backed up and carefully measured how much room I needed to get a
good running slam into the door. I checked my footing, braced my
shoulder and remembered to prepare for a full-body follow through once
I made contact. I remembered to take a deep breath and get a fast,
sprinting push-off. I remembered it all. Except for one thing.

I forgot to make sure that the door was actually locked.

Which it wasn't.

What happened next, you ask? Well, let's just say that I'd finally
discovered the glory of flight. When I hit that door, at an excellent
clip close to ten miles per hour, I burst through its open lock like
an emu tossed from a cliff. And there, for an entire two seconds, I
was literally airborne, carried on the wings of inertia right through
the foyer, sailing over the couch and landing, not very delicately I
might add, upon a homemade coffee table that was formerly the trunk of
a petrified redwood tree.

Ouch, you ask?

Oh yeah...ouch, baby.

"Are you all right?" asked the hazy, red-haired figure above me when I
regained consciousness.

No, I was *not* all right, but I wasn't going to tell him that. "I'm
fine."

"That looked painful," he replied doubtfully.

"Piece of cake," I panted, trying to sit up and ignore the tiny
flashes of light that were popping behind my eyelids.

"Well, we're inside and no one seems to be home," he said, looking
around. He held out a hand to help me up, which I waved away and then
realizing that I couldn't get up, took it. I stood there completely
disoriented for a full moment as my head spun like a Battling Top and
my nerves began to do that delicate dance on the very edge of sanity.

With tottering steps, I went to the liquor cabinet, opened the doors
and began to toss the contents on the floor. Hey, I had a search
warrant, which to me was a perfect excuse to take out all my
frustrations on the house of the son-of-a-bitch who had dared to break
the law at just at the time when my turn for my first case had come up.

That green-haired bastard wasn't only going to jail, he was going to
get an interior decorating job he'd never forget.

Dizzily, I swung around and made sure I swept a couple of vases
*accidentally* to the floor. Who knows? They might have had evidence
in them. Drawers went flying, papers filled the air, and my partner
stared at me wide-eyed with shock, but said nothing. He knew I was
perfectly within my rights because a federal search warrant is better
than a demolition contract. He just quietly followed in my wake,
trying to sort through my destruction with some methodology and I
continued to wreck with impunity until I felt his hesitant tap on my
shoulder.

"What?" I snarled at him, without turning around from the bookcase I
was trying to tear apart with my bare hands.

"Agent Krycek, I'm sorry for interrupting, but there's something very
odd here that I can't quite put my finger on," said Pendrell uneasily,
looking around. "Something that's not quite right."

Christ, what a boy scout. "Look Pendrell," I snapped, turning back to
my "work". "Just help me take down this bookcase. Oh great, it's
bolted to the wall. See if there's a hacksaw around. No...no, wait.
I got it. I'll just rip the shelves off."

But Pendrell still looked perturbed. "It's this awful, nagging
feeling I'm getting. Look, I'll be right back, I'm just going to
double-check something."

"Right. And while you're goofing off, I'm gonna pull down these
paintings. Think I should crack the frames or just put my foot through
the middle? Hell, foot through the middle sounds like a plan to me," I
said, stomping my way through a vase of pastel flowers.

But when Pendrell finally came back inside, he was absolutely white.
"Agent Krycek?" he whispered to me, his eyes enormous.

"Pendrell, get the hell over here and help me yank this stove out of
the wall, will you? And watch the glass. The fridge was full of jars."

"Agent Krycek?"

"Wait a minute. We should turn off the gas first, right? I don't
want to be found asphyxiated in some goddamn puddle of pickle juice."

"Agent Krycek..."

"What?!" I turned and screamed at him, my last nerve ready to snap.
"What the fuck is it?!"

"We're in the wrong house."

*********

continued in...
GOOBER & THE CZAR - Part Two

If you laugh, let me know. :-)
dbk...@yahoo.com