The Temple 3: The Price

By Cinder

Buffy/X-Files/HerculesTLJ x-over (Ethan Rayne/Mulder, Krycek/Mulder, Strife/Krycek/Ethan)

NC-17

Summary: Third in the New Temple Series. Alex finally gets his Fox. This story happens after the X-Files episode "This is Not Happening."

Disclaimer: Nope, still don't belong to me. I put them on my Christmas list every year, but I guess I haven't been good enough yet.

TEMPLE 3: THE PRICE

By Cinder

***

When Scully came to us, she was frantic; frantic enough to search out her old enemy. Not that I require much searching these days. Oh, we don't advertise in the New York Times -- Voice maybe -- but not the Times. But, the New Temple of Strife, God of Aggression, is not a secret.

So, when the aliens returned Mulder, ill unto death, she came to us.

I sat back in my chair next to Ethan's and relished the warmth of him. Here I lounged, my power complete, watching Dana Scully rub that snobbish nose of hers in the dirt, her tears turning it to mud on her cheeks. How often I had dreamed of seeing her like this?

"No," I told her imperiously.

"Krycek, you rat! You have to help me! Him! You have to help us!" she screamed, scrambling to her feet. All spit and fire, our red. I itched to rip her to a bloody pulp with my tentacles.

I stroked Ethan's arm just to let him know how much I was enjoying this little exchange, how much it was turning me on to squash the imperious Dana Scully like a bug, how much he would be enjoying it later when we got to our room. I'd put him on his knees in the center of our big bed and perform one of our more sacred sacraments, making him come all over the sheets.

"Why should I?" I asked Dana. Why indeed. After all, those big hazel eyes meant nothing to me. Those full pouting lips held not the slightest interest. Arrrrgggghhhh! I bit my lip and waited for her reply.

"Please, Krycek, if not for us, then for our child. I'm carrying Mulder's child." She laid a proprietary hand on her abdomen.

Of course, why else? It's not as though I mattered at all, is it, Dana Scully?

I patted Ethan's wrist, prompting him. I couldn't answer her. I needed to hear him denigrate her the way he does so well.

"You want to sacrifice the child?" he gestured expansively to the altar. "Before or after it's born?"

"No!" She backed away a step, horrified. I worried for a moment that she was going to be sick on the temple floor.

"If you don't want to sacrifice the child, then I'm not sure what you mean," Ethan told her, condescendingly. I love that tone of voice of his, probably because it has never been directed at me. He has the most phenomenal way of communicating boredom. Usually a problem I solve with my claw. Cheers him right up.

She turned back to me, her eyes big as a basset hound's, "Please, have mercy."

"Let me get this straight." I leaned forward, inviting her with a crook of my finger up to the first step of the dais. Within tentacle range. I heard Ethan's breath hitch with glee. "You want me, who you abandoned in that silo, to help Mulder, who has pounded on me at every opportunity, out of the goodness of my heart? You come here bearing no sacrifice, no offering, and yet, you would have me intercede with my god for you? I don't think so."

"I have nowhere else to turn," she pleaded.

"Right now you might not even make it out of this audience chamber alive."

She looked around fearfully for a moment, and then her eyes zeroed back in on me. "Krycek," she growled.

"No, you listen to me. There will be no more insults. Do you understand?" I hissed. She nodded, her eyes wide again. I looked down, following her gaze. My tentacles had uncurled, unconsciously, and were writhing like Medusa's curls around my ankles. "Now, offer me something."

"What?"

"I don't know and I don't care, but I suggest you do it now, and I suggest you do it fast before I decide to gut you for the fun of it."

Ethan's fingers dug into my other arm, tense with anticipation.

"I won't give you my baby."

"Even if it means Mulder's life?"

She spoke so softly, I could barely hear her. "You can have me."

"Done!" a young voice called out from behind us.

Ethan and I stood to receive our god. Everyone else in the room prostrated themselves before the dais. Dana stayed on her knees like a good little girl. Maybe she was trainable yet.

"Just maybe." Strife giggled. "Well, a little done." He descended the dais and faced Dana. "I will have you and I will have your man, this Mulder," he giggled again, "and I will have your child. Do you understand? This is my price."

"I won't sacrifice my child." She hugged her stomach protectively.

He sighed, tapped his foot, and then continued patiently. "Sacrifice is, like, just a term. You will all serve me, ya know? You agree?"

"I can't agree for Mulder."

"He's your man. I'll consider any statement ya make on his behalf ta be binding." Slowly, Strife approached her. "Well?"

After another moment of thought, Dana agreed. Never let it be said that Dana Scully made a snap decision.

With a melodramatic wave of his arm, Strife made one whole and healthy Mulder appear in a shower of blue sparks, still, frozen in time and space. With the other hand he materialized two collars, pretty silver designs inlaid over leather, just like the ones Ethan and I wore. "These are symbols of your service," Strife told her. "Put it on and he will speak."

Another pause, and then she took the smaller piece of evergreen leather and wrapped it around her own throat, snapping it closed with an audible click. Mulder came alive, sputtering.

"Dana? Dana, are you all right? Where am I? What's going on?" And so he continued.

Strife frowned at me, disgusted. "Ya never mentioned that he talked that much."

I shrugged. "You never asked."

"I will punish you for this," he promised.

"Really?" Ethan asked. "Can I watch?"

"Oh, yes." Strife licked his lips, his eyes going fuzzy as he thought of all the things he could do to me. "All right." He turned to Dana. "Shut him up."

"Me?"

"Zeus alive!" Strife muttered and turned back to Mulder, who still hadn't stopped asking questions. "Fox!"

"Nobody calls me that," Mulder snapped.

"I like it." Strife smiled fondly. "Clever, witty, mischievous animal. I like it a lot."

"What - "

"Shut-up." He paused. And Fox did, shut-up, but his eyes were bursting with questions. "All right. You've noticed ya can't move much? Nod yer head." Fox nodded. "And you're not going to be able to move, other than to take this collar, and acknowledge my ownership of your soul. Dana here has pleaded for your life. I have granted it, on the condition that ya both and yer child become mine. Take the collar or die." He held it out.

"I don't have much choice."

"Life sucks, don't it?"

"Please, Mulder. Take the collar." Dana was wringing her hands.

"We'll just be slaves again, Scully. Slaves to the system, slaves to the aliens..."

"So then, what does it matter," she reasoned. "Maybe there is no such thing as freedom."

Truer words have not been spoken.

"Then, I want to die."

"Please, do it for our son."

"Daughter," Strife corrected. They both looked at him. "What? The doc called it wrong. You're havin' a girl. Pretty little girl. Eyes like her father, but she got her mother's nose, which I gotta say, is a real good thing." No one spoke. "What?" He gestured toward Fox's face. "You could land a jet plane on that thing."

"Could be worse," Fox muttered sullenly.

"Yeah, well maybe when I'm mad at ya I'll turn it into a big honkin' elephant nose, huh? Now quit the dramatics and take the damn collar."

For a long time he just stared at it, until finally he reached for it with a sigh. It wrapped around his throat and latched with the same audible click. Strife stepped back out of the way and Dana ran into her man's arms.

I wanted to yak.

"Oh, quit it," Strife hissed at me. "Not like they're doin' it."

"What about the baby?"

"Popsicle. Fox is gay. Ya got that memo, right?" Grinning madly, Strife turned away from my flabbergasted face. "'Kay then." He snapped his fingers and Fox and Dana were redressed in matching leather pants. Fox wore a black mesh shirt and he topped Dana out with a black, leather, cropped shirt. Her rounded belly bared showed, but something else most definitely did.

"Dana, you have breasts." I smirked at her.

"Stuff it, Krycek, or I'll have your balls for breakfast."

"Be nice to the lass," Ethan chided me. I pouted, but stayed silent.

"Everybody out o' my throne room!" Strife yelled. All the people waiting in the wings scrambled to get out before Strife's notoriously volatile temper blew. They were wary of Ethan and they outright feared me, but Strife, he scared them shitless. It was sweet.

"Kay then, it's time for a family meeting." Strife led the way into the back of the temple. There were several private rooms in the back, most of them empty. Ethan and I shared the largest one. A foyer connected them all and in it was a huge dining table. A feast was set when we entered. "Dana?" and he held a chair for her. I sputtered. Where had my deliciously obnoxious god gotten manners?

"Please, Alex," he chided. "Quit tryin' ta be a know it all. The baby is like way important." He gestured for the rest of us to seat ourselves.

"What's going to happen to my little girl?" Dana asked.

"She's gonna be raised here at the temple. Them fates got a long string with her name on it." He actually smiled, not a leer or a deathly grin, but a smile. "I think as ya get used ta it here, you'll like it. And I need ya." He absently picked up a carrot and started playing with it, gesturing with it, sliding it through his fingers. Bastard. "Ethan is good at the big picture and Alex is ... well, Alex."

Hey!

He leaned toward me, petting my claw with his long, white fingers. "Ya got the whole death and destruction thing goin' on.

END TEMPLE 3