UST Challenge Entry: Coming Into The Closet

by Kelly Adey, May 1997.

DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Krycek, and all other X-File personnel mentioned herein
are, have always been, and will always be the property of Messrs Carter and
Co, Ten-Thirteen and all that stuff.  Chatham and Serena are mine, but
hell, you want'em, go'head.  Written for fun, not money, honey.

CHRONOLOGY: set during Krycek's time at the Bureau.

CONTENT: warning, rude alert, rude alert! -- definitely NC17.  Explicit 
sexual activity, involving (gasp!) men.  Anyone underage or offended by the
idea of friction between two beautiful bodies of the same gender, stop 
reading now.  I mean it.  Oh yeah, and there's a bit of naughty language in
there too.  Sorry.  Think on afore reading on, I allus say!  Note to 
connoisseurs: this is my first attempt at anything like this, so I hope 
its... er... well... you know.

Flames, comments, Certificates of Section under the Mental Health Act etc 
to: kelly.adey@accc.gov.au.  I am obliged to state that the following in no
way represents any formal or informal opinion of the ACCC.  Even on a 
Friday.

=================

Coming Into the Closet  (part 1 of 3)

It was late, and getting later.  Mulder stifled a yawn and looked around
him at the end-of-case party, still in full swing.  Not much had changed in the
last half-hour.  Skinner was chuckling politely at the local sheriff's 
jokes, the forensic Ice Queen Serena was wandering, increasingly
unsteadily, between the wine cooler and a very proprietorial Agent 
Chatham, Krycek was listening animatedly to a discussion between 
two very drunk lab techs, and Mulder was nursing a beer, thinking 
about being anywhere else but here.  He hated this sort of thing.  
If Scully had been here she'd have chided him about politeness, 
greasing the wheels... what Phoebe would have called 'all
that eti-cobblers'.  Which was all very well... but he couldn't help
feeling there was something not entirely wholesome about spending 
social time with a bunch of overworked hard nuts whose conversation 
jumped habitually from My Kids, My Team to Ever Seen Somebody 
Killed With A Lawnmower?

He sighed.  //Sure, we got them, sure, we deserve a break, but what about 
the hack work?  Someone's gotta do it.//  Better now than cramped over a 
laptop in some terminal or other.  'Specially not with the kind of hangover
Chatham and co were going to have.

Yawning again, he straightened up, switched beers for a fresh one and
turned to leave.  As he picked up his jacket, Mulder caught Skinner's inquiring 
gaze and mimed typing.  Skinner nodded -- at least he understood -- and 
Mulder headed for the door.  Krycek, who by this time had muscled in on 
Chatham and Serena, caught his gaze as he passed and smirked.  Mulder, 
despite a lingering annoyance at the younger man's ongoing allergy to 
paperwork, found himself grinning involuntarily at the tension in the group

 -- Serena was beaming everything she had at Alex and Chatham didn't like
it one little bit.  //Not exactly surprising//, he supposed... Krycek was 
certainly an attractive package.  Well, compared to Chatham anyway.  //Not 
that he'd ever thought about it, of course//.

Muttering 'G'night' to the techs, Mulder left with relief and headed on
down the hall to the room they'd set aside for desk work.  Closing the door 
behind him, he reflected briefly on the advantages of an anti-social 
reputation.

The room was dark, empty but for a number of cheap trestle-cum-conference 
tables, shoved hastily together to provide the elbow and paper room for
half a dozen agents.  One, piled high with paper, old cups -- everyone else's,
of course -- and empty sunflower seed packets, was what he'd been calling home
for the past week.  He sank into the chair, switched on the Pentium and 
booted up a browser.

The case had involved a rather strange cult -- homicidal rather than 
suicidal, for a change -- the members of which had included a number of 
otherwise respectable businessmen and women in various computer-related 
fields.  Most of these had had easy access to the Internet, and had used 
their company home pages to provide hidden links to information designed to
draw in properly primed victims.  Most of this had already been catalogued,
downloaded and shut down for evidential purposes, but Mulder, after a quick
chat to a friend in Vice, had discovered that one particular cultist had 
secretly been involved in the porn, and possibly drugs, trades.  Given that
the cult as a whole rejected all sexual images and activity as ungodly,
this could provide the Bureau with quite an effective lever when it came to 
testimony time.

Always assuming Chatham didn't nick the disks, of course.

Mulder ran his eyes down the list of files and descriptions.  AVIs, video 
excerpts, for the most part.  Product promos.  Some of this stuff was
pretty harmless -- nothing you couldn't see on an everyday rental video 
-- but a significant proportion was... to say the least... exotic.  Depended 
what you were into, he supposed.  About fifty hetero clips, thirty-odd 
designed for the bi market, about the same number covering every 
fetish he'd ever heard of -- and a good few he hadn't -- and another 
sixty or so best summed up as European Hardcore.  The remaining 
couple of dozen would probably be tame by comparison.  Standard 
gay market.  //Like you'd know.//  Still, no point in not being thorough.  
He started to work his way through the files, one by one.

Half an hour of cataloguing later, his mind wandering, he was battling mild
horniness -- //probably more to do with Serena's behaviour at the party
than anything else,// he told himself, //when you've seen 60% of it before and 
done the other 40, it's all just so much demented jiggling// -- fading 
amusement and acute boredom when something nagged at his attention.  
Unable to identify the cause, he re-ran the clip he'd just closed, but could see 
nothing out of the ordinary.  Two guys, bold lighting, no muzak... looked 
like an amateur video rather than an industry job.  He ran it again, 
ignoring an odd and unwelcome stirring in his loins, sure something was 
unusual, something was odd... something... but unable to pinpoint the
cause. 

What the hell was it?  He set the clip to loop and leaned forward to study
the naked, blurry bodies as they twined and caressed.  //There -- no... 
maybe -- no...//  The pair were obviously enjoying themselves, //very 
natural, very... genuine...  I wonder...//  he leaned closer still, hand on
his thigh... //great hair... almost looks like...  Holy fuck!... it
couldn't be...//

'Don't tell me -- you're testing the video drivers, right?'

'Jesus Christ Almighty!'  Mulder jerked back in his chair, heart pounding. 
'What the fuck are you playing at!'

Krycek grinned, and leant back to shut the door.  'I could ask you the same
question.  You've had that running for five minutes at least.'  He moved 
closer.  'Interesting choice... I had you down as the Anti-Gravity Blonde 
type myself.'

Mulder flushed hotly, suddenly uncomfortably aware of his quickened 
breathing and the acute pressure of an erection he hadn't allowed himself
to notice getting.  //Christ, talk about embarrassing.//

'Someone's gotta go through these, Krycek.'  //What is the matter with you?

 Weak.  Weak as.  You idiot.//  Still, he could always bluff his way
through this, come down tough if he had to.  Thank Christ it wasn't one of the 
others.

'Above and beyond the ball of duty, eh?'

'Very funny.' He ignored the open amusement on his partner's face.  //Oh 
God, oh double fuck, he's noticed.  He must have.  Has he?  Turn it off. 
 It's not... you're tired, you're seeing things.  Turn it off.  But what 
if...// 'Look at this.  There's something weird here.  Something...er... I 
dunno, really.  What do you think?'  //Yeah, right.  You idiot.  Kick 
yourself now, Mulder, before your feet have to go home to Mouth, VA.//

'Don't tell me, the one on top's from Alpha Centauri.'

==========================

Krycek moved forward to stand by the desk, leaning forward to magnify the 
window.  'Looks pretty normal to me.'  He whistled appreciatively as the 
clip re-started, focusing on an oversized and undoubtably excited
appendage.  'Except for *that.*  Wow.  One of those and you'd be set for life.'

Mulder relaxed.  This was territory he understood.  Boy stuff, campfire 
humour.  Nice, safe ground.  'Depends which end of it you're on, I
suppose'.  //Had me going for a minute there.  Funny how you can 
joke about other people's dicks, but you can't look at'em.//

'Oh, I dunno... I don't see Leather Boy there complaining.'  Krycek 
chuckled, his tone deeper than usual, as if he were laughing at some 
cherished private joke.  'You'd have to be used to it though.'

//Oh yes?//  Mulder grinned, relaxing as the evidence of his unfortunate 
arousal ebbed away.  //We'll deal with that later.//  'Enlighten me, O Dr 
Alex.'

Krycek looked back at him, a disarming intensity to his smile that Mulder 
hadn't noticed before.  'I can read, you know.  And frequently do.'  He
held his gaze just a fraction of a second too long, his eyes unreadable under
the shadow of his long lashes.  'I hit the Kinsey Report the minute I was 
allowed into the adult section of the library.  Didn't you?'

'Of course.  Unfortunately the instructions were all in Japanese.'  He let 
his eyes wander back to the screen, then switched sharply back to Krycek. 
 //That was it.  Adult.//  Take five or six years off... make the hair 
longer, shoulder-length, with the soft fuzz of a two-day growth... //Jesus.

Ten points and a banana, Spooky.//  He'd been spot on.  In the soft blue 
light of the monitor, the soft lines of his partner's face mirrored those
of the young, dark-eyed and enthusiastic recipient on the screen.  //It's the 
smile... how could I have missed the smile...//

'Fuck.  How do you do th--... I mean how did...  I mean...'  //I didn't say
that, I didn't say that.  I can't have.//

His cock stirred again, more insistently this time.  Confused, fighting a 
ridiculous impulse to blush, he thanked God for the darkness. He focused on
the desk, the catalogue, anything but the sight of this younger, fuzzier 
Krycek writhing with pleasure under... then over...  //God that is so 
sexy... the way they touch... the noi-  That's him, it's really him.  Think
about something else.//  Reaching out for his beer, he fumbled and felt his
arm brush against denim.  Hard denim.  //Oh Christ.//  'Sorry... sorry'. 
 //Shut up.  Say something.  Anything.//

He cleared his throat, and looked up, to find his partner watching him 
intently.  Krycek's eyes flicked to his groin and back again, his
expression unchanging but leaving Mulder in no doubt as to his 
awareness of the older man's state of arousal.  He shifted forward, 
artlessly bringing his own, tightly outlined crotch into Mulder's 
peripheral vision.  'Come on, out with it.  So to speak.'

Mulder took a deep breath, embarrassed as hell, like a kid caught sneaking 
though his parents' bedside table.  //Too late now.  What the hell...// 
'That's you, isn't it?'

'Yes.'  Krycek paused, his amusement evident.  'Does that worry you?'  He 
bent down, closer to Mulder.  'Or, more to the point, does it worry you
that it doesn't worry me?'

Their faces were close, almost touching.  Mulder felt an overwhelming surge
of desire... to kiss the other man, an urgent flash of what it would feel 
like to touch tongues, to feel those hands on his chest and stomach and... 
he beat it back by sheer force of will.  //What the fuck is happening to 
me//, he thought wildly.  //Fifty-two boyball clips, not so much as a 
twitch, but now... it's him... it's something to do with him...//

'You want to know how it's done, do you?'  Krycek, voice very low now, 
laughed and moved closer still, eyes flicking back to the computer screen, 
where his younger self was making somebody very happy indeed.  Mulder 
followed his gaze, unable to concentrate on anything other than the heat of
the other man's body, the feel of his breath on his neck and cheek, the 
slight scent of sweat and arousal that seemed to fill the room...

'Look, I...'  His voice had disappeared, he was rock hard now, shaking, 
desperate to conceal it.  //Oh God, don't let him touch me... please, he 
can't do this to me...//  'I might have wondered.  I mean... everybody 
wonders, don't they?'  //Shut up! just shut up.//

'It all depends on the foreplay, Mulder.  Same as any other sex. 
Relaxation... lubrication... penetration...'  He breathed lightly on the 
back of Mulder's ear, disturbing the fine, dark tendrils of his hair and 
sending an unbearable shiver down his partner's spine.  'Or do you want 
details?'  He chuckled huskily.  'Tell me what you want.'

//I want you to touch me.//  'I want... I mean, I don't --'

'Say it, Mulder.'

//Fuck me hard, the way you're fucking him.//  'I--'

He gasped as Krycek ran a finger down his cheek, tracing his jawline, down 
his throat.  'Say it!'  His head was forced back, as the hand cupped his 
chin in a warm, rough but gentle grip and the other stroked his fringe back
from his eyes.  'Or do we have to do this the hard way?'  He reached one 
hand down, stroking over Mulder's shoulders and chest, feeling him arch
back as he found and teased a nipple through the thin cotton of his shirt.
//Jesus he can read my mind...// 'I want... I want you to... Show me.'

Krycek grinned, then bent and kissed him, long and hard, open-mouthed.  As 
their tongues touched and the younger man bit softly into Mulder's lower 
lip, Mulder moaned, a strange sound of fear and arousal that only 
intensified his need.  As Mulder reached out to run his hands through 
Krycek's hair, to clasp this sudden stranger closer to him, Krycek laughed 
and pulled away, a gentle but stinging slap knocking Mulder back in his 
chair.

'Not so fast, Mulder.  These things take time, if they're to be worth 
anything.'  //And it will be.//  'I'm not convinced you're serious.'

Breathing hard, Mulder rubbed his cheek, angered, humiliated, excited.  'So
what d --'

'So convince me.'

=======================

Krycek swivelled Mulder's chair round to face him.  Seizing his partner's 
face between his hands, he kissed him again, roughly, then pulled his face 
hard against his crotch.  Mulder, disoriented, stared dumbly at the denim 
bulge, breathing in the heat, lightheaded, lost.  He was fighting an 
irrational urge to laugh -- //what do you want, Mulder -- a map?  Phone 
Scully, she'd know what to do, she's a doctor// -- when a sudden, painful 
tug on his hair jolted him back to the moment.  Operating purely on 
instinct, he began to nuzzle Krycek's genitals through the rough material, 
tracing the outlines of his hard, thick cock, sucking at the soft bulbs of 
flesh around the inseam, gently at first, then rougher in response to the 
pressure at the back of his head and Krycek's muffled, throaty gasps.

As the jeans grew wet under his tongue, and Krycek ground himself harder
and harder against him, his own excitement rose and he slipped one hand around 
behind Krycek, stroking his ass, stroking and pulling the soaked material 
to chafe against his partner's balls, between the cleft of his buttocks,
the other sliding between his own legs, massaging his aching cock in time with 
his desperate mouthings. Krycek's taut prick throbbed under his 
ministrations, pushing all other thoughts from his mind.  As the other 
approached climax, he worked at it harder and faster, desperate to push him
to the edge, to show him he could, to show him he wanted... and was pulled 
away sharply, gasping for breath, caught short by another hard and grinding
kiss.  He felt hands pulling urgently at his belt, his buttons, lifted his 
hip, dragging his zip down and his jeans down and his jocks down, the 
electric shock of cool air on his trembling thighs and rough nails across 
his lower back, lost to everything except the hot need to touch and be 
touched, *now.*

He tore blindly at the other's clothing, forcing Krycek's jeans down past 
his knees, down to the floor... he ached to see all of him, touch it all, 
the dark nipples, the smooth stomach, the line of soft dark curls leading
to that strong and bobbing cock... Krycek made no move to stop him, pulling 
with equal force at Mulder's shirt and his own, flinging the latter across 
the room to land under somebody's desk, impatient with and abandoning the 
former, content to leave it open, off the shoulder, exposing the silky skin
of Mulder's abdomen, freeing the sweat-slicked, hardened nipples for his 
provoking, hungry tongue.  He pushed Mulder back in the chair, then dived 
for his aching penis, taking the head in his mouth, then the rest, working 
the shaft with one hand and his balls with the other.  Mulder gasped in 
shock at the incredible warmth, the depth, the feel of Krycek's lips and 
teeth and tongue, sucking, stroking, could do nothing but moan as his hands
caught in Krycek's hair, guiding him, urging him on... he shuddered hard, 
fighting to keep control, to prolong this wonderful, perfect torture... a 
losing battle, felt a knuckle lightly brush his anus as the shudder built 
and the heat built and the brush again and the pressure and the urge became
too much and he pulled him closer and couldn't stop, wanted to stop //want 
to don't want to oh Christ oh fucking Christ Alex// and he shot hard again 
and again into that loving, punishing mouth...

Dazed and spent, throat raw, incoherent, heart thumping, he felt rather
than saw Krycek release him and move back.  //Oh God, was that all right?  What 
have I done?//  Embarrassed at his loss of control, he ventured to meet his
partner's gaze, expecting censure or disgust or disappointment, but was met
only by Krycek's trademark insolent grin.

'Oughta fit you with a muffler, Mulder.  Last time I heard someone holler 
like that was in a come-as-you-are tattoo bar.'  He chuckled wickedly, 
licking a trace of Mulder's come from his upper lip.  'Thought we were 
getting raided for a second there.  No wonder they call you Spooky.'

Mulder blushed, then joined in with the laugh.  'I'm sorry.. I.. I mean, it
never... I never...'

'Good, was it?'  Krycek's grin faded, replaced by a look of pure hunger
that sent a frisson of lust down Mulder's spine.  'You ain't seen nothin' yet. 
 Turn round.  Turn round!'

Mulder obeyed, suddenly aware of Krycek's ragged breathing, the extent of 
the younger man's arousal.  From the corner of his eye he saw Krycek step 
out of his jeans completely, dick ramrod straight and bobbing as he bounded
across the room and rifled through the top drawer of Serena's desk.

'Now sit down.  No... leave it... and the jeans... that's right.  Facing
the backrest.'  Mulder, straddling the chair as directed, felt suddenly 
vulnerable and very exposed.  His jeans, stretched tight halfway down his 
thighs, were at uncomfortably immobilising, a fact which at once alarmed
and aroused him.  //I don't know if I can do this.//  He turned to ask Krycek
to stop, to wait, but he had already returned.  He leant hard against Mulder, 
his now fully naked body searing him where it touched flesh.  The younger 
man bit gently into his neck, then pressed something cold and pliant onto 
his penis, making it and Mulder jump.  Krycek traced a line gently upwards,
meandering through his damp pubic hair, drawing lazy spirals up his chest, 
then held the objects out for him to see.

'Yoghurt,' he said mischievously, 'and condoms.  Never travels without'em, 
lucky for us.  And Chatham, come to that.  *Vive la feminisme*, I say.'

He stopped, noticing the apprehension in Mulder's face.  'What's the
matter?  Allergic to "diet"?'

Mulder took a deep breath.  'Krycek...'  //What to say, how to explain?//

Krycek reached out and took hold of his chin, gently, turning him to look 
full into his eyes.

'It's OK, Mulder.  I understand.  We'll take it easy, I promise.'  He 
smiled, warmly, almost tenderly.  'I'm not interested in hurting you, 
there's any number of things you can -- and I'd hope you *would* -- do for 
me instead, if you want.  But I'm not going to stop unless you tell me to, 
loud and clear.'  His eyes searched Mulder's face, recognising the 
uncertainty, the curiosity and the need.  'You asked for this, you wanted 
this.  Remember that.'

Mulder nodded tightly.  //Like I'm going to forget! //

'OK.  Just relax.  Relax.'  He leant back, dropping the yoghurt and the 
condoms onto his discarded jeans.  Straddling the chair, his cock nestled 
hard against the cleft of Mulder's arse, he began to stroke his partner's 
neck and shoulders in a rhythmic, soothing manner, feeling the older man 
gradually untense, noting with a smile the speed at which Mulder's cock 
stirred in response.  He began to move slowly down his body, fingers 
circling each knob of vertebrae, tracing each rib, the hollows under the 
hips, down to those wonderfully thick, silky curls.  He deliberately
avoided Mulder's re-emerging erection, teasing him, concentrating on 
the tendons and the inner thighs, tickling him into arousal, making him 
jump with an occasional brush of the back of a knuckle across the 
swollen and throbbing glans.  Slowly, he moved backwards off the chair, 
kissing and nibbling his way down Mulder's back, steeling himself to 
ignore his own, growing, painful need for release.

Mulder, lost in sensation, had barely noticed Krycek changing position, and
so readily complied when he felt his partner's hands slide around under his
thighs and tug gently, raising himself an inch or so off the chair. 
//Emergency, red alert, battle stations//, said one part of his mind, as 
Krycek's hands moved to his buttocks, gently separating them, stroking up 
and down and up and --, //Defcon Four, you idiot, what the fuck do you
think you're doing//, while another, somehow stronger part screamed *Yes* 
and *yes* and *yes* again.  He bit his lip and moaned as the long, strong 
fingers returned, covered in something shockingly cold, thick and wet, 
tracing the sensitive skin around his anus, sliding backwards and forwards,
disappearing again, returning wetter, more insistent, probing and teasing 
and finally sliding gently inside, just a little, almost too quick to 
notice, then back again, and away for a beat... and another...  //Oh you 
bastard don't stop// and replaced by a hot, wet tongue, flexing and teasing
and inside and //God why don't they tell you it'll be like this,// with the
rough material of the chair pressing hard into his thighs and his legs 
shaking from the strain and the tongue and fingers working together now, 
deeper and wetter and sliding across his //Jesus! G-man's got a G-spot//
and faster, harder, the world full of breathing and sweat and wild moans, a
hand on his cock another on his balls and whose hands whose groans were 
which wasn't important and a shift behind him, an aching moment of emptiness,
then the thick head of Krycek's cock, slick, throbbing, pushing hard against him
and //oh yes I want this, do you hear me, I want this so much// and it was 
nearly there, nearly in and --

'...so the Microsoft engineer goes, 'lets all get out of the car and get 
back in again. Hahah... Whoop -- mind that step, babe.'  //Jesus!// 
Raucous, drunken laughter, a crash, very loud, very close.  Murmurs, then
a stifled giggle, footsteps stopping... shadows on the door... Mulder, 
startled into immobility, watched uncomprehendingly as Krycek scrambled out
and away from him.

'Fuck! it's Chatham and the Ice Queen.  Come on!'  Krycek lunged for his 
clothes, Mulder scrambling after him, trying desperately to adjust to the 
real world, to pick up the condoms and the shoes and looking for somewhere 
to go, somewhere to hide, or maybe just sit and look normal, that's it, act
normal //who are you kidding Mulder, there's one, read my lips, ONE fucking
exit, he's fucking naked and I'm up to my come-soaked balls in yoghurt. 
Nice one dude.  Say hi to Mr. Unemployment for me.//

The door was beginning to open.  Krycek was nowhere to be seen.  //Oh well,
I can always eke out the days swapping sex tips with Frohike.//  Mulder
took a step back, then recoiled as he felt a harsh slap across his calf.  'What 
the --'

'In here, idiot!'  Krycek hissed, pulling at Mulder's leg.  He was leaning 
half out of a low cupboard, squashed between a desk and an absolutely 
hideous rubber plant.  'Quick!'  He disappeared back into the dark, and 
Mulder dived in after him, tripping over his jeans and fumbling the door 
shut just as the drunken pair tumbled into the room, giggling, all over
each other.

'Ow!' //Thanks for telling me about the shelf, Krycek.  Didn't need that
eye anyway.//

'Shut up.  They'll hear you.  What are they doing?'

'How the fuck would I know?'  His vision slowly adjusted to the darkness of
the cupboard and as the adrenaline of the dash to concealment wore off, he 
became aware of just how ridiculous they would look to an observer. 
Kneeling awkwardly, bare to the waist and beyond, sticky and wet, squashed

hard against an equally cramped and shivering Krycek.  //Dear Scully, have
I got a postcard for you.//  The pair outside had gone awfully quiet.  Had 
they gone?  He peered out of the thin crack between the cupboard doors, and
fell back, bursting with suppressed laughter.

'Well?'

'N-nothing.'

Slap.  'What?'

'They're.. um.. well...'  It was no good, he had the giggles for real now.

Slap again, a jolt of pleasure searing through him.  //I am one sick puppy 
today.//

'Mulder...!'

'Erm... let's just say I can see why yoghurt's overtaken bagel chips in the
impulse snack food market.'

'Oh Jesus, you're kidding.'

'Nope.  Can't you hear'em?'

They had certainly upped the volume in the last minute or so.  Serena,
quite happily impaled on a combination of Chatham and dairy product, 
was outdoing the soundtrack of the still-running AVI clip, emanating 
from behind Mulder's '2001' screensaver, while her partner was 
demonstrating the stamina that had won him the East Boston Scuba 
Championships five years in a row.  Mulder backed away from the door, 
reflecting that there were some things that man definitely wasn't meant to see.

Krycek pressed closer behind him, shivering.  'So what do we do now, 
partner?'

'Dunno.  Wait till they've finished, I suppose.  Provided he doesn't pass 
out on the job, we should be able to sneak out in ooh, two or three hours.'

'Two or three...? Christ.  In this temperature?  With *that* going on?' 
Krycek swore, forcefully, in Russian.

'Ooooh -- *someone* forgot to bring the Travel Scrabble.'

'...and the horse you rode in on.  What're we going to *do?*'

Mulder turned, eyebrow raised, a mischievous grin playing round the corners
of his mouth.

'What?'

'You still got that yoghurt?'


THE END
===================