Disclaimer: Not mine; wish they were. Not making money off this; wish I was.
Rated: Eventually NC-17
Pairing: M/K
Timing: Not long after THE RED AND THE BLACK

***

WE CAN BUILD A SNOWMAN

***

"Scully, it's me."

"Mulder? I can hardly... you. Where...are...?"

"The mountains. Maybe Montana. I've lost track, it's been snowing like hell all day."

This time her voice came through so crystal clear she might've been sitting in the car with him. "It doesn't snow in hell, Mulder."

Special Agent Fox Mulder peered through the windscreen, between the wipers valiantly and almost futilely trying to clear the snow, and snorted. "Could've fooled me."

The silence lengthened. Extended. Broken finally by Scully's exasperated, "You called me, remember?"

"Yeah. I remember." A sudden jerk brought both hands to the wheel, the small phone shoved awkwardly between cheek and shoulder. "I think I just wanted some reassurance that I wasn't all alone in the world."

"Alone?" The signal stared breaking up again. "What... Krycek? ... lost him?"

"No, I haven't lost him. Apparently, I'm about fifteen, twenty minutes behind him. I passed a garage about half an hour ago where he stopped and asked directions. I'm going exactly where George and the boys told *him* to go."

"Who... George?"

He grinned at that, having known it was exactly the question his partner would ask. "Not important, Scully."

"Still don't think... is... good idea."

"I know."

"Mulder... occur to you... Krycek could... you up... directions?"

"Maybe, if I... Scully? Shit." Left hand tightening on the steering wheel, he grabbed the phone with the right and stared at the tiny screen. Where ever he was, he'd just gone beyond the limits of modern phone technology. Tossing the useless piece of equipment over his shoulder onto the back seat of the rented car, he murmured, "It's only when the drums stop that you have to worry."

A gust of wind rocked the car and he eased off on the gas. Another gust cleared the snow enough for him to see...

"Fuck." Without thinking, he hit the brakes.

The back end of the car started to swing left.

Heart pounding, he cranked the steering wheel around. "Front wheel drive, you turn into the skid."

The back end of the car began to pick up speed.

The world shifted perspective.

"Rear wheel drive, you turn into the skid?" Nothing he was doing seem to help so he took both hands off the steering wheel, both feet off the pedals, and closed his eyes. He had the strangest sensation of floating. Of inevitability. Then the world slowed and with a quiet crumple of metal, the car stopped.

Mulder opened his eyes.

The bridge abutment he'd glimpsed through the snow was pressed up against the driver's side door. Looking past it, he could see a whole lot of nothing as snow continued to fall in a nearly solid blanket into the gorge.

According to George, if he got to the bridge, he'd gone too far.

*And if I go off the bridge? How far have I gone then?*

The concrete abutment had been on his right, now it was on his left. The car had turned completely around -- three hundred and sixty-degrees on forty feet of asphalt over a hundred foot drop. Remembering to breathe, he pressed down on the gas. Rear wheels spun, caught pavement, the car began to move slowly forward.

This time, he saw the sign. Cold Lake Road. According to George, this was the place.

*"Said he was headin' for a friend's cabin. Seemed kinda, I dunno, weary."*

Weary.

"Found a new face, Alex?" Mulder muttered as he coaxed the car through the turn. "Let's add it to the fawning puppy face, the I've-got-a-secret face, the trust-me I'm-looking-for-redemption face, the KGB face, oh, and let's not forget the lying through your fucking teeth face!" The car started to skid again and Mulder fought to bring his anger under control. There'd be a time to give in to the rage but, at the moment, he needed a steady head and steady hands.

"And later, Mulder?"

Scully's voice. If he turned his head, he'd see her, sitting beside him, one eyebrow raised.

"Later, the rat bastard pays for every death. Every betrayal."

"Pays how, Mulder? You can't bring him in, you don't have a warrent."

"I know." His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. "This is personal."

"I can't be a part of this, Mulder."

"I know." A half smile. A half turn of his head, just far enough to see the empty seat. "That's why I left you behind."

He was following faint tire tracks. Had he been any further behind his quarry and they'd have been obliterated by the falling snow. The knowledge that he was moving through the exact same space Alex Krycek had mere moments before brought a sudden rush of heat. This time, they'd end all the games, all the lies.

When the tracks turned onto an even smaller, narrower road, he turned with them. About half a mile up an increasingly steep and twisting road, he drove down into a hollow and suddenly found himself up to the front door handles in snow. The car stopped.

Reverse: spin the wheels, sink the back end another six inches.

Drive: spin the wheels, tilt to the right.

It had become quite clear that, without a shovel, he wasn't going anywhere.

The shadowed white of Krycek's tire tracks emerged out onto a rise a short distance away. In the short time between the passage of hunted and hunter, the road had drifted in.

The analytical part of his brain noted that if he left the engine running with the tail pipe buried, the car would soon fill with carbon monoxide. The rest of him indulged in a small temper tantrum, smacking the steering wheel with both hands and screaming out every profanity he'd every known -- which accomplished nothing beyond hurting his hands and fogging up the windows but he felt better after he was done, as though acknowledging that Alex Krycek had escaped him again, had brought a certain peace.

*Carbon monoxide,* his brain prodded.

Right. With the engine off and the heater running on the battery how much time before the battery went dead and he followed close behind? Mulder had no idea. Everything he knew about cars could be filled out on a rental form. His best chance was to follow his own tracks back to the main road and from there, eventually, to civilization -- or at least, to George.

The snow was too deep to open the doors so he grabbed his small pack off the back seat, glared down at his useless phone, and lowered the driver's side window. Then he turned off the car.

The sudden silence was overwhelming. It pressed in on him as he slid through the window and dropped down into the snow, it gained weight as he sank to mid thigh, and it wrapped around him like a shroud as he stumbled and fell, frantically grabbing for the car door to pull himself up out of the smothering blanket of white.

Not yet standing, his face still turned toward the sky, a gust of wind blew the curtain of falling snow apart. Rising about the tree tops was the faintest smear of gray on gray. Smoke. Someone up ahead had lit a fire.

Someone.

Krycek.

There'd be no going back, not with his quarry so close.

Eyes locked on the smoke that marked the end of the hunt, he shoved both arms through his pack straps, settled it between his shoulders and checked the gun nestled in the small of his back. This would be his final confrontation with Alex Krycek. Double agent. Assassin.

Friend.

Mulder shook off the images of Agent Krycek handing him a cup of coffee, laughing at one of his jokes, following with a puppyish enthusiasm. They were lies, those memories. The young man he remembered didn't exist except as a useful patina over a lying rat bastard.

*He helped them take Scully.*

*He killed my father.*

*He let the Russians use me like a lab animal.*

*I trusted him.*

*I liked him.*

*I wanted...*

*No.*

Mulder held white-knuckled to the betrayals and pushed the other memories aside. The last to go, the last time he'd seen Alex Krycek -- the fight, the gun, the kiss...

No.

His thighs were aching by the time he emerged from the hollow beside the rapidly disappearing tire tracks. It was almost as though the deep snow had been trying to hold him back. Almost. Grinning a little at his own paranoia, he picked up his pace, sucking the cold air carefully into his lungs as he waded knee deep in one of the ruts that would lead him right to Krycek's rat hole.

It was farther than he'd thought. In spite of the exercise that had sweat rolling warm moist lines down his sides, his hands and feet were freezing. Gloves and boots warm enough for rental cars and motel rooms weren't up to mountain climbing in a blizzard. And he should have been wearing a hat.

"Forty-five percent of your body heat is lost through your head," he told the silence as he ducked under an overhanging evergreen. He didn't duck quite far enough and, like a scene from a bad farce, the tree dumped a load of snow over his head and shoulders. Quite a lot of it managed to get down his collar, inside sweater, shirt, T-shirt.

Finally emerging from his own personal blizzard, the melting snow stroking icy fingers down his spine, he realized that fat white flakes no longer obscured the sky and that the gray on gray line of smoke had disappeared. The urge to drop to his knees screaming a theatrical "NO!" to the fates was almost impossible to resist. Instead, he stood staring up at the clouds, adding their betrayal to the others Krycek carried.

Part of him knew that made less than no sense. The greater part didn't care.

*He obviously reached his destination. No one stops to light a fire at a random rest stop. Therefore, he's not going on. If he's coming back...*

Mulder fumbled his gun out of it's holster. He was too cold to thumb the safety off so he held the butt steady against his stomach and used both hands. If Krycek came back, he'd be ready for him.

Finger outside the trigger guard, gun by his side, he walked on.

The road got steeper, the temperature started to fall, and what little light there was began to fade. By the time he emerged from the woods, his teeth were chattering and he was so cold it took him a moment to realize that the gray lump on the other side of the clearing was a building. He couldn't see Krycek's rented car, but there was a light in one of the small front windows.

This had to be the place.

Crossing directly to the door would leave him exposed but he didn't think he had the strength to skirt the edges of the clearing.

Just have to hurry...

Easier said than done. The drifts were thigh deep in places. By the time he reached the halfway point, it was full dark and he could taste iron in the back of his throat every time he forced himself to breathe in another lungful of icy air. Had he been stalking any other man, he'd have at least been able to stop worrying about being shot but he wouldn't put it past Krycek to have a sniper sight or some kind of infra red targeting system.

*Not that I've much of a heat signature at the moment.*

Mulder couldn't remember ever having been so cold. Naked in Alaska had been a walk on the beach in comparison.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Would you like fries with that?

T'is a fine barn, English, but it's no pool.

My bologna has a first name, it's Kryc...

The impact of his foot against the lowest step jerked him out of what was rapidly becoming a truly weird commercial moment. He shook his head and stared down at the rough wood. He was supposed to do something here.

It took him a moment but he finally dragged his left leg up out of the snow. Then his right.

Another impact and he realized he'd have to do it again.

Left leg.

Right.

And again.

He felt his backpack slide off his shoulders, heard it land, couldn't summon the energy to care.

Three steps across the porch almost managing to avoid the spill of light from the window. He sagged against the door, grateful that something else was holding his weight. Just as soon as he got his breath back...

He lurched forward a step as the door opened, then staggered back two, right arm rising, finger frozen around the trigger of the gun.

"Mulder? What the fuck are you..." Green eyes widened as Krycek saw the gun although Mulder couldn't understand why he'd be surprised. What had he expected? Flowers?

His thoughts were still chasing themselves sluggishly down that path when strong fingers grabbed his wrist and spun him around, back to chest, buttocks to groin...

"No!"

Facing away from the cabin, with nothing to shoot but snow and silence, Mulder pulled the trigger. The gunshot sounded like the world cracking in half. Then in half again. And again. The sound echoed off the trees, off the mountain, off the cabin. When the echoes finally faded, the night quivered with anticipation.

Even through jeans and jacket, Mulder could feel the heat of the other man as they stood, locked together, waiting.

Up above the cabin, the mountain gave a warning growl that turned an instant later into a full throated roar.

Suddenly released, Mulder stumbled forward. A hand grabbed his collar and yanked back. The porch danced under his feet. He felt himself fall and, to his great astonishment, no one caught him. The threshold bucked up into the back of his skull.

Light. Pain.

Not necessarily in that order.

Darkness.

***

Alex Krycek had never considered himself to be an impulsive man -- couldn't be, not and survive the life he'd lived -- but the urge to shove Fox Mulder out into the avalanche, to have him swept away down the mountain and finally out of his life forever, was almost impossible to resist. He actually hesitated, weight braced against the side of the door, hand clutching the front of Mulder's coat...

*And if he dies up here, you'll spend the rest of your days playing fox and hounds with Dana Scully.*

Talk about a classic out of the frying pan and into the fire situation.

Cursing softly under his breath, he threw himself backwards dragging Mulder with him, just as the leading edge of snow hit the building. Somehow, he got the two of them in under the heavy post-and-beam doorframe leading to the bedroom. Earthquakes, avalanches, whatever -- the building was shaking and it seemed like the safest place.

Back against the upright, Mulder sprawled across his lap, he wrapped his arm around the other man's chest and waited because that was the only thing he could do.

Well, he also considered copping a feel but the damn place was shaking so hard it took all his strength to keep his unexpected guest from being thrown out into the room.

Sound filled all the spaces around him and made it difficult to breathe. Snow roared down the mountain like a creature out of nightmare. Wood screamed as it twisted in on itself. The windows along the back wall exploded filling the air with whistling shards of glass.

Then silence.

The only sound the beating of Mulder's heart and his, pounding out a single rhythm.

Alex filled his lungs with air and let it out slowly.

Again.

"Son of a fucking bitch."

They were alive. Both of them. And the building remained more or less intact. It could have been a lot...

Which was when he smelled the smoke. He was on his feet so fast he'd taken two steps before Mulder's head hit the floor. One of the three oil lamps he'd lit at dusk had been thrown from the table, the impact both spilling the contents and igniting them. Flames licked across the broad planks to the carpet, gaining strength as they began to feed on the oil-soaked wool. Just his luck, the fire was between him and the small extinguisher still hanging from the wall. Swearing in Russian, the language he preferred for profanity, Alex grabbed one of the over-large leather coach cushions, threw it down on the fire, and stepped up onto it. The smoke grew worse for a moment -- thicker and more vile smelling -- then faded away. Crisis averted.

"First crisis averted," he reminded himself, looking around.

Good news: only one of the three lamps broke and the fire in the huge fieldstone fireplace was still burning. Not only would they have light and heat, but combustion meant the chimney top was uncovered. They were buried under no more than fifteen feet of snow. Better news; if he had to, he could put out the fire and climb up the chimney. It'd be a tight fit but fortunately the cabin had been built back in the twenties before anyone paid much attention to wasting wood. The knowledge that he could get out any time he wanted to knocked his rising claustrophobia back to a bearable level.

Glass crunched under his boots as he stepped off the cushion. The row of windows at the back of the cabin, situated to take advantage of the incredible view, were gone. So was the view. The snow had been pushed about four feet into the room, the edges of the drift already beginning to melt.

"Light, heat, and water." He glanced over at Mulder and his lips twisted into what served him for a smile these days. "Who could ask for anything more?"

Scooping up the cushion, he checked it for damage then threw it back on the couch, burnt side down. He spent a moment contemplating the logistics of getting Mulder up off the floor onto the couch and then decided he'd have to stay where he was. Crossing back to the unconscious agent's side, Alex squatted and frisked him, resisting the urge to linger over the job. One gun had been lost in the avalanche but according to surveillance tapes...

"How the hell do you get to an ankle holster in an emergency, Mulder? Drop to one knee and pretend to tie your shoes? While a little foresight is an improvement and I certainly have no objection to seeing you on your knees..." He stood, checked the clip, and stepped over the body. "...you're still not thinking things through."

Which, given their current situation, was so obvious it was funny.

The outside wall of the small bedroom had canted in at a strange angle but as far as he could tell from the spill of light, the room seemed intact. Alex dropped the gun into a drawer in the bedside table and went back to Mulder's side.

A number of his favorite fantasies, the ones he used as shields to keep the dark at bay, involved Mulder lying at his feet and those fantasies had been quite explicit about what he should do next. He set them almost reluctantly aside. So far, in spite of the distance he'd traveled away from the moral highground, he'd managed to keep rape off his resume.

"Although," he muttered, squatting down and checking the back of Mulder's waist for his handcuff case, "if anyone..." Fox Mulder had to be the only person alive capable of pouting while unconscious. Alex Krycek defied any man -- gay or straight -- to look at that mouth and not think about fucking it.

There was no handcuff case. Hardly surprising really, he could conveniently count the number of people Mulder had actually arrested on one hand. While he could dig some rope out of the ruins of the kitchen, knots would be a problem. "So I guess we do this the old fashioned way. I have a gun; you don't. You probably have a concussion; I don't." He moved the other man's head into a more comfortable position and, almost without willing it, his thumb stroked along the dark wing of an eyebrow, once, twice. "I don't want to hurt you; you don't know that."

Mulder's eyes moved behind closed lids and his lips parted, releasing a barely audible name.

"Ah yes, the magic Scully cry. You do something stupid, and mommy rides to the rescue." Alex straightened, shaking his head. "Not this time." Keeping a wary eye on his guest's recovery, he carried an old ladder-back chair across the cabin and set it down about six feet away. Gun in his right hand, left in his lap, he sat and waited.

Consciousness returned slowly, almost reluctantly, as though it was getting a little tried of coming back where it clearly wasn't appreciated. *Not my fault,* Mulder protested, trying to remember how his eye-lids operated. *Occupational hazard.* He was lying on something hard. He was cold. Bits of him were wet. Something had been burned that shouldn't have. *Same old. Same old.* Someone was wearing English Leather. *Okay, that's new.* Skinner wore Brut. Scully wore -- well, he wasn't sure what scent Scully wore or if she wore one at all but it certainly wasn't English Leather.

He finally figured out how to get his eyes open.

There was a man sitting in a chair, weight forward on his thighs, faded jeans, high-tech hiking boots with buckles instead of laces, gun...

Alex Krycek.

And he remembered.

And none of it mattered because he was so damned cold.

He closed his eyes again, wrapped his arms around himself as tight as he could, and still felt as though he was going to shake himself into pieces.

"Fuck, Mulder."

The voice seemed to come from very far away.

"Come on, give me your hand."

The toe of a boot prodded him in the side hard enough to get his attention. Mulder opened his eyes again to see Krycek standing over him, right hand extended.

"I'm not carrying you to the fire so either you take my hand or you lie there and you freeze to death."

Alex regretted the words the moment he'd said them. It would be just like Mulder to chose the second option. He watched the other man shake and just as he was deciding -- not for the first time in his life -- that desperate times called for desperate measures, a pale hand reached out for his. Their fingers locked together. Time stopped.

*Son of a bitch...*

And then aloud.

"Son of a bitch, Mulder, I've held corpses with a higher body temperature. Come on!" He took half a step back and heaved, switched his grip to an elbow as Mulder started to come off the floor, and somehow got the taller man onto his feet. Eight staggering steps to the hearth and then the whole process in reverse.

Holding Mulder more or less upright with a knee shoved in his armpit, Alex reached back to the wood box and threw half a dozen smaller pieces of birch onto the fire. The bark caught almost instantly, flames roaring up the chimney, the great stone mass of the fireplace reflecting the warmth back into the room.

Straightening, he looked down at the top of Mulder's dark head and couldn't prevent a twisted smile. *And the gods mock those who mock them.* He'd imagined saying what he was about to say a hundred times, a thousand times maybe, in an infinite number of situations, every time and every situation ending in the same heat. As usual, reality didn't quite measure up.

"Take your clothes off, Mulder."

Mulder's head jerked up, an involuntary motion drawn by those words in that voice. Somehow he forced his reluctant brain to stop repeating the word cold over and over and formulate a protest. "I ddd...on't th....ink so."

"I do." Green eyes gleamed, amused at his expense.

He felt tug at the zipper of his jacket. He jerked away and fell, slowly, finally coming to rest half off the hearth, staring down at the wide plank floor. Then something grabbed the back of his jacket and hauled him upright again.

*Cold. Cold. Cold.*

"Get over yourself, Mulder. Your clothes are wet and they're keeping the heat of the fire from getting to your body. They have to come off."

Yes. Out of wet clothes. Basic survival. "Ffffine. I'll ddd..do it." Except he couldn't get his arms to move away from where they were clamped tight to his torso, desperately trying to contain what little body heat remained. He was concentrating so hard, he never noticed when his jacket opened. He couldn't help but notice it being dragged roughly off over his head but before he could protest, his sweater followed.

Without the jacket or the layer of wet wool, the fire pushed warm fingers against his back. Muscles began to unknot. Closing his eyes, Mulder leaned back and moaned low in his throat.

*Trapped in an isolated cabin with a half-naked and moaning Fox Mulder. What did I do to deserve this?*

He'd figure that out as soon as he figured out whether he was being rewarded or punished. Tossing the wet T-shirt down onto the hearth, he knelt, grabbed one end of a boot lace, and pulled. Fortunately, Bill and Teena had never taught their little boy to double tie his shoes. Wet fabric dragging against itself, the bow finally pulled free.

Wary of arousing Mulder out of his torpor with a sudden noise, he set the left boot quietly to one side and went to work on the right. The socks were as wet as the T-shirt had been. *What kind of idiot walks halfway up a mountain in a pair of Armani hiking boots?*

Which was in the way of being a rhetorical question since the idiot was battling hypothermia right in front of him.

Mulder was leaning back on his hands, spine slightly arched, head dropped back to expose a long curve of pale throat. He was still shivering -- an involuntary action as muscles fought to warm up -- but the motion had evolved from terrifying violence to an equally terrifying vulnerability.

What little chest hair he had was standing out from his body, as though trying to move closer to the fire all on its own. Pale nipples were rock hard.

*Okay, didn't need to think about that right now...*

He wasn't surprised to see his fingers were trembling as he reached for Mulder's belt. Calling himself several kinds of fool, he curled them into a fist and tried again. Eyes locked on the line of dark hair disappearing under the edge of the wet denim, he tugged the leather out of the belt loops and began working on the buckle.

The hair rose on the back of his neck.

He looked up.

A slightly out of focus hazel gaze drifted over his face finally locking them together more or less eye to eye.

"You knew it was me; why did you just open the door?"

Alex swallowed and felt one corner of his mouth twist up; as involuntary a muscle spasm as the other man's shivering. "Christ, Mulder, I figured you've had other chances to kill me -- you probably wanted to talk. It didn't occur to me that you wanted to kill us both."

The belt undone, a twist of two fingers took care of the button. Another inch of dark hair exposed. The top edge of elastic...

He rocked back on his heels and stood. "You'd better get out of those yourself. I'll get you a blanket."

The bedroom was dark and cool. Unfortunately, not cool enough.

*I should just jack off now and dull the edge.*

It was essential he maintain the power position and he could hardly do that with an erection packed into the front of his jeans.

*Think of other things. The lingering stink of cigarette smoke. Puking black oil. Being woken up by the fire in Russia...*

That did it. He cut the memory off before he could fall into the darkness. One of these days, he wasn't going to make it out the other side and it couldn't be today -- not with Mulder waiting barely fifteen feet away.

Grabbing a blanket from the cedar trunk at the foot of the bed, he turned on one heel and walked back to the fire.

"I was beginning to think you'd went out the window and then..." Mulder gestured languidly toward the solid wall of snow. "...I took a look around. Trapped like rats." He smiled. It was the "I've got a secret and I'm not going to share it with you, na na na." smile. Alex remembered it well.

"I think you froze a few brain cells out there, Mulder." Stopping a little more than an arm's length away, he held out the blanket. "I'm not exactly your prisoner. In fact, you might not have noticed, but I'm wearing the pants in this relationship."

"I noticed." The smile remained as Mulder stood, as unself-conscious of his body as he had been that day at the Bureau pool. Probably had something to do with the man's ego, Alex figured because although he could look like a million bucks in clothing, out of it, Fox Mulder was, well, wiry. There was muscle but little bulk behind it and he was so pale he clearly hadn't exposed his body to anything stronger than a fluorescent light in years. Unfortunately, for the first time in his life, it wasn't the body Alex wanted -- it was the man who wore it. Although, there was that mouth, and those hands, and...

He couldn't stop himself from glancing down

***

It was a furtive glance, a quick raising and lowering of those incredible eyelashes as Krycek dropped his gaze just enough to check him out. The best defense being a good offense, Mulder met it head on.

"I'd like to remind you that it is cold in here."

*Deja vu all over again.*

He swung the blanket around his shoulders then, clutching a fistful of wool in both hands, wrapped his arms around his torso. The blanket smelled faintly of cedar; a comforting scent bringing back memories of the summer house, long evenings spent running around outside, lying on his bed reading comics while Samantha sat on the floor and...

All at once, the memories weren't so comforting.

Most of his memories ended up that way.

Holding the blanket carefully closed -- that lying rat bastard had as much of a freeshow as he was going to get, Mulder sat back down on the edge of the hearth. When Krycek stepped forward, booted foot landing on the dressed fieldstone right beside his thigh, he tensed but refused to move away. If he gave an inch, god only knows what he'd lose. He had to maintain control of the situation.

"Relax," Krycek sighed, "I'm just putting more wood on the fire."

Well, he was all in favor of that. Although he was now shivering only intermittently, there was a deep core of cold in his chest the heat hadn't reached. When he turned to watch Krycek throw the wood, all he could see was the long line of a muscular thigh pressed against denim faded nearly white with multiple washings. The scent of English Leather was stronger, with a faint hint of fabric softener.

Psychologically, it wasn't at all surprising that a man whose hands were so metaphorically dirty would be so intent on maintaining personal cleanliness. How much easier to deny the surrounding filth in clean laundry.

His gaze slid down the thigh and around the curve of the calf.

*I could grab his ankle, throw him on his back, take the gun...*

But he didn't. *I'm still too cold. I'll wait. We're stuck in here, there'll be lots of time. Might be nice to have my pants back first.* Around the calf and back up the thigh. Mulder dropped his eyes to the edge of the blanket wrapped around his feet. Fortunately, a large fold had pooled across his lap.

*Look, it's a natural reaction to...* The only thing it might be a natural reaction to, stepped down off the hearth. *Think of something else. The lingering smell of cigarette smoke. Chicken wire and black oil. Scully's...* The thought of Scully knowing turned out to be enough; no need to be more specific. Comforting to know that even if his body betrayed him, his partner never would.

Drawing in a deep breath, he lifted his head to see Krycek back on the chair, much as he'd been when he first regained consciousness.

"So, now what?"

He snorted. "You're the one wearing the pants in this so-called relationship. You tell me."

"All right." Krycek leaned forward, gun held loosely in his right hand. It was pointed at the floor, if anywhere, but it was no less a threat as he knew very well that Krycek could aim and fire in less than half a heartbeat; significantly faster than Mulder could untangle himself from the blanket, reach him, and disarm him. "Let's talk."

"Sure." He readied his list of accusations.

"You want to tell me why you decided to bring half a mountain of snow down on us?"

"I didn't..."

"You fired your gun, Mulder. No one made you. There was nothing to shoot at so the only thing I can figure is that you either wanted us -- you and me -- trapped together in this cabin or you wanted us both dead."

"Why would I want to kill myself?" he asked pointedly, the implication that he'd be perfectly happy to have killed the other man clear in his words.

"Maybe because your partner and your boss have never bought into this little vendetta you have against me."

Mulder snorted and shuffled back in the blanket until he was leaning against the side of the fireplace. "You think I'd kill myself over you?"

"No. I think you'd kill yourself going after me because then they'd be sorry they never took you seriously." Krycek's smile held honest amusement. "It's always about you Mulder."

"I came up here to deal with a traitor."

"Got a warrant?"

"I don't need one for the likes of you."

"Then I guess it's personal, isn't it?"

It was always personal, that was the whole fucking problem. Simplest solution for the Consortium would have been to bring Mulder in on it from the beginning -- work with that whole desperate need for his father's approval thing and convince him to abandon his personal agenda for the global good.

As if.

Fox Mulder would no more abandon his personal agenda then he'd cop a feel off Dana Scully. Or AD Skinner for that matter.

By the looks of things, he'd worked up a good head of indignation. It didn't take long, that was for sure. Alex watched him shuffle to the edge of the hearth and plant both bare feet firmly on the floor.

*Here it comes...*

"You helped them take Scully. You killed my father. You let the Russians use me like a lab animal!" His voice grew louder with every word until what had begun with calm accusation ended in a petulant shout.

"Don't you mean that I helped them take *your* Scully? Or was the possessive understood?"

"Fuck you, Krycek. She almost died."

"You almost lost her."

"It's the same goddamned thing!"

"Not really, but since you can't see the difference, lets move on." Alex shifted slightly and came to a decision. Time to lay one ghost once and for all. God knows, he had enough of them hanging around. "You got one thing inarguably right though -- I did kill your father. And you know what? I'd do the son of a bitch again. In a minute."

Braced for the inevitable denial, Mulder felt as though the floor had dropped out from under him. He opened his mouth to.. to what? There were no words. No... anything. To have something he'd believed for so long confirmed without argument -- well, it wasn't something he was used to, that was for damned sure.

"Your father was a cold-hearted bastard, Mulder. I'd call him a sadistic bastard but that would have taken passion and he didn't have any. He gave them your sister. She wasn't taken, she was given away."

Krycek's voice kept pounding at him. It was like being caught in the surf, unable to get his footing, knocked down and thrown around by a force he couldn't fight. And the worst of it was, he knew Krycek was telling the flat, unvarnished truth.

"With Bill Mulder, it was anything and anybody for the cause. You're a lot like him."

That hit like a slap of cold water, clearing his head and leaving a fine, edged anger behind. "You going to kill me too?" he growled.

The rat-bastard had the nerve to smile at him, green eyes half closed and speculative.

"Mulder, if I wanted you dead, you'd have been dead a long time ago."

Arrogant prick. "You couldn't seem to do the job in Russia."

The smile vanished. Mulder resisted the urge to pull the blanket more tightly around him as the temperature in the cabin seemed to drop. He stuck a metaphorical thumb in the wound he'd made and twisted. "Oh yeah, that's right, the KGB doesn't like it when their agents screw up."

"Russia was *your* idea." Breathing beginning to quicken, Krycek stood and spat the words across the cabin. "Going under the fence was *your* idea. I was trying to keep your stupid ass alive!"

His own breath coming hard and fast, Mulder shifted and surged to his feet. "By having me tied down and experimented on? Interesting choice."

"You're *alive*, aren't you?"

"I'm alive because I escaped!" Clutching both edges of the blanket in one hand, he jabbed the other toward the double agent. "And I am not sorry you had to go crawling back to your masters trying to explain how you lost me."

"How I lost *you*? Do you think I gave a shit about losing you?" Tottering on the edge of the darkness, Alex all but snarled the questions. "Do you think I spent my time worrying about having lost Fox Mulder!?"

Without considering how Mulder might interpret the move, he threw his gun across the room and reached under his jacket.

***

*Jump him now!* But something in the other man's face held Mulder where he was.

***

Too angry to think, Alex unhooked the last strap, grabbed his left wrist, and yanked the prosethic out of his sleeve. He shoved it at the other man hard enough to rock him back on his heels. "It isn't always about *you*, Mulder! Sometimes, it's about being held down by half a dozen peasants while a man hacks your fucking arm off with a hot knife. Sometimes it's about the kind of pain you can't fucking imagine. Sometimes it's about putting your life together after, relearning to do things like taking a piss and... and.... Fuck it." He turned away, suddenly too drained too tired to care anymore. "It's just... it isn't always about you."

Mulder stared at the artificial arm, at the black leather glove, at Krycek's back.

A number of responses rose out of the numb surprise. "That's what you get for betraying me." and "You've taken enough, now you know how the other side feels." and weirdly, the old theme song from Baretta, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

But he remembered the peasants and their one armed son, and the fate he'd nearly shared. He remembered the terror he'd felt just at the thought of losing an arm. He couldn't not put himself in Alex Krycek's place.

His bare feet making no sound against the wide planks, he somehow managed to hold prosthetic and blanket in one hand while he touched Krycek on one stiff shoulder with the other. "I'm sorry."

He held his ground as Krycek spun around, empty sleeve swinging wildly, and spat, "I don't want your pity!"

"I know."

"You can't *know*!"

Their faces were inches apart. Krycek's eyes were a deep water green, a constant stream of pain and fear and anger and other less easily identifiable emotions swimming up to the surface. He was clearly clutching at his self-control with his fingernails. His eyelashes had clumped together into moist triangles and his cheeks were damp.

"You can't fucking know," Alex repeated, his voice a low growl. To his horror, he couldn't keep his lower lip from trembling. He wouldn't, couldn't fall into the darkness, not here, not now. Not in front of this man. He had to do something to regain control.

Wrapping his fingers around the back of Mulder's head, he fastened onto Mulder's mouth with his. It wasn't a kiss as much as an assault, a demand for access.

He expected violence. Something he could excel at.

He didn't expect Mulder's mouth to open.

Or his hands to drag him closer.

Or the blanket to drop.

Or a desperation that matched his.

A lifetime of denied emotion found a place to go.

He growled low in his throat as Mulder tried to pull away.

***

The growl went straight to Mulder's erection. Not that it needed much encouragement. He was already as hard as he'd ever been.

Between his cock rubbing against the rough denim and the plundering of his mouth, he was seconds away from drowning under a wave of sensation. Sucking hungrily on the tongue thrusting between his lips, he got Krycek's belt and fly undone on pure instinct. The jeans were all there was. Sliding both hands along satin skin, he shoved the fabric down over narrow hips and groaned as Krycek's cock sprang free to rub against his.

It felt impossibly hot.

He captured it, wrapping one hand just under the head, his thumb tracing slow circles over the exposed glans. Krycek bucked up into his grip, releasing his hair, sinking strong fingers instead into the flesh of his shoulder. The pain mixed in with the pleasure and sizzled molten hot through Mulder's veins as he pulled free of the other man's hold and dropped to his knees.

Rub it first against his face.

Warm wet lines drawn over cheeks and jaw.

Breath in the heated, musky scent.

Wet lips.

Open mouth.

Devour.

*This isn't happening.*

Alex looked down past the open wings of his jacket. Past the rumbled white T-shirt pushed up on his stomach. To his cock sliding...

...between...

....Mulder's...

...lips.

"Oh Christ..."

Prayer, profanity; he neither knew nor cared.

*I'm dreaming.*

*I've had this dream before.*

But the man in his dream had never been so real. Had never made those soft moans deep in his throat. Had never latched on to him with so much need.

*God, it's like he's feeding...*

***

His whole world narrowed to Alex Krycek's cock. To the heat of it. To the smell. To the taste.

Just to have it filling his mouth, stretching his lips.

Sucking. Chewing.

Letting it slide almost all the way out.

Recapturing it at the last instant.

A touch of teeth behind the head.

Tongue swirling, dipping...

Then to engulf it again.

Force it back down his own throat, almost choking, swallowing...

When the hot breath gusted against his stomach and Mulder's face pressed into his flesh, and Mulder's throat closed almost desperately around the head of his cock, Alex lost what little grip he had on his control. Lacing his fingers around the back of the dark head, he grabbed a handful of hair and began to thrust.

As his knees started to give, he shuffled his legs farther apart and fought to keep his balance, staring down at Mulder now struggling to match his rhythm. Tears seeped out from under Mulder's closed eyes, his nostrils flared as he fought for breath.

He felt teeth scrape, felt Mulder try to shift, and he only held on harder as he pounded a thousand nights alone, a thousand nights with nameless men, a thousand dreams into that incredible mouth.

Then the world exploded and he had to close his eyes because although he couldn't stop himself, he couldn't watch what he was doing to the only man he'd ever truly cared about. His hand was on Mulder's shoulder now, thumb stroking his throat as he swallowed.

*This is my body which is given for you...*

Hands splayed against Krycek's thighs, Mulder licked and sucked until he'd cleaned the final drops off the other man's softening cock. He felt leg muscles tremble under his hands, felt a shudder run the whole length of the Krycek's body.

His cock slipped free as he fell. To his knees and then to Mulder's shoulder, unable to stop the sudden tears.

***

"I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm sorry..."

Mulder cupped both hands around the other man's face and lifted, just enough to be able to kiss the moisture from the corner of his eyes. "I know," he murmured, his lips vibrating against the damp skin, "I know."

"I never meant to hurt you."

"It's okay." Soft kisses now on each lid, on both temples, tasting salt. "You didn't."

"I didn't?" Krycek leaned back and those incredible eyes opened and Mulder fought for breath, caught in a longing so deep he nearly drowned in it. "I didn't." A little of the steel showing again under the velvet voice. His hand rose, the rough edge of his thumb traced a line of liquid running down from the corner of Mulder's mouth.

Half turning his head, Mulder caught the thumb between his teeth then sucked on it lightly. It tasted like dust and ash and Alex Krycek.

"Christ, Mulder, you're a piece of work."

The watery sniff at the end of the declaration rather ruined it as an insult so Mulder leaned forward and caught Krycek's mouth with his. Gently this time, teasing it open, his tongue dancing forward until got a response, then dancing back.

Then a strong hand wrapped around his cock and he couldn't stop his hips from jerking forward into the touch. Nor did he want to actually. Both hands still cupping Krycek's face, he feasted capturing his tongue, his lips, riding the bow wave of an orgasm that was going to take no more than a half dozen strokes before it crested.

Then a knee pushed between his, trapping his balls between denim and fist.

Then the grip changed and the stroke twisted and electric lines of sensation sizzled out from his groin, taking him to the mountain top and holding him there inches, millimeters from the peak.

The pressure continued to build.

Pleasure.

Pain.

Pleasure.

"Please..." Fingers digging into handfuls of leather, he begged for release. When it came, finally, he threw back his head and screamed.

After a long moment spent catching his breath, Mulder lifted his cheek from Krycek's shoulder. "For what it's worth," he said huskily, his throat raw, "I don't think I could have survived two hands."

Sticky fingers under his chin turned his head until he was staring back into those deep green pools.

"I kept telling you that I could kill you any time."

"If you'd been more specific..."

"We have done this sooner? No." Krycek shook his head, lips curving into a smile so sad Mulder felt it twist like a blade in his chest. "Listen; what do you hear?"

"My heart. Your heart." Mouth open to add a flippant observation, he closed it again. Slowly. *My heart. Your heart.* And that was all he could hear. Even the fire had burned down to silent embers. The total lack of ambient noise was unreal. Surreal. "It's like we're not in the world right now."

***

"We're not." Alex didn't know why Mulder's understanding hurt so. Or maybe he did and he just didn't want to admit it. This was the one man who could understand all he was, could understand why he'd done what he'd done, and who, understanding, would still never forgive. "This time," he said, forcing himself to keep speaking, "this is the *only* time we have."

There was understanding in the silence now.

"Then let's not waste it." His confusion must have shown because Mulder leaned in and kissed him hard; sucking in his lower lip, releasing it reluctantly. "If what we do here and now doesn't count, then there's a couple more things I'd like to do." "Wha...?"

The superior smile returned. "Does this place have a bed?"

"Through there."

Mulder followed his gesture then got to his feet, holding out his hand.

Alex couldn't take Mulder's hand and hold his jeans so he let the jeans pool around his ankles as he stood. When warm fingers released his, he felt suddenly bereft and could only watch the other man cross the room, pick up one of the two lamps, and, without stopping, turn toward the bedroom, finally pausing in the doorway to say, "That's a good look on you." before disappearing.

As the heat rose up into his face, he bent and dragged up his jeans.

Between the things he'd done and the things that had been done to him, he'd thought his blushing days were over. Leave it to Fox Mulder to prove him wrong.

*What the fuck is going on here?*

Well-honed survival instincts were finally kicking in. He fought to clear his head of the emotional wreckage dredged up by what was inarguably both the best and most unexpected blow-job he'd ever received.

Okay. People reacted to stress in strange ways. Mulder had just climbed a mountain, narrowly missed hypothermia, buried them both under an avalanche, discovered the man he'd always believed had killed his father really had killed his father, and come face to well, sleeve, with what had nearly happened to him in Russia which had no doubt reminded him of what actually had happened in Russia.

Post traumatic stress syndrome?

Which might explain the blow-job/hand-job combo but not the offer of round two -- sex in an actual bed. Premeditated sex.

Alex had a sudden vision of the two of them curled around each other, warm and safe in Mulder's bed. The clock radio beside the bed reads 6:30. When the alarm goes off, Mulder reaches out a long arm and slaps the snooze button muttering sleepily, "Who's turn is it to make breakfast?"

*Whose turn is it to make breakfast? Oh, man. I've got to get out of here.*

Sex in an actual bed implied...

...implied...

Hell, maybe it just implied there was a bed available so no one had to get splinters in their ass.

"At the risk of the clinched response..." Mulder's voice drifting out of the bedroom had begun to pick up a distinctly petulant tone. "...are you coming?"

Alex had covered half the distance to the bedroom before he was conscious of even moving. *So much for those survival instincts being well-honed...*

But since he'd come this far.

Lying back on the bed, slowly stroking himself erect, Mulder stared up into the shadows pooled on the ceiling and listened to his head replay Krycek's snippy accusation. *There was nothing to shoot at so the only thing I can figure is that you either wanted us -- you and me -- trapped together in this cabin...*

Was that why he'd followed the double agent to an isolated cabin in the mountains? Was it why he'd left Scully behind? It certainly explained why every time he laid eyes on Alex Krycek he laid fists on him as well.

*Nice to know I didn't waste all those years studying psychology.*

*I wanted him but I hated him for what he'd done. Since I couldn't have him one way, I'd take him any way I could.*

He trailed his fingertips up the underside of his penis, the familiar touch comforting.

They had no past, they had no future. They had now.

This was Alice through the looking glass time.

*And so, I'll take him any way I can.*

***

Alex paused in the doorway, mesmerized by Mulder's smile. There was a cruel curve to it that lifted all the hair on the back of his neck. And, if truth be told, that wasn't all it lifted. His breathing began to quicken and everything that wasn't Fox Mulder went slightly out of focus.

Self-preservation be damned.

*I am so fucked.*

"Aren't you a little over-dressed for this party?" Mulder sounded amused, seductive, impatient -- he sounded as though as though all the complications that had piled up between them; hadn't.

In the past, and the not-too-distant past at that, Alex had cursed Mulder's single-minded intensity, his ability to make the facts fit his personal hypothesis, the way he lived in his own little world oblivious to the crap and compromises the rest of mankind were forced to deal with daily. Here and now, he had a strong suspicion that he was going to be thanking any gods who might still have an interest in him for allowing him to be a part of Mulder's little world.

Which, considering where this was headed, wasn't exactly little.

"You started without me," he accused, moving closer to the bed. Fortunately, he was a master at pretending to be in control of his own destiny.

Krycek walked like a cat, all sleek, suspicious bravado. How long, Mulder wondered, had it taken him to regain that grace? How long to relearn a fighter's balance? Relearned once for the prosthetic now laying abandoned by the hearth and once more for those times -- like this time -- when his sleeve hung empty.

For an instant, Mulder regretted the lose of even the appearance of friendship that would have allowed him to ask but the next instant he pushed regrets aside and responded to the growled accusation. "Unless your paperwork was a total lie, I've got a little over two years on you. I just wanted to make sure I was ready when you were."

"The birthdate was accurate," Krycek admitted, bending to undo the buckles on his boots. "Looks like your advanced years haven't slowed you down," he added, straightening and kicking the boots off.

"I think you're moving slow enough for both of us," Mulder sighed. "Come on, drop the jeans."

One eyebrow raised, Krycek deftly twisted the top button free and let them fall. He stepped forward, stepping out of them and bringing his erection, white T-shirt draped over the base, into Mulder's reach.

So Mulder reached. Only to have the prize pulled back. His fingers closed on air and he moaned in disappointment. Breathing quick and shallow, he dragged his gaze off Krycek's cock and lifted it to his face.

Green eyes glittered under the fringe of those incredible lashes.

"What?"

When the other man's single hand gripped the edge of black leather, he understood. About to expose himself in a much more intimate way, Krycek was unsure of how Mulder would respond.

With a patience that would have surprised his nearest and dearest and was, in fact, surprising him a little, he did the only thing he could. He waited.

***

The leather was warming in his grip. He hadn't been naked with another person since... Alex pushed the memory back before the darkness could reach him. He didn't know what he feared most, disgust or pity. No, wait. He knew. Disgust he could deal with, pity would end it.

Weirdly, his erection seemed totally disconnected to what was going on in his head. It continued to point straight at Mulder like some kind of dousing rod -- this way to heat and happiness. Too bad it wasn't that simple for the rest of him.

*Fuck it. No reason why it shouldn't be.*

He yanked the jacket off his right shoulder then let gravity take it off his left. Even before it hit the floor, he had his hand wrapped in the bottom of the T-shirt and one quick motion had it over his head too fast to change his mind.

***

The stump was short. And ugly. Looked like his arm had been hacked off by a big hot knife held in the hand of an idiot peasant. Whatever Russian doctors had done to it later, they hadn't changed that. His other arm was more heavily muscled than Mulder remembered. His chest was broad and nearly hairless, pecs and... a small gold ring glittered against one pale brown nipple.

Mulder felt his cock twitch at the sight.

It took Alex a moment to realize what Mulder was staring at so intently. Not the stump. The nipple ring.

He'd looked at the stump, really looked at it, then moved on to have his total attention caught by a piece of jewelry Alex forgot he had most of the time. He couldn't decide if he was relieved or insulted.

*I expose my scars -- physical and emotional -- and you're fascinated by a fucking fifty dollar piercing?*

And then he found he needed an answer so he repeated the question out loud.

Only it came out more like an accusation.

***

Startled, Mulder pulled his attention back off the ring, stopped thinking about taking it between his teeth, about the sharp taste of metal against the salt of flesh. Krycek's erection had begun to wilt. Couldn't have that.

Reluctantly tearing his gaze off the other man's body, he pulled himself higher on the lumpy pillows. "About fifteen years ago," he said quietly, eyes locked on Krycek's face, "an obsessed man I would happily shoot if given the opportunity, took a knife to Dali's Christ Crucified. Although the damage was too extensive to hide, it didn't -- doesn't -- change the beauty or the emotional power of the painting. That's how I feel about..." He nodded toward the stump, noting that the thin, angry line of mouth had softened and the jade green eyes had widened. "As for the piercing," he added, grinning as Krycek's expression changed, "I've got to say, it was fifty dollars well spent."

Krycek glanced down at the nipple ring. Then he smiled. Then he snickered and shook his head. "Fuck, Mulder..."

"I had hoped so." Back slightly arched. Deliberately provocative. "You seem up to it again."

***

And he was. Maybe it was Mulder's pose. Maybe it was the way he had no intention of allowing damage -- physical and otherwise -- to get in the way of what he wanted. Maybe it was being thought of as a piece of art not just a piece of ass.

Problem was, it wasn't only arousal he was feeling. He could feel *things* stirring behind his own personal iron curtain. The same *things* that always, eventually, started stirring whenever he spent any time in close proximity to Fox Mulder.

*Things* that had first stirred when he held out his hand across a cluttered desk and the man he'd been sent to betray looked up into his face.

*Things* that had lead to doubt, to Hong Kong, to the missile silo, to Russia...

*Things* that had never lead anywhere good, now he thought about it.

Not this time.

If nothing else, this was going to be a good time. *Things* would not gain control.

Two strides to the edge of the bed. His breathing beginning to quicken, Alex bent and pulled an open box of condoms and a tube of lube out from under Mulder's gun in the bedside table, tossing the lube and one of the condoms down on the blanket.

"Hands and knees," he growled.

***

Mulder looked from the condom to the flush on Krycek's face and grinned. What? No kisses first?"

"After; if you're good."

"Actually, I'm grea..." The last consonant got lost somewhere between a sharp gulp of air and a moan as Krycek's hand wrapped around his cock in what could only be considered a threatening manner.

"Hands and knees. Now."

His brain took half a shot at analyzing the situation -- best position for a one-armed man given the problems of weight distribution and... -- then his face was in the pillow and his ass in the air, cock and balls swinging free, the tip of his erection just barely brushing against the wool blanket, rough sensation making him whimper. The bed sagged as Krycek knelt behind him, a knee thrust between his to force his legs farther apart. He felt the lube, cold and wet, then a slick finger thrust into him and reasoned analysis was abandoned for the duration.

Two fingers. Mulder pushed back, fucking himself on Krycek's hand, trying to get it deep enough that... There! Stars exploded across the inside of his eyes.

Then nothing. "Krycek!?"

The crinkle of a plastic wrapper and; "Give me a break, Mulder, I've only got one hand."

The bastard sounded amused although that velvet voice had definitely been ruffled.

And he was fast, one handed or not.

Before Mulder could catch his breath, he felt another touch of lube and then Alex Krycek pushing slowly into him.

Hot. Tight. Not enough resistance to keep him moving slowly so he buried himself hard and fast. Mulder rocked up against him, gasping out a string of words that made no sense, and then, Mulder-like, he tried to take control.

*Think again, Agent Mulder.*

*You may have done this a thousand times, but this is the one you're going to remember.*

His hand gripping the inner curve of a pale hip, Alex forced his rhythm on the other man. Long, smooth strokes, just warming things up. When Mulder began to whimper and claw the sheets, he changed his angle slightly, hit the prostate, and nearly came at the sight of that long sensuous body writhing around his cock.

The spill of words that went with it held his name, a fair bit of profanity, a little pleading, and something that sounded like Latin.

Calling on ever shred of self-discipline he'd ever had -- he would not lose control, not again -- he shortened his stroke -- harder, faster, deeper -- watching for reactions, playing on them, intensifying them. Mulder's body was his instrument and he was composing a fucking symphony, something that would resonate through the rest of Mulder's life.

*You will never forget this.*

*Never. Forget. Me.*

When the words had been further reduced to incoherent pleas, Alex bent forward, slick skin of belly and back sliding and fusing and adding to the incredible build up of sensation between them as he smacked Mulder's hand away from his dangling cock and closed his own fist around it.

One of them cried out.

Matching rhythms now, hand and hips, Mulder supporting both their weight.

Fire under the skin.

He felt muscles tense, felt the length of hot flesh enclosed in his pumping fist begin to pulse.

Soon.

Oh God, soon...

Simultaneous orgasms were the stuff of fairy tales but they were through the looking glass here and as Mulder came, spilling over Alex's hand and the blanket, as his body shuddered through its release, Alex felt need crash through the tattered remnants of his control. His hips slammed forward. Burying himself as deeply as possible in the other man's body, he surrendered himself to an orgasm so intense the world exploded into kaleidoscope of multicolored light.

When he could breathe, when he could see, when he could think again, they were lying flat, still linked together, his good arm trapped under the warm weight of Mulder's body.

*And how dangerous is this?* demanded self-preservation.

Assuming he was asking himself rhetorical questions, Alex ignored it. He didn't want to move. He didn't want to ever move again, but his arm was falling asleep and when it was the only arm you had... Not even for the pleasure of Mulder's body could he handicap himself to that extent.

Drawing in a deep lungful of Mulderscent -- part sex, part sweat, part expensive soap -- he pulled his arm free, wiped his hand on the blanket, and levered himself up and over onto his back. He grinned at the sound Mulder made when he slipped out of him, a kind of low energy indignation that promised a stronger protest the moment strength returned. Slipping the condom off, he tossed it into a dark corner -- impossible to tie it off with one hand so the hell with it.

The lamp was just over half full. He reached out and turned it down to a minimum flame, thinking, Okay. Now what? as Mulder rolled up onto his side, right arm tucked under his head to raise it off the pillow. His eyes were half closed and his mouth was curved up into his cat-in-the-cream expression.

"You owe me."

As Krycek's expression began to darken, Mulder leaned forward and captured his mouth. *You think you're the only one who can melt a man's brain? Think again.* After a heartbeat, Krycek's mouth opened, almost tentatively, and Mulder claimed him. His fingers slid through silken hair too short to get a grip on as his mouth devoured the other man, sucking on lips and tongue, swooping past the sharp edges of teeth and along the moist, heated curves, breaking free only long enough to allow the smallest gasps for breath.

Strong fingers clutched at the back of his head. A low moan vibrated against him -- not only against his mouth but at every point their bodies touched.

Lack of oxygen finally drove them apart. Breathing heavily, Mulder kissed each closed eye lightly, the lashes throwing butterfly kisses of their own against his lips, then collapsed back on the bed.

The lamp threw flickering shadows against the roof wood of the ceiling. Or perhaps more accurately, threw flickering patches of light up into the shadows.

"Well?" he gasped after a moment, needing to fill the silence.

"Well, what?"

The velvet of Krycek's voice was definitely ruffled this time. Crushed velvet. Mulder grinned. "Am I great?"

"Fuck, Mulder..."

"I'm game. If you think you're up to it?"

"Frankly, no."

He was laughing. Mulder rolled back onto his side and grinned down at him. Even in the low light, he could see the green eyes were gleaming almost as if they were lit from within. Suddenly, he understood the reason moths flew into flames.

For an instant, nothing else existed.

Then his heart lurched painfully and started beating again. He drew in a shaky breath and leaned slowly forward, touching the perfect lips that parted under his in a last, gentle benediction.

Pulling away, he twisted and reached for the folded blanket at the end of the bed. He wasn't cold -- they were buried under at least fifteen feet of snow and snow was an excellent insulator -- but he had to do something to keep himself from falling back into Alex Krycek's eyes.

"So, what do we do now?"

"We sleep." The blanket was barely big enough to cover them both. Mulder inched a little closer so that his breath brushed Krycek's shoulder.

"And then we wake up."

"Yes." It wasn't a question but he answered it anyway. Just so they'd both know where they stood. He could feel familiar tensions waiting to refill the space between and he moved closer still, giving them no room, his cheek pressed against the smooth curve of the other man's shoulder. He wanted to reach out and touch the stump but even as his hand rose, he realized that was a level of intimacy beyond fairytales, beyond fucking and so he opened the movement up until he could rest his fingers around the nipple ring. An exploratory flick, and his wrist was caught in a strong grip, hand pulled down to rest a little lower. That was okay too.

"I never would have pegged you for a cuddler, Mulder."

"You mind?"

"No." He sounded a little surprised.

Deep breath in. Out. A flash of memory. Krycek pulling the lube and the condom from the bedside table. "Good thing you came prepared," he murmured sleepily.

"Yeah, well, I started out by infiltrating the Boy Scouts."

"You show me your merit badges, I'll show you mine."

"You were never a Boy Scout."

"Blew a scout master once."

"Doesn't count."

"The lamp?"

"Stays on." Subtle movement beneath him, then lips pressed against the top of his head. "Go to sleep, Mulder."

It had been a long day...

***

The lamp was sputtering when Alex looked at it again. He blinked once, realized he'd fallen asleep, and had a heartbeat to anticipate the darkness before the room went black.

He didn't do well in the dark.

But although his heart pounded and his ribs clamped tightly down on his lungs, the familiar panic never came. No replay of the terror. He wasn't trapped in the missile silo. He was in a bed, the warm weight of Fox Mulder an anchor at his side. A shield against the darkness.

All the darkness?

Only one way to find out.

Deliberately, wondering if he'd lost his mind, he remembered Russia.

Peasants. Knives. Pain.

As a trip down memory lane, it sucked -- that wasn't ever going to change -- but, although he knew where the edge of darkness was, he no longer seemed to be balanced on it. Something had pulled him back. Given him solid ground under his feet again.

Something?

Mulder.

Mulder seeing him, not the stump. Mulder's total and unquestioning certainty that he'd lost flesh only, not an essential piece of himself. That he wasn't *lacking* something.

His heart began to beat out a more normal rhythm and he found himself smiling. Really smiling. Several muscles in his face seemed confused by it.

*Fuck, Mulder. It really is all about you.*

Sliding carefully out of bed, he was a shadow in the darkness, finding his clothes and dressing with surety he'd thought he'd lost forever. And then, only then, so as not to seem ungrateful for the gift he'd been given, he pulled the flashlight from the bedside table.

At the door, even knowing that he had to be gone before the other man woke -- that whatever the hell had happened between them couldn't stand up to the cold light of day -- he risked a momentary halo of light on Mulder's sleeping face, needing to capture and hold the image so he could wake up to it every day for the rest of his life. *Halo of light...* Leaving the room, he shook his head at his own foolishness. Fox Mulder was many things -- arrogant, obstinate, obsessive -- angelic was not on the list.

His arm and gun were retrieved from where he'd thrown them. He tossed the former into the small gym bag holding his essentials -- passports, money, spare clip, clean socks -- and tucked the later into the back of his jeans. Forcing the kitchen door as quietly as possible, he stuffed a green plastic garbage bag in his jacket pocket. Back in the cabin's main room, he took one last look toward the bedroom then, slinging the gym bag into the small of his back, he started his climb up the chimney.

The chimney top was a bare six inches above the snow. The sky was gray, the stars nearly lost in the approaching daylight. To the east, a bands of gold sprayed up from the horizon. Perched on the stone rim, Alex looked at the morning and thought about going back into the cabin, putting on a pot of coffee, waking Mulder with a kiss.

Wrong fairytale.

And from the sounds coming up the chimney, the princess was already awake and in a really pissy mood.

Time to go.

Spreading the garbage bag, he used his teeth to pull on his single glove, threw himself on the plastic, and sped down the mountain, happily humming the tune to Winter Wonderland as he sped away.

***

Mulder reached his car about noon. It was a bright and beautiful sunny day, warm enough he had to unzip his jacket for the last half mile. The snow from the avalanche was packed hard -- easy enough to walk over although twice he'd sank nearly hip deep into the occasional pocket of fluff -- and once he reached the trees, he merely followed the trail he'd broken the day before.

Less than twenty-four hours before.

He'd found his gun in the bedside table, a flashlight on the hearth, food in the kitchen, and no sign of Alex Krycek.

Slam, bam, thank-you G-man.

Well, what had he expected? Breakfast in bed? An actual conversation over the cornflakes?

Wasn't going to happen. Not in this lifetime. Not in any lifetime.

Alex Krycek was still a murdering, rat-bastard who'd betrayed his trust.

The sex hadn't been mind-altering enough to change that. Besides, they'd agreed right from the begining -- nothing that had happened in that cabin counted.

*Nothing,* he insisted, stumbling into the hollow and just barely catching himself on the car's front fender. *Nothing. Not the sex, not the sleeping, not the trust, not the laughter...* As catechisms went, it was more a reminder of what he'd had and lost than a comfort.

"Less than twenty-four hours ago, you were climbing this mountain to deal with Alex Krycek," a small voice in the back of his head reminded him. "Where 'dealing with' did not include sex, sleeping, trust, or laughter."

Mulder ignored it.

Fucking Krycek.

He felt as though his life now boasted a stump as painfully disfiguring as the remnant of Krycek's arm.

*I was a whole lot happier when I wanted to kill him*.

Then he saw the heart on the windshield of the rental car. Scratched into a patch of frost. And under it, two words: *Call me.*

And under that, on the front seat of the car -- although Mulder clearly remembered throwing it into the back -- was his cell phone. Reaching through the open driver's side window, he almost managed to convince himself his hand was trembling from the cold. He stood staring at the phone for a moment. Then he turned it on.

Still plenty of juice in the battery.

Still off the cell grid.

Four numbers saved in the memory.

Scully.

The office.

The Lone Gunmen.

*Call me.*

Impossible to trace. No point in even trying.

*Call me.*

Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn't.

Mulder slipped the phone into his pocket and started the long walk to the road and George and the real world wondering when the tune to Winter Wonderland had gotten stuck in his head...

...although the verse about conspiring by the fire had certain undeniable relevance.