R1-Nicole-p3

I wasn't sure what was out there, what had been so close to Mulder and I, but I knew I didn't like it. It had scared me like I didn't think I could be scared again. After the silo I thought nothing could scare me again. Mulder was shivering. That motion dragged my attention away from the cold windows. The wind pounded at the door with such ferocity I could swear there was a person at the door. I shivered too, wondering again about the presence outside.

"Don't tell me. You plan on killing me slowly...by freezing me," Mulder sneered, or at least he tried to sneer through his chattering teeth.

I sighed in exasperation. I should have left him! He would have left me. He had left me in the forests of Tugusta. My prosthetic might just be the perfect weapon to bludgeon the man to death with. I saw heating units spaced liberally about the cabin, but I couldn't see a power source.

"I have been cold before, Krycek, you won't be..."

"Will you shut up, Mulder!" I was beyond exasperated. There was a generator somewhere and I just knew it would be outside...with whatever else roamed the snowy slops. "I have to go out...and find the fucking generator." I softened as I saw the bluish shade of his lips. I certainly didn't want to think about those lips. He was shivering so violently that I counted to three and said, "What the hell?" before I went back outside.

The generator was just off the north side of the cabin in a little shed. There was a thick layer of pink insulation in the walls of the shed, and I hoped the cabin was similarly protected. It was difficult to get the bastard started, but after ten minutes of freezing my balls off, I did it. I staggered back to the cabin, my eyes darting to the tree line, but seeing nothing that seemed off. In fact, I didn't sense anything out of the ordinary. Still, I made my way as quickly as I could. Heat was already pumping into the cabin when I came inside. I felt like a conquering hero. I turned to grin triumphantly at Mulder, but it faded as I saw him curled on his side, unconscious.

"Shit. Mulder, you have to wake up." I may not be a doctor like the perfect Miss Scully, but even I know that head injuries and sleeping don't mix. I shook him gently and tapped his bruised face. He moaned a bit and opened his eyes. I knew he didn't recognize me, because there was only a gentle stare, a rather blank, gentle stare, but still no fury. I pulled him up and made him walk to the bedroom, where I had the horrible job of stripping him down out of his wet clothes. It was colder in the bedroom and when I got a blanket wrapped around Mulder I went to the small heater on the wall and turned it on. The heat pumped in and I had a moment to thank the people who had chosen the powerful generator. As long as it had fuel, the whole cabin would be toasty. I went back to Mulder, and rubbed at his arms, trying to keep him awake. It wasn't until my jaw clenched tight from chattering too much that I remembered my own soaked clothes.

I kept on my damned fake arm to help with leverage. Mulder wasn't exactly the easiest man to keep awake. He kept curling up on his side and cuddling into the covers and swatting at me. Where was the irritating man I had fought with for so many years? I was mulling over this when Mulder grabbed me down to him and enveloped me in his arms. Too shocked to move, I actually let myself be held by a man who would probably rather shoot me than look at me.

"Cuddle bunny," Mulder whispered falling back into sleep.

I choked. What in the hell? "Mulder! Mulder, wake up," I hissed, not moving. He tightened his grip on my waist and murmured some other bit of silliness. Oh yeah, he really was out of it. Why then did I take such pleasure in it? Mulder was so focused on finding the truth, that he was blind to it. He was self-absorbed. Conceited. Pompous and self-righteous...I felt his lips, formerly blue and now red and warm and so fucking soft...on my neck. I forgot what I was thinking. He whispered my name. *My* name! And cuddled closer.

"Okay, Mulder, you are definitely not thinking straight," I gasped. I extricated myself from his embrace with the speed that has always saved me from life-threatening situations...just like this one. I backed away from him and he was pouting, eyes tightly shut and lips pushed out like a child's. "Wake up already, Mulder!" I was getting tired myself. Exhaustion was coming over me like a heavy wave and I found myself rationalizing that Mulder had had worse injuries and hadn't succumbed to them. I tried one last desperate ploy to wake him. "Mulder, the mothership is here...outside...right now!" He simply sighed and turned his battered face into a pillow. I ventured to the bed and settled on it, far from him and his strange mood.

***

Running inside the stag, he cursed the witch once more. The little town he sensed was still several miles away. No longer could he feed in the way he had done before. To feed, to renew himself he had to be inside his victim, joined with it. The stag stumbled and he could not get it to rise again. He was forced out abruptly as the animal died, his spirit tumbling out and all his stolen strength drained by its death. It had almost dragged him down with it. Unable to move for several hours he curled around the trunk of a tree and fed on his own rage.

***

I woke to find Mulder close to me, his breath warm on my arm. The straps from my prosthetic were cutting into my flesh and I sat up stiffly. I unclipped the metal fasteners and sighed in pleasure as I removed the damned thing. I rubbed the stump and could feel the fingers of a phantom hand curl in pleasure. How long would I still feel that hand? I went to the bathroom and relieved the pressure on my bladder. When I returned Mulder was sitting up and glaring at me. I told myself I was relieved that he was back to himself. But at some level I was disappointed.

"Krycek! I am naked!" Mulder hissed, and that look was back in his eyes. They widened. "And *you're* naked!"

"Don't get all virginal on me, Mulder. We were both soaked," I said as evenly as possible.

His head swiveled and saw the pillow next to him, where the indentation from my head was still clearly visible. "You slept with me?"

He really sounded shocked. I had to chuckle. "I don't see any other bed, Mulder. And while I saved your ass, I am not inclined to sleep uncomfortably just because you think you're irresistible." I took some small pleasure in his angry flush.

"You didn't save me! I can remember quite clearly walking on my own," he said without conviction.

"Yeah? And do you remember passing out, wet and half-frozen on the floor of a freezing cabin?" I taunted. I had never really noticed how nice he looked when he was flushed. Of course usually he was flushed from the exertion of beating the hell out of me, so I could be forgiven the lapse I thought.

"So where the hell are we?" Mulder had obviously given up on his line of self-reliance.

"You tell me," I said angrily. "You are the one who drove us through a storm, crashed the car almost killing us both."

"I know where we were going, Krycek! I asked where are we?" He had a pillow over his crotch. Like I really cared what was under it. "And put some damned clothes on," he snapped.

I leaned against the bathroom doorjamb. "Why? Can't take your eyes off me?" I taunted.

"In your dreams, you rat!" He was in a high flush now. Those lips were compressed in a tight line.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, I know what videos you have hidden behind Bambi does Boston," I smiled.

He jerked as if slapped and I was nearly contrite. Nearly. He had, after-all, gotten me in this situation.

"I-I don't know what you are talking about," he said defensively.

"Yeah? How about "Bad Boys in Blue?" I winked at him. "That one was a real turn on for you huh? Made me wish I had two hands...you use them both so well..."

He lunged at me, but a wave of dizziness overcame him and he fell at my feet. I would really have rather that he had struck me. "I am sorry, Mulder," I surprised myself by saying.

"Go to hell, Krycek."

"Been there already, Mulder."

"Why am I not surprised?" he rasped as he drew himself up. He looked about and searched for his clothes. I had laid them out over a chair without really remembering. My clothes lay in a lump on the floor. He patted at the pocket. "Where is my phone? Dammit, Krycek, where is my gun?"

"Oh, did the big bad federal agent lose his gun?" I shook my head in mock sadness. "You are slipping, bunny."

His head snapped toward me, and I bit my bottom lip. Why was I tormenting him? Maybe I was the one with the problem. I had to admit that I liked being called Cuddle Bunny in that husky voice of his. That made me impatient and I went to my own clothes.

"Bunny?" he hissed.

"Forget it," I growled. That knowledge was mine.

I looked at him from under the cover of lash and saw that he was flustered, even embarrassed. "I am going to go check the fuel in the generator," I said.

"Don't bother," he snapped. "We're leaving."

"And go where? Mulder, it's snowing so hard out, I don't even know how I am going to find the generator."

Mulder, clearly not believing me, went to the window. His jaw clenched. He knew a whiteout when he saw one. The snow was coming down so hard it looked like it was coming from the ground up.

I thanked whatever capricious fates that got us here before this storm hit. I slid into my trousers and grimaced while picking up my prosthetic. Mulder watched me and I saw a strange look on his face, almost one of remorse.

"I'll go with you, Krycek. You can get lost in storms this bad."

"You can't even walk, Mulder. Listen..."

"I'm going," he growled.

"Suit yourself, but if you think I'm carrying you back in here when you fall, you're crazy." I saw that my words were just making him more determined. I shook my head and finished clasping on my partner and put on my shirt and leather jacket. Mulder dressed more slowly and I watched him, more interested in the way his lean body looked than I cared to know. We made our way outside and he paused as the bitter cold hit him. I made my way toward the shed, glad that I could still see it, though not well. The wind sapped all the warmth from me in mere seconds and I looked back at Mulder, making sure he was still behind me. Despite my words, I didn't want to leave him in the cold. He surprised me by not only making it to the shed, but by looking for and locating a fuel pump.

"This cabin is certainly well-stocked," he said as he lifted the hose and brought it to the generator. I was moving to unscrew the lid to the generator fuel tank when Mulder grabbed my arm.

"Turn it off first, Krycek!" He looked at me with a curious stare, as if wondering why I had been so careless.

I sighed and turned off the humming machine. We got it refueled in no time, both of us shivering uncontrollably.

Half way back to the cabin Mulder paused and I reached for him to pull him along.

"There was something after us...wasn't there," he shouted over the wind.

I pulled him after me and got him inside the cabin. The heat hurt and I groaned.

"Krycek?"

I looked at him, seeing an intent look on his face. I knew he wanted to talk about that thing...whatever it was, but I didn't. "I didn't see anything, Mulder."

He looked at me for a moment and just nodded. "I think we should find something to eat," he said finally.

I took one look at him and shook my head, "First we get out the wet clothes. I won't peek," I added evilly and he glared at me, but went to the bedroom. It was amazing to say the least. Mulder actually obeying me? Marvelous. Utterly marvelous. I watched him from behind, my eyes travelling down his long, graceful back. Why did I have to notice now how sexy his body was? I mean, yeah so I had always known he was handsome, okay and yeah I noticed his lips, but we were in the middle of a snowstorm trapped inside a little cabin! I didn't want to notice his body. His long, lithe body. I really didn't want to notice his tight, round ass either. Shit! I had done men before. Heat of the moment kind of stuff. Any port in the storm would do mentality, but now I really was in a storm and the only port hated me...and was an awfully pretty port. My body responded to the imagery I was conjuring and I cursed. I am one messed up man, I thought to myself. To prove that I was in control of my emotions, and my wayward dick, I followed him into the bedroom to undress and to snag a sheet or something to cover myself with.

He was already naked from the waist up. His small nipples, puckered from the cold and like little bites of sweet fruit ready to be nibbled. The light smattering of hair on his chest trailed down to his navel and I remembered how he was prone to toy with his navel before he jacked off to some fuck flick. I gritted my teeth remembering his moans as some guy sucked another guy's cock in his little secret pornos and jerkily began to strip.

He paused as he was unbuttoning his trousers. "What do you think you're doing, Krycek?" he asked somewhat breathlessly.

"I am doing the same thing as you are, Mulder. Now just shut up and leave me alone." I know my voice was shaky, but dammit he was just making me angry, he was *not* turning me on. Not, not, not!

He rose to the challenge implied in my seeming unconcern about seeing him naked and took off the rest of his clothes. I had to work at not *rising* to the challenge of that. I set my mind to thinking of the silo. How I had pounded on the metal door and screamed myself hoarse, thinking I would surely die. But die not with a fast bullet to the head, but with slow torturous thirst, the smell of my own waste surrounding me. He was mumbling something. Probably cursing me, but it didn't matter now, I had regained utter control of myself. I undressed and wrapped a sheet round my waist. He left the bedroom, a blanket trailing after him. I watched him as he swayed and held on to the doorframe for a brief moment. He didn't look back. He was the queer one and yet here I was, the one trying to control my desire to tug that damned blanket off him. I was disgusted with myself. Telling myself that I was just following him because I was hungry and wanted to eat, I trailed in his wake feeling like some attendant to a damned prince. A conceited, foolish prince at that.

***

The smoke from his fire filled the underground chamber and he stared into the flames, chanting. His medicine stick rattled like the snake he had fashioned the tip with and he saw the vision as he had seen it since he had been a small child. The smoke fashioned itself into images of a battle. A great falcon clawing at a snake that transformed to a man and then into a wolf. The falcon was losing as its enemy changed shapes constantly trying to drag the falcon back into the flames. The vision had always been the same, ending before the enemy, the changing face of evil, could drag the falcon to its death. This time the old man chanted longer, eyes widening as it looked as if the enemy would win. It coiled about the dying falcon, as a snake once more. The falcon was making such high keening screams that the old man shivered in fear. Yet something absolutely new happened. Another bird of prey formed from the smoke and it sank its claws into the serpent, lifting both the snake and the falcon away from the flames. Abruptly the smoke drifted apart, becoming smoke alone once more. He stood, ignoring the pain in his ancient joints and doused the fire. He stood in the blackness of the pit for a long moment, hearing the voices of his ancestors as they cried out their warnings. Something evil was coming, something that had been his people's enemy for so long. The shape-shifter was freed from his prison, but different somehow. No longer tied to the body of the former slave it had lived in for so long those many centuries ago. No longer tied to the demands of one body, and in that it was ever more dangerous.

He climbed the ladder that led out of the vision pit and saw his grandsons waiting patiently for him in the snow above. They handed him his robes and helped him to the house. It was a white man's home, not the tents of his vanquished people. He frowned at its ugly, permanent structure. It was an eyesore on the face of the mother and he resented it, but allowed himself to be ushered in. The bodies of his grandsons were clothed in white man's clothes. Though they and all his family respected the ways of The People, they were modern. They were Americans as only The People could be, but assimilated as much as one of The People would allow themselves to be. His youngest grandson wore the uniform of the local law and he sighed in regret. The star on his young chest would have represented death to his ancestors and now he wore it proudly. Still, the old man loved him dearly as indeed he loved all his family. He would not upset the young man with any disparaging remarks.

"Grandfather, you should wait for spring to seek visions," the young one admonished gently.

The old man waved his hand dismissively. "Visions do not wait for the seasons to turn. And evil does not wait for the snow to stop."

"What did you see?" the oldest asked.

The old man would not speak and after several minutes his grandsons left him to his own thoughts.

***

The cabin was well stocked with a variety of canned goods. I heated up several cans of Dinty Moore beef stew as Mulder chewed his lower lip contemplatively. Whatever he was thinking I didn't want to know. I guessed he was thinking about the thing...the invisible thing that had chased us. Had it though? I hadn't seen anything, just felt it. So too had Mulder.

"There was something out there, Krycek, and I think we need to consider that it might be back," he said finally.

I ladled the stew into two bowls and handed him one. "We were both half-frozen and you were on the verge of delirium. I hardly think..."

"Yeah well, your inability to think has little to do with anything. I *know* something was out there. It chased us and I think it almost caught us," he interrupted me, rudely. "Whatever it was, we need to find out."

"Fine," I groused. I was hungry, half turned on, and tired. I didn't care to work on a potential X-File with him.

He sighed and began to eat. I watched as a piece of meat passed his lips, licking my own lips as he licked away the brown gravy. His eyes were focussed somewhere over my left shoulder and I shifted in my seat as bite after bite slid past those red lips. I could barely eat myself, but forced myself to. I would need strength to have to deal with the irritation that was Mulder. The temptation that was Mulder. Damn him and his recklessness! He was always getting me deep into trouble. I usually found trouble enough on my own. Witness my association with that cigarette smoking bastard and all his lies about saving the world. I did not need Mulder to add his own brand of trouble to my lot!

End

Tarlan it is all yours.