Trick Or Treat

"What did you get for Halloween, Charlie Brown?" Mulder's voice dripping sarcasm, a hard stare, and then he turned away in disgust and walked off without a backward glance.

Krycek's face as he watched Mulder's retreating figure, the puzzlement and annoyance plain. Really looking as if he had expected something a good deal more interesting in the pouch than the chunk of oily looking rock he had been shown. Then turning his head to look down at her, blank surprise on his face.

Scully wasn't in the mood for any of it. She couldn't help giving Krycek a disgusted look that somehow got tangled up in a glance after Mulder, so that her disapproval seemed to encompass both men. When she looked back up at Krycek, the bewilderment had faded from his expression, leaving only a sort of bashful apology on his face. Scully sighed, exasperated but unable to stay properly mad.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on, Alex?"

"Darling, I wish I knew."

3:07am.
Flushing, Queens.

From the start Scully had had her doubts about the whole thing. It seemed to her a little strange to say the least that a member of an extreme right militia would choose Mulder to unburden his soul to. There were plenty of FBI agents who had experience in that area. Mulder's unsolicited leads generally consisted of blurry photos of something indistinct floating on the skyline. Receipts on purchases and rental agreements seemed almost indecently definite. As usual Mulder had left it too late to tell her what was going on for her to be able to do anything about it. With more than a dozen armed agents kitted up and ready to rock it was no time to get into a discussion. All she had time for was:

"So who do you think is leaking them, and why would they leak them to you?"

But before she got any kind of answer at all from Mulder, Hampton, standing behind them, said grimly:

"We've got traffic."

And it was too late to talk about anything at all.

Taking part in an armed night raid was not high on Scully's list of favorite things to do, but she did it with the same degree of efficient concentration and care with which she did all her work. When the shooting started she hit the deck along with everyone else; in situations like this Scully always took comfort from the fact that she was the smallest target and least likely to be hit.

When the truck took off she realized that she and Mulder, in front of and slightly to the left of the main group, were the only ones with any hope of stopping it.

"Mulder." But even as she jumped up she knew they weren't going to make it. Running after it was an act of adrenalin fueled hope, but that was all. As the truck made the tight turn out of the yard she and Mulder almost kept up, but as soon as it started to pull away up the street they were being left behind. Then she heard the single gunshot, and the truck swerved and hit a parked container truck on the kerb and stopped.

"Cover the driver's side" Mulder said to her as he went round to the passenger door. Cautiously she came round the side of the vehicle, shotgun raised, ready for trouble. Mulder's voice saying:

"Federal Agent. I'm armed. Exit the vehicle now." Way to go Mulder, haul him out, Miranda him and let's go home.

Then her eyes widened in surprise. A neat bullet hole picked in the driver's window, and the fresh trickling splatter on the inside of the glass. He'd been shot from inside the truck. Her first thought was for Mulder. He's in danger. She turned quickly to go round the other side. Mulder met her at the back of the truck. She should have known his sixth sense would tell him there was something strange going on here.

"Driver's dead," came out of her mouth, through that seemed to be understating the case. The driver's been shot by his friend sitting next to him.

"I counted two men." Mulder looked at her for a second and they exchanged a tiny silent 'let's do it' glance. Mulder started moving back to the passenger door, Scully tucking in close behind him.

"Get out of the truck." Mulder's voice hard and tense. No reaction. "Get out of the truck." Yelling it this time. A long second and the dull glint of a handgun arcing out of the wound down window, landing in the dirt at Mulder's feet. "Let me see your hands...hands in the air." The truck door opening. A tall male shape unfolding itself gracefully and stepping out, standing up, hands raised.

Her heart stopped. No. Not you. Not here.

"You son of a bitch." Mulder murmuring the words, and lunging forward. The stock of the shotgun punching into flesh and the hacking grunt of pain and a body hitting the ground. The sound of his gasping struggle for breath. Mulder's face hard with rage, eyes down along the shotgun barrel.

"Mulder!" Thankful her voice still worked, even if only for one word.What else could she say? Mulder, be careful, he's dangerous. Mulder, don't hurt him. If anyone kills the double crossing romancing son of a bitch I'll go crazy.

"I handed you this bust Mulder." Even gasping in pain his voice had a warmth and depth that seemed to resonate inside her.

"Oh come on Krycek." Mulder furious. Maybe out of control furious.

"Who do you think sent you those receipts?"

Scully waited, her heart in her mouth, breathless, for Mulder to make his choice; tearing her stricken gaze from Alex on the ground to her partner's face, trying to anticipate his decision. The relief as uncertainty clouded over the clean bright anger, and he lifted his shotgun, turned and walked away. Alex turning his head to watch him, then twisting further, looking up at her. Scully felt herself sway a little. Vertigo. Relief. Before either of them could say anything Mulder stalked back and Alex hastily looked away from her and her heart constricted.

Then the wretched minutes passing, with the militia members being packed into cars and taken away. Krycek, handcuffed, showing Mulder where everything was stored. She insinuated her way between them, staying close to Alex. Just to walk behind him, and see again his height and the broad span of his back, the careless easy way he moved.Even when Mulder shoved him down onto a crate she knew her face had a blank absorbed expression. All she could focus on was the deep shadow of his eyes and cool sculpted shape of his mouth and the naked vulnerable quality of the fine skin behind his ear, exposed by his brutal buzz cut. They were talking but the words were a blur to her. She had to force herself to focus, to ask the question she should have wanted an answer to.

"How did you get involved with these men?" Not 'Are you alright? What are you doing here? I thought you were going to stay away from Mulder after that thing with the disc.' But her eyes tried to say all that.

"They found me, in North Dakota." The shamefaced way he dipped his head when he said it. The slight shake in his voice. Lying to Mulder in front of her. Half expecting her to laugh out loud and say something like 'They'd have a hard time finding you there. You've been in Washington all along. I know you were watching me. I know it was you leaving the gifts, sending those messages. I was waiting for you. Did you think I'd turn you away?' Scully worked hard to keep her face blank, but communicated her forgiveness by passing no comment.

Alex and Mulder squaring up to each other. Mulder armed, Alex in handcuffs, but still pushing Mulder, fearless. Too fearless. Mulder slapping and shoving him, just itching for a reason to really hurt him. Scully forced herself to speak, to give Alex a chance to steer the conversation. But she couldn't quite keep all the tenderness out of her voice.

"What do you want Krycek?" So strange to call him that, while he risked looking up at her, his glance shaded from Mulder by long black eyelashes. Alex, Alex.

"Same thing you do. To find the man who tried to kill me." His eyes and hers trying to have another conversation entirely. "The man responsible for your father's death." Yanking Mulder's chain. "Your sister's." His voice suddenly gentle, as if regretting having to say that, having to use her pain as a weapon in his struggle for survival. Scully tore away from his tender gaze and snatched at the conversation.

"You want this man brought to justice?" Her voice sounded harsh in her own ears. But it was a kind of endearment, saying what needed to be said to let him get Mulder headed in the right direction. Then listening to him twist and turn and lure Mulder.

"We can't help you Krycek." Mulder's soft words shocked her. Had Alex misjudged his powers of persuasion? As Mulder turned away Scully turned with him, trying to calculate whether or not she should say anything to try to change his mind. Trying to balance her loyalties.

"Mulder." Alex calling her partner to heel. The warm seduction in his voice. Shameless and self assured. And justified. Mulder had no chance.

7:00pm.
Dulles International Airport.

That evening she and Mulder signed Krycek out of police custody. She had tried unsuccessfully to snatch a moment or two with him in private at the police station, but if Mulder wasn't with them he left  another police officer to 'make sure Krycek didn't get out of hand'. She and Alex exchanged a thousand glances, but it wasn't nearly enough.

Then the drive to the airport, with Mulder and Alex at each other like squabbling adolescents the whole time, finishing in a full blown yelling match about the handcuffs.

"Mulder don't you think it's going to make us a little conspicuous if we walk in there with me cuffed and you holding a gun to my head? I think the courier might notice there's something going on."

"Come on Krycek, you don't think I'm going to trust you loose in an open space do you?"

"Mulder I hate to state the obvious, but if I hadn't sent you those receipts you wouldn't have had that bust. If I hadn't shot Jerry you wouldn't have caught me at all. I came to you Mulder. I'm hardly gonna run off on you, stupid."

"You shut the -"

"Enough! Both of you, enough!" Even more than Scully's raised voice, sharp with anger, it was her use of the word 'both' that silenced the two men. "You-" Scully glared at Krycek, whose angry face instantly smoothed and turned to an apologetic grimace, "-the handcuffs stay on and you stay quiet. You-" Mulder looked almost as shamefaced as Krycek,"-let him take off his sweatshirt. He can drape it over his wrists and hide the cuffs. It's in no one's interest to attract attention to ourselves."

Then walking through the entrance hall, checking the arrivals listing. Alex picking out his man in the crowd, and that headlong chase through the arrivals area, and spotting the abandoned pouch on a luggage trolley. Mulder climbing down to get it and then bringing it to her. His hands shaking as he unzipped it, then a sudden spitting 'Shit!' as he flung the pouch away from him in disgust. Scully had swooped on it and taken it up.

"Mulder! What-" A piece of rock. A piece of slick black rock. Alex you jerk. First that damn disc that turned out to be nothing, just encrypted junk, and now a rock. I don't like you messing Mulder around, and I really don't like you messing me around.

"I'm going to kill that ratfuck son of a bitch." Mulder's fury brought her back.

"Wait Mulder. Let's go back and see what he has to say for himself." Let's see if he can avoid having one of you kill the other. I don't want to have to find out which of you I can best bear to lose. Though right now I could kill him myself.

Walking back across the concourse. The easy way he lounged against the rail, his sweatshirt draped over one hand to cover the handcuff. His face a perfect bland indifference to what was going on. Then he saw them approaching and straightened up. His mouth sort of quirked and then she saw him consciously get it under control, closing his lips in a straight tight line. Trying not to laugh at her, Scully thought in a fit of anger.

"Is this some kind of joke?" She asked coldly. The frown on his face was the final insult. Don't act the innocent Alex, it doesn't suit you.

"What?" Alex frowning still as she lifted the pouch to him. But with a survivor's instinct for danger he was keeping his eyes on Mulder.

"Show him."

"What is it?"

"*Expose* it for him Scully." Mulder evidently realizing that he had lost this situation back at the storage yard with Krycek promising revelations. Krycek, tearing his eyes reluctantly from the threat of Mulder. Scully pulled back one side of the pouch and held the rock in her hand through the red leather. Krycek looked at it. Perfect bewilderment.

"What did you get for Halloween, Charlie Brown?" Mulder's parting words, then he turned on his heel and walked away. Alone at last, though she was furious at Alex. At both of them really. Alex might be jerking Mulder around, but really, Mulder made it easy for him. Alex gave her a look of wide eyed innocent surprise.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on, Alex?" She asked, more in hope than in expection of any kind of instructive response.

"Darling, I wish I knew."

That 'darling' went through her like the tip of a fine blade.

"Don't 'darling' me. I don't know what you're up to but I'll stake my life it's for no one's good but your own." Scully found her handcuff key and moved to open the cuff on his wrist. "Let's go."

"We're going without Mulder?"

Scully looked up at him, puzzled. "Mulder's gone outside. He'll be at the car."

"He left you here with me?"

"I don't think I'm in any danger." Scully couldn't quite keep the smile out of her voice, though she kept it off her face.

"Mulder doesn't know that. He left you here with a six foot one two hundred pound felon wanted for murder. I killed someone not much more than twelve hours ago. Nice partner Dana."

Scully had a pang of something half way between pain at his mention of the shooting at the storage yard, and protective loyalty to Mulder. She opened her mouth to justify Mulder's behavior and found nothing to say, so she lifted the sweatshirt a little and bent to get the key into the lock. Krycek raised his free hand and put it gently on her bowed head.

Scully flinched back, looking at Krycek with real fear in her eyes.

"Alex don't, please. We have to go."

"Let him wait. Let's see how long it takes him to start worrying about you. I need to be with you."

"Here? Are you crazy?"

"Yes. Get a interview room. Show them your ID and get a customs interview room. Tell them you want to interrogate me." One smooth black eyebrow arched, the slightest crease of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Scully, holding her breath, afraid to speak, hardly knowing what she was doing. Her hand shaking so badly Alex had to take the key out of her fingers and open the cuff himself, then click it closed around his left wrist and drape the sweatshirt over his two hands.

"Come on." He walked away from her, and she had no choice but to follow. Walking behind him was as much as she felt able for, so when they were confronted by a customs official it felt like pure heroism to open her mouth and manage the words:

"Special Agent Dana Scully, I'm with the FBI. I need a interview room for a little while." The customs man looked at her blankly. Scully, prompted by embarrassment more than anything else, took out her ID and flicked it open. The guy looked at it, looked at her.

"Eh, okay. Should I call..."

"No, my partner's taking care of it. Just give me a room. Somewhere secure." The customs guy looked at Krycek nervously. Alex lifted his hands very slightly, letting the sweatshirt slip a little to one side, exposing the handcuffs.

He held the other man's gaze and smiled very slightly, as much as to say 'See, I'm harmless. Relatively harmless.' The other man's face cleared a little, and Scully finished the job by catching back the side of her open coat and the jacket underneath, exposing her sidearm in its holster.

"I am a Federal Agent. It's under control."

"Sure. This way..." he stepped back, eyeing Krycek warily as he passed, and guided Scully through to a small bare room. Beige walls, beige carpet, beige lighting. A genuine plastic wood veneer table and two beige velour covered chrome frame chairs.

"Is this okay?"

"Does this door lock?" It was coming out of Scully's mouth but she found it hard to believe she was saying it.

"Only from the outside."

"There's a bolt." Her hand flinched at her side as she fought the desire to clap her palm over her mouth to stop herself saying else even more deranged.

"Uh...yeah, but if you bolt it I can't open it from outside."

"Doesn't matter."

"Are you sure? I mean..."

Krycek had gone to one of the chairs and sat down. He sprawled back, long legs stretched out in front of him, his face a mask of bored indifference. When he caught the customs guy looking at him doubtfully he bowed his head and sighed, hangdog and defeated, twisting his wrists helplessly in their metal bonds. Scully took her gun from its holster and made a show of pulling back the slide and pumping a round into the chamber.

"I'm sure. Thanks. That's all I need. my partner will be here any minute." And then the shit is gonna hit the fan.

"Yeah sure...sure," wide eyed aquiescence. A real Fed holding a real felon at the point of a real gun. Cool.

The door closed behind him and Scully shot the bolt home, then stowed her gun again, moving towards Alex, with no very clear idea of what she was going to do when she got there. He was on his feet in one second and met her half way, the sweatshirt falling from between his hands and getting stepped on.

For a second she couldn't bring herself to look at him. It was too sudden, too intense, too crazy. She kept her eyes fixed on the white cotton of his t shirt. He stood close to her. She could see the slow even lift and sink of his chest as he breathed. Closer. She felt the radiant warmth surrounding him. The smell of him, his own personal smell - a clean scrubbed smell, with undertones of warm male musk, and the faintest sweet sharp tint that was his alone, like...almost like almonds. Previously she had thought it was something he used, some cologne or something. But he had showered at the police station after his arrest, and he smelt just as he had the first time they were together. The sharp smell of lye soap was achingly familiar. It was what he used evidently, even when he had a choice. So that faint sweetness to his smell was all his own: he made it himself.

Caught forever in this second. Close enough to see the thin fabric of his t shirt resonate to each beat of his heart. Let me stay here forever. Then his hands lifting to her face, lifting her chin, bringing her mouth to him. Scully closed her eyes. Afraid to look at him. Afraid to see him.

So well remembered, and yet the memories so dull and faded from constant handling. Now she remembers in sudden clarity and brightness. The touch of his mouth. The cool, calm, almost cruel way he opens it and lays it against her barely parted lips. The coaxing turn of his head as he persuades her mouth open. The first airy touch of his tongue on her lower lip; his teeth delicately biting at her, then his open mouth leaning down on hers, his tongue demanding, seeking, but slow; the weight of his kiss pushing her head back, bending her spine, so that she is forced to push back against him, driving her mouth against his.

Sweet...sweet as...

"Alex no. Stop it." Scully gets her hands against the solid wall of his chest and tries to push him away, but he's too big and too heavy, and it's her who moves back a half step. She looks up at him. Bad idea.

His eyes are dark and drugged with desire. The flat white strip lighting is unjust to them, stripping out all the deep blue tones and leaving them a deep pine green. The long sly sweep and tilt of his eyelids, startlingly defined by his jet black eyelashes.

"Stop what?" His voice is low and slow and husky.

"I just wanted to be able to talk to you." And she's usually such an efficient liar. She takes refuge from the tender mocking disbelief in his eyes by looking at his mouth. Worse idea.

"No one was listening. We could have talked just as well outside." The hands at her jaw drift downwards, his fingertips tracing lazily down her throat, onto the bare skin at the neck of her body top. He doesn't actually smile but the corner of his mouth tightens and there is the slightest suggestion of a crease in the skin there.

"No." Scully whispers plaintively, though who it is she is addressing and what it is she is refusing is a mystery even to herself. Krycek's hands linger over the front of her jacket. Scully is dimly aware of him opening buttons, but she can't pay attention. His mouth is more important.

He has the mouth of a stone idol. A Buddha. Calm and chaste and self contained. As long as he keeps his lips closed she can cope by concentrating on the way his upper lip fits against the lower one. The perfect severe serene line they make.

"If you don't want it what are we doing in here with the door locked?" When he speaks she is lost. The sweet warm taste of his breath. The low lust rough sound of his voice. The sight of sculptured stone lips moving and speaking and almost smiling at her. His mouth has a gravity all of its own. Her chin lifts and she stretches out her throat, trying to reach him.

Krycek steps back. Icy air seems to rush between them, wiping away his warmth, scouring away his sweet male smell. Scully sways towards him and makes a little forlorn sound in her throat. Krycek holds out his hands to her.

"Open them."

Scully raises one hand and closes her fingers around the chain of the handcuffs. Trying to focus enough to understand what it is he requires of her.

"Dana. The key. Come on, take them off me." The insistence in his voice is a hard edge in a world of soft warm smears. To make it go away she steps up close to him, her head thrown back, her lips parted.

His two hands close on her wrists, holding her off, shaking her slightly.

"Oh no. Not this time. This is becoming a habit. Take the handcuffs off first."

The word 'first' catches at her awareness. Doesn't a 'first' imply a 'next'? She disengages one hand from his gentle grip and fumbles in her coat pocket and comes up with the key. He turns his wrists to help her get the key into the lock, but his proximity and the feel of his wrist sinews under silky skin against her fingers short circuit something in her head. Her hands are shaking so badly she can't get the key in.

"Dana." He says it so softly it's little more than a stirring of air on the side of her face. She looks up helplessly. His mouth is curved in a small smile, and his eyes are glittering like dark emeralds. "Dana concentrate. I can't help you, you have to do it."

Scully looks down again, frowning in concentration, feeling shakey and stupid and excited. She manages to get the key into the lock and turn it, pulling the cuff open triumphantly. At once Krycek takes thekey from her and opens the second one himself, yanking it off and letting it and the key just fall out of his hands, as he reaches for her.

One hand goes to the back of her head, his strong fingers carving out the curve of her skull from the mass of her hair, bringing her to him like a cup. His mouth on hers, not so cool, not so calm now; with his other hand he strips her coat and jacket off her shoulders and down her arms. Scully gives a little shrug to help him and the two garments fall to the floor as one. His hand is at the side of her waist, pulling her top up out of the waistband of her pants. The touch of his fingertips on her bare skin makes her gasp, and he makes a tiny sound too, because the air she is gasping is drawn from his lungs. He breaks the kiss, gets both hands to her clothing.

"Take it off."

This time she has no difficulty co operating. Her mind is willing to focus completely on having her skin against his. She lifts her arms as he pulls the top off over her head, then feels a little snick of pain as something catches at the fine hair at the back of her neck, and hears a tiny metallic click.

"Oh." She puts her hand to her neck, but there's nothing there. She looks down at her navy blue top, still clasped in his hands as he watches her curiously.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Look," Scully says, and he follows her gaze and sees what she sees. Her little gold cross and the hair fine chain are caught on the silky fabric of her top, the clasp broken open. Scully looks up at him, her mouth a slow lazy smile. "I'm damned now," she says softly.

"Dead and damned." Krycek lets the top in his hands fall and goes to reach for her, but Scully gets her hands between them.

"You as well." She pulls his jacket off his shoulders. He strips it off. Their eyes are intent on each other, as if their gaze can kiss while their mouths are forced to be apart. Krycek pulls his t shirt off over his head in a single swift motion. The sudden wave of heat and the pale gold tone of his skin and truer stronger note of his scent hit Scully like something with weight and mass. She sways on her feet, and makes a noise like a growl of agony. Lust sick. His hands go to her breasts, squeezing them through the cups of her bra. The jagged spikes of pleasure thrusting down into her groin are almost a distraction, an annoyance. She has to stifle the impulse to push his hands away so that she could concentrate on him.

She knows they should be quick, but she can't help herself. It's the first time she has seen him. That's how crazy this is. She has had him, but never seen his bare skin.

She puts her hands to the ridges of his collarbones, smoothing outwards onto the sleek curve of his shoulders. Compact muscle. Not massed out, not for show. If running is good exercise, Alex Krycek is fit and lean and strong because he's running for his life. Her hands slide down from shoulders to arms, tracing the ridge of a vein down the front of each bicep. Then along his forearms, mapped with the fine cords of veins and sinews, her hands coming closer to her own chest. His touch on her breasts has grown lazy and light as he watches her watching him. Scully lifts her hands to his collarbones again. This time she smooths her palms down onto his chest, studying the shallow rapid lift of his breathing. Her hands on his chest solving at last the mystery of his skintone. How he can be so dark and yet seem so deathly pale sometimes. His skin is one shade darker than hers, that's all. It's the tone that deceives. Sallow is too ugly a word to describe skin like honey, like amber. Even the fine silky hair on his breastbone and around each nipple is a fair reddish gold. The tips of her fingers are pink: his nipples are a tawny peachy brown. Pink and peach, brushed together. He shudders under her touch. One hand keeps teasing and touching one nipple, while the other drifts down over his rib cage.

She must have seen it already. Lord knows it's right in front of her. And even if she hadn't, she should have expected it. But it's a sudden heart constricting shock.

The bruise on his stomach. Just under the left side of his rib cage, a dark livid red. Scully feels her stomach turn over and she is back in the dark at the side of the truck, with her heart in her mouth, trying to balance her torn loyalties. Stricken she looks up at Krycek.

"Dana you are the most distractable..." Krycek gets his hand behind her head again, lifting her to his kiss so roughly that when he gets his other arm around her waist and starts turning, he is half pushing half carrying her. He turns and backs her up till she feels the edge of the table against her behind. With nowhere for her to draw away from him he lets her waist go and uses that hand to open the waist of her trousers. This is a bad idea, this is such a bad idea, but she can't stop him.

The soft fabric of her suit trousers slides down her legs, pulled by the weight of her waist holster and gun, and pools at her feet. This is crazy. He wraps his arm around her waist again and half lifts her and she gets her two hands on the table and helps him boost her onto it. She kicks her shoes off and her trousers fall free and land on the floor at Krycek's feet. He kicks them out of his way and moves up close to her, standing between her legs. She senses his hand at the waist of his jeans, working awkwardly, one handed.

Scully puts her two hands to his face, cupping each side of his jaw, holding him to their kiss. I'll do this, you do that. He takes his hand away from her head and two handed gets his jeans open and pushed down to his thighs in no seconds flat, and that's all he's wearing. She feels his fingers hook into either side of her panties and she wriggles to one side and then the other to help him get them down, then she has to lean back a little, breaking their kiss, and back a little more onto her elbow to let him get them off entirely. She looks down at him and gives a little gasping laugh of arousal and excitement and embarrassment. It just seems a little late in the day to be wondering what his cock looks like.

The fine hair on his chest continues as a barely perceptible line down the center of his stomach, skips over his naval, and starts again directly under it, getting more definite as it goes. The ridges of his hip bones; the amber shadows they make on his skin. A scar, a thin snaking band of white, starting at his right hip and following the line of his groin down and forwards, trailing off into his pubic hair. The doctor part of her head winces and thinks: you're so lucky that didn't hit the artery. The woman part thinks it's the most seductive thing she's ever seen. Come this way. His pubic hair is soft and only slightly curling, like a youth's. Reddish brown. She remembers a time when his head hair was long enough to let you see, even through the over enthusiastic use of pomade, the red mahogany tones in it. As always, being close to him is causing parts of her brain to set up in business for themselves. A juvenile voice in her head is chanting singsong wise: a redhead, a redhead, Alex is a redhead.

Scully scares the childish voice out of existence by reaching forward and stroking her hand over him.

You're supposed to be able to tell the size of a man's cock by the size of his nose. Which means Mulder must be hung like a horse. But then again, maybe not. Alex has the sweetest smallest slightly turned up nose. Well this looks pretty sweet in a mean kind of way, and it's past the horizontal, but small? Uh uh. Maybe this is Mulder's. Who cares? It's attached to Alex and that's what matters.

Scully feels laughter bubbling up inside at the thought of how mad Mulder would be if he knew what she was doing, but she tries to smother it. It isn't nice to laugh when a man has his jeans down. But she's grinning and shaking from struggling not to.

Krycek leans forward, one hand on each side of her hips, smiling at her.

"What are you laughing at? Huh? What do you want?" His voice is low and tender and laughing too, until he asks what she wants. Then they both stop smiling, the humor draining out of the situation. This is serious. Krycek shifts his weight to one hand. The other goes between her legs, just drifts over her, barely a touch. Scully stops breathing.

"What do you want?" He slips the tip of his finger into her. Scully breathes out hard, her forehead creasing into a small frown.

"You."

"I'm here. You're not telling me what you want." His finger goes in a little further. She's so wet she can hardly feel it. "Tell me what you want."

"Make love to me." Scully catches her breath and lets it go again as he pushes his finger in further. It's too slender to be of any satisfaction, but the length is good, and the pressure of him pushing against her is better.

"Dana we're on a table in a customs suite and any minute now Mulder's going to be banging on the door. I don't have time to make love to you. All you're going to get is a fuck."

The word goes into her like the long hard slide of his penis. She writhes up, sitting on the edge of the table, catching him by the hips. His finger slides free from her.

"Yes." She tries to pull him to her, but he resists.

"Say it."

"I want that."

"Say the word."

"Alex..."

"Say it. I want to hear something dirty coming out of that clean mouth."

Over the edge.

"Fuck me." There's a note of savagery in her voice that is alien to her.

"With pleasure." With one hand he works the head of his penis against the wet heat of her vulva, with the other he pushes her back onto the table. He sounds like he's mad at her. Scully lets her head drop back onto the cold smooth surface and lets her hands fall back, empty and open, and gives herself up to his anger.

He pushes in a one long slow thrust that makes her twist and then throw her head back and take a deep breath and open her mouth wide and sc-

Krycek gets his hand down on her mouth and she has to swallow her cry or choke. He starts to move in her, slow, savage. Drawing back so slowly, a pause, then driving in hard, the impact of his hips against her sliding her a little on the table top. Again. Each stroke dragging a stifled cry out of her into his hand. Again. The pleasure more intense each time, but her ability to bear it growing too. She licks her tongue across the palm of his hand on her open mouth. Faint salt taste. Rough. Callouses. He keeps his hand down hard on her, but his face leans down, closer, closer. Scully gets her hand up and takes hold of his wrist. He lifts his hand away.

"It's alright. I'm alright." The words are coming out as breathless gasps. "I can be quiet."

His eyes are like lust given life. He gets hold of her two hips and pulls her back against him, getting purchase, giving himself something to drive against. Each thrust is like an attack. He's trying to kill her. What a way to die.

Scully feels the sweet singing tension building inside her. Each slamming thrust drives it away, but it comes back stronger as he pulls back, and as he moves faster there isn't time for the driving away and the coming back to avoid each other, and it all gets mixed up, and she can feel the tight hot buzz inside her at the same time as the rough smooth thrusts of his cock. Suddenly the space between their torsos is an unbearable gulf. Scully convulses up, gets one hand behind his neck, trying to kiss him. He loses rhythm for a second, almost loses her on the slippery surface of the table. He pushes her back, but this time he goes with her, bending over her. When he starts to move in her again Scully squirms and almost snarls. At this angle her clitoris is rubbing against him each time he pushes into her. It's incredible.

Krycek can tell from her gasping gulping struggle for air and the blazing fury in her eyes that she is way out of control. He puts his mouth down on hers again, not actually kissing her, just ready to catch her cries. She is trying to twist her head, and he has to lean down hard to avoid losing her mouth.

Life is very simple. Scully knows that now. The purpose of living is to get her pelvis tipped up as far as possible and her legs as far apart as she can and give herself up to him.

Leaning down to her mouth Krycek can't get a good enough angle at his hips to finish. He draws back, putting his hand over her mouth again, and starts to give a certain up and down significance to his thrusts that he knows will be better for her too. He feels her making sound against his hand, but softer and more coherent than cries. He lifts his palm, but keeps it close to her mouth. She's whispering, murmuring, in time to his fevered thrusts.

"Fuck me...fuck...fuck...yes..."

Krycek feels like he falls from a great height into very deep water. There is no hovering instant of expectation while he waits for his orgasm to start. It just jumps him when he isn't ready. Wine spilling from an over full cup. Easy. Never so easy. He can't always let go enough to come, but this is beyond his control. Beyond anything to do with him. It's her. Her body is where the pleasure is. He drives in hard and keeps driving, each spurt of his climax spurring him against her, as if there is some deeper recess he might find if he pushes hard enough.

There is. Not deeper, different. Alive. Pulsing against him, so that the pulse and rhythm of his own climax seems to have escaped his body and moved into hers. Forcing himself into it, straining to recapture it. It works. The pleasure inside her traveling back up his scorched nerves.

A smothered choked cry, between clenched teeth. The killer part of his brain tells him to shut that noise down before someone hears them. His hand closes down on her mouth. The cry still trails on. He doesn't realize his eyes are closed until he opens them, trying to figure out who the fuck is making that noise. Dana's small hand on his mouth, her fingers against his lips. It's him.

Krycek drops his head, panting. He starts laughing.

"What the fuck are you doing to me?" He laughs. "I'm out of control. I am fucking out of control. You crazy bitch..." Scully wriggles under him, gasping and giggling. " "Does this door lock?" Jesus, I suggested it but I didn't think you'd do it. Mulder is going to come in here and blow my fucking head off."

"No. You're mine!" Scully, laughing helplessly, twines her arms around his neck.

Krycek bursts out laughing again, but uses the momentum to push away from her. As he pulls out of her they both sober up for a second, each feeling the low hum of pleasure along exhausted nerves. Scully gives a little 'that's nice' turn of her head. Krycek starts to lean down to her again, then changes his mind.

"Up. Right now, or the next time you see me without my clothes I'll have a tag on my toe," he says as he moves away.

"I'm there." Scully lies on the table and wonders if Mulder just forgot about them and went home. Looks at the ceiling and hopes Mulder just forgot about them. Looks at the ceiling and tries to remember what she did with the stupid rock.

"Dana get your beautiful ass in gear right now." Krycek comes back to her. Scully is disappointed to see that he has his t shirt back on and his jeans fastened. He's carrying her top and his sweatshirt. He puts them down on the table beside her. Scully manages to sit up, but anything more is beyond both her brain and her body. Krycek sighs, though he's smiling, and resigns himself to doing the work for her.

"Stand up," he tells her, but at the same time he gently lifts her down from the table, supporting her weight for a moment till her tendons get used to the novelty of having her legs together. Then he takes up his sweatshirt, turning it partly inside out, and wipes her up. The touch of washed worn cotton makes her hum and smile and sway.

"Behave," Krycek laughs at her. "Here, at least try and help." He picks up her panties and Scully steps into them, leaning on his shoulder. Now that she's managed that she's ready for the next challenge. Krycek hands her her top, after disengaging the cross and chain. She has it half on before she realizes it's back to front and has to start again. Krycek eyes her critically. Scully has a pain in her face from smiling so hard.

"I think we'd get along quicker if I did it," Krycek comments, but Scully is on a roll. She has her top on and she's ready to go.

"Get back on the table," Krycek says. Oh good, thinks Scully obeying instantly, we're not going yet. She's sadly disappointed in him when he picks up her trousers from the floor, takes her holster off the waistband, shakes them out and hands them to her. When he sees she's not making any effort to put them on he puts her gun down on the table and takes them out of her hand. He bends down and starts putting them on for her. Scully reaches out with one hand to touch his bowed head. She admires the sweet bristle itch of his cropped hair on her palm. He turns his head to look at her.

"Amazing."

"What's amazing?" Scully asks.

"I've heard the expression 'fucking someone's brains out' but I've never seen it before."

"Don't be so serious," Scully coaxes, though she at least helps him to get her trousers pulled up, slipping off the table to do so.

"If Mulder breaks that door down and sees you in your underwear with that grin on your face it won't be serious it'll be terminal. I won't be the only one that gets shot."

"Okay. Alright. Whatever." She can't do anything about the grin on her face, though she wishes she could (it's really starting to hurt), but at least she can get dressed. She fastens her trousers, puts her shoes on. Gun. Jacket. She wishes she had a mirror, but judging from what she can feel with her fingers her hair isn't too bad. The smooth surface of the table probably spared her an 'I just got fucked' hairdo. Krycek is putting on his jacket, sleeking his hands over his hair as if there's enough of it to be a mess. He picks up the handcuffs, clicking one band around his left wrist. Then he picks up the key and puts it into the pocket of her coat, then takes up her coat and hands it to her. Scully sees that the red leather pouch is on the floor under it.

As she puts her coat back on Krycek holds out his hand to her. In his palm is her cross and chain. Scully has her mouth open and breath drawn to say 'you keep it for me' when she realizes he can't. Mulder might notice it's gone from her neck, and she'll have to be able to produce the broken parts. She could say she lost it, but supposing Krycek is searched, being passed from their custody to someone else. Reluctantly she takes it from him and puts it in her pocket. Krycek takes his sweatshirt up, turning it right side out again, folding it with the damp parts to the inside.

"Do you feel okay?" He asks her.

"I feel wet." Scully gives a little wriggle, indicating underwear problems. "If you were a gentleman you'd carry a handkerchief for emergencies like this."

"If I were a gentleman I wouldn't be fucking an FBI agent in a customs suite in the first place," Krycek replies as he snaps the second handcuff closed on himself and lets the sweatshirt fall into place.

"Scully! Scully are you okay?" Mulder yells, pounding on the door. Krycek throws a glance around the room, checking they've got everything. He indicates the pouch on the floor. As he sits down Scully grabs up the pouch and throws it on the table, at the same time calling out:

"It's okay Mulder. One second." She whirls round, gets to the door, snaps the bolt off. Trying to spare every unaccounted for second. Mulder comes through the door so suddenly he nearly knocks her over. He glances at her, glares at Krycek. Krycek is reprising his already successful hangdog and helpless act. Mulder isn't as easily convinced as the customs official. Or maybe it's that Krycek can't do it as well as before. There's something sleek and self satisfaied and satiated about the turn of his, the faint flush on his cheekbones, the sweep and tilt of his dark eyelashes.

Mulder takes another quick look at Scully. He must see something, some flustered quality to her. If he can't see it, he must smell it, Scully thinks, panic stricken. It seems to her that the air in the small room is scorching with the sweet raw smell of her wetness and Alex's seed.

Mulder crosses quickly to where Krycek is sitting and stands over him. Krycek studiously keeps his head down.

"What the hell is going on?" As he asks, Mulder looks back over his shoulder at Scully, otherwise it would seem he expects Krycek to answer.

"I didn't know where you were. I was afraid to walk him out into the car park. I couldn't exactly shoot him out in public if he tried to get away."

Mulder turns around to her, surprised, annoyed. He has his mouth open and she knows the words waiting are 'It never bothered you before. You're always fine when I walk off on you'. Then he realizes that criticizing her amounts to admitting his own behavior is at fault. Faced with a no win, Mulder decides to say nothing. But he registers the flushed flustered quality of her expression, and understands instantly. His face tightens into an angry disgusted grimace as he rounds on Krycek again.

"Did you say something to her? What did you say? You piece of shit..." Mulder gets a handful of the front of Krycek's jacket and drags him up onto his feet, then shoving him away as if his very proximity is offensive.

"Mulder!" Scully closes her mouth hastily right after the name, till she can trust herself not to say something disastrous. "It's alright, I'm alright. He didn't say anything." That comes out more or less okay.

Mulder looks at her, somewhat molified. He takes up the pouch from the table. Might as well take the wretched thing with them. After all somebody thought it worth bringing here in the first place. But the touch of the red leather and the weight of the rock seem to aggravate his already raw temper. And Krycek, standing beside him, so still and calm and utterly indifferent is a further irritation. Doesn't that ratfuck son of a bitch ever lose control?

"Move." Mulder gets hold of Krycek's jacket again and shoves him in the general direction of the door. As he does so he catches Scully's eye. To a stranger her face would seem quite blank; but he knows her well enough to catch the faint curl of her lip. Distaste, though she's trying to hide it. Of course. She doesn't think much of Alex Krycek either. Mulder gets a hold of Krycek again and gives him a satisfying shake.

"We're gonna walk out there and act like nothing is going on. You hear me. Like nothing is going on."

As Mulder pushes Krycek past Scully their eyes meet, their expressions hidden from Mulder by Krycek's broad back. That's right, they say to each other in silence.

Like nothing is going on.

Until I get round to writing the third part of this series. Mulder gets authorization to bug Krycek's apartment, and hears rather more than he bargained for.