"Do you think Byers would look good without a beard?" Krycek asked suddenly. He had been in the bathroom, shaving, and still had shaving cream on his face.

"Huh?"

"I was thinking of shaving him."

"Why would you want to do that?" Jimmy asked numbly. Byers could grow it back, he reminded himself. Of all the things Krycek could cut off while he had Byers in his power, this was really a mild threat, not worth getting worked up over. Still, it just seemed like such a violation, for Krycek to presume to alter Byers's appearance. Just another form of control, another way for Krycek to mess with them both.

"It scratches when I make him give me a blow job," Krycek said casually, wiping his face with a washcloth.

Silently, Jimmy fumed. He'd been afraid something like that was going on, on top of everything else he'd been doing to Byers. Krycek wasn't even worthy of having Byers as willing partner, or even a friend, let alone as his sex slave. If there was any justice in the world, he would rot in prison for this, for a very long time. That might not prevent him from having sex slaves, but better he be doing it to other criminals than to a good man like Byers.

"You've probably noticed that yourself," Krycek taunted. But Jimmy recognized that for what it was: meaningless locker-room talk. He knew Krycek was sure that Jimmy would be insulted at the implication that he'd been having sex with Byers. Little did he know that Jimmy considered it exaggerated flattery -- or would if he'd thought Krycek believed it.

"Look, Krycek," he finally said, "if it's a blow job you want, let me do it instead."

Krycek seemed surprised and amused. "You, the big football jock, are offering me a blow job?"

"If that's what it takes to keep you from forcing Byers to do it. In fact, let him go, and I'll do whatever you want."

"I suppose you've had lots of practice?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact." That was an exaggeration. He'd actually never done it with a lover, but there'd been that one time he did it on a bet. Somehow an argument got started in the locker room over whether it was true what someone had heard: that men give better blow jobs than women because they knew what felt good. One of the guys boasted that his girlfriend gave the best blow jobs in the world (and no, his teammates were not welcome to a sample), and how no guy's mouth could ever feel as good as a woman's mouth. Somehow, over beers after the game, the guy been goaded into to making a bet. The bet was that if a few guys and his girlfriend each sucked him off, he would be able to tell which was which. Most of the team placed money on the bet, one way or the other, and three of the guys plus Jimmy himself agreed to put their mouths where their money was.

He'd made two hundred dollars off that bet, and never had he felt so gleeful at taking money from blind men's disability checks. Especially with other blind guys getting their share too. He'd invested his winnings in the stock market. He'd picked a some company that sounded lesbian-owned; it had seemed appropriate. Some bookstore starting with an "A," as he recalled. Had to sell it to pay for the printing of The Lone Gunman, though.

That night behind the bar had been a lot of fun, both fooling the macho guy and all the warm-ups they did with each other beforehand. With a creep like Krycek, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun, but he'd gladly do to spare Byers. Byers seemed like the type who had only done it for men he really loved, if he'd ever done it at all. Jimmy had certainly felt a lot of affection for all the guys he'd sucked off, even the macho jerk, but it wasn't love, exactly. Maybe could he get through this by pretending Krycek was the nice guy he'd seemed to be at first, trying to start a team for disadvantaged youth.

But he was almost relieved when Krycek laughed disbelievingly and went into the adjoining room, shaking his head. At least he didn't take the razor with him.

Byers drank yet another cup of coffee, fighting to stay awake. He needed to keep trying to find Jimmy. The sleep he'd skipped over the past few days was catching up to him.

Frohike's coffee was weak and bitter compared to Jimmy's strong, rich, and full-bodied brews. Yet another reason they desperately needed to find him, Byers thought, but the grim humor failed to cheer him up.

What if they never saw him again? Byers wondered if Frohike and Langly expected the three of them to just go on with their lives, just like old times, as if Jimmy had never existed. The three of them had done that for months in the case of Mulder. They'd each thought of him from time to time, of course, but by tacit agreement had stopped discussing what had happened to him, and had gone on with life. But fond as they were of Mulder, he had never exactly been a daily part of their lives.

Maybe Langly and Frohike, after a few months, would go on as if nothing had happened and Jimmy had never existed, but Byers was convinced that he'd never go through a day without being painfully aware of the huge gap left in his life where Jimmy used to be.

Krycek barely glanced up when Jimmy emerged freshly scrubbed from the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was working at the desk, with his laptop and two palm-top computers sitting in front of him. He looked relaxed and unguarded, with his shirt half unbuttoned. Actually, it wasn't rightfully his shirt, but another one of Jimmy's shirts. One of his favorites, in fact. He wore nothing underneath, and as usual he'd left his prosthetic arm off.

Instead of going back to his bed, Jimmy walked closer to Krycek.

"What are you doing?" Krycek said sharply, picking up one of the palm-tops.

"Getting a pair of clean shorts," Jimmy said in his best innocent voice, reaching for his own overnight bag.

"Lie down on the bed," Krycek ordered. "When I decide you need shorts again, I'll put them on you myself." He waved the palm-top at him.

Jimmy turned away, making a loud theatrical sigh, at the same time tightening his stomach muscles. The towel slipped down off his hips. "Oops," he said, grabbing it. In one smooth motion, he whirled around and hurled the balled-up towel at Krycek's face.

Krycek clawed it free and was frantically stabbing at the palm-top when Jimmy reached him two seconds later. Krycek's eyes widened in surprise, and he dropped the palm-top on the desk and reached for the other one, muttering, "Damn! Wrong remote!" Jimmy knocked it off the desk, then grabbed Krycek by the armpits and hauled him out of his chair. His muscles protested at being used so suddenly after a long enforced rest, but he had no trouble wrestling Krycek to the ground. In fact, he held back a little, savoring the struggle, the play of muscle against muscle, as Krycek tried unsuccessfully to overpower him. It felt so good to be moving -- to feel his heart pounding to power his muscles and not out of fear, to be matching strength with another man -- that he almost forgot that he was wrestling an enemy and not a friendly opponent.

But after a few minutes he got him firmly under control. He straddled him and pinned his wrist with one hand. Now Krycek was immobilized and Jimmy still had one hand free. Normally he would have felt guilty about that. It seemed unfair, as bad as sneaking up to a blind guy and playfully . . . well, okay, he'd done that a few times too.

Helplessly pinned beneath Jimmy's weight, Krycek didn't seem so menacing. He struggled uselessly, breathing hard. Was that a soft whimper Jimmy heard?

"You're going down, my sneaky spy friend," Jimmy gloated. "I'm gonna call the cops, and they're gonna put you away for a long, long time. But you're not wearing my favorite shirt to jail. I want it back." Jimmy used his free hand to unbutton it the rest of the way. He hauled Krycek to a sitting position and pulled the shirt off his shoulders and over his arm, being careful not to tear it. Then he planted his hand in the center of his chest and pushed him down again, enjoying the feel of his erstwhile captor's panicky heatbeat under his hand. And as long as he had his shirt off, that gave him an idea. He slid his hand up to Krycek's right armpit.

"No-o-o..." Krycek moaned.