Warm by Elizabeth Gerber

By Elizabeth Gerber

Rating: NC-17
Pairing: M/Sk
Spoilers: SR-819, Biogenesis, 6th Extinction, Amor Fati
Warnings: explicit m/m sex, language
Archive: Basement, Waltertorture, Muldertorture, Requited--yes.
Others please ask first. Also available with a cover image at my
website http://Skinner.Mulder.com
Feedback: ...would be very much appreciated at elixia@yahoo.com
Notes: This is a sequel to Clean, and is probably best understood by
those who've read that story. If you're reading this one first, it's
important to know that Skinner has been purged of the nanocytes and
also manipulated Krycek into helping Scully get Mulder back.
Ackowledgements: Thank you to everyone who wrote me after I posted
Clean and asked for a sequel.  I hadn't intended to write one, so
this is for you guys!
Summary: Mulder recovers from the events of the Biogenesis mytharc
and "warms up" with Skinner.
~~~~~~~~~
I remembered seeing a vague flicker of Scully's hair, her tears,
stumbling--and then more darkness.  Before that, there's mostly pain
and confusion, fear, a pervading chill working in through my skin, a
brief moment of warmth.  I almost grasped something in between, a
jumbled mass of images--Fowley, Spender Sr., my own face distorted,
the bright beach I've visited in dreams since early childhood.
When I first woke up in the hospital, I felt a weight on my hand and
looked to see who was there.  Skinner, in grey sweatpants and a t-
shirt, sat in a wheelchair next to my bed.  I couldn't make any sense
of the image, but I knew there was something I needed to remember. As
I lost my fragile hold on consciousness slipped away from me, Skinner
met my gaze and smiled at me while my eyes slid closed again.
When I awoke next, I felt much more aware.  I woke to a doctor
examining me and saw Scully right behind him, shadowing him, watching
his every action.  I panned my eyes across the room and spotted
Skinner, in jeans and a green shirt this time, leaning against the
window pane, light filtering in behind him.  I blinked my eyes and
realized that Scully and the doctor were talking to me.  Scully
smiled at me, took my hand.
"I'm going out into the hall with the doctor, but I'll be right
back, Mulder.  Skinner..." she trailed off and looked over towards
the window.  "He'll stay with you, okay?"
I nodded and heard her leave, the door clicking quietly closed.
Skinner walked over then and moved himself into my line of sight.
"How are you feeling, Agent Mulder?"  His gaze seemed watchful, as
though he were searching for something in me, but I couldn't think of
what he was looking for.  Every time I tried, I found an internal
fuzziness that kept me from remembering.
"I can't think," I admitted.
He smiled slightly, warmly.  "They have you on some serious
antibiotics to make sure you don't get an infection, as well as some
pain meds, which I think you should be grateful for.  They'll taper
the meds off soon, and then you'll be able to think again."
I nodded and closed my eyes and then shivered in the ridiculous cold
of the hospital room.  Immediately, I felt movement above me, a
current of air pushed down and then a blanket, tucked around my feet
and shoulders.  I didn't quite understand what Skinner was doing
there or why he was being so kind, but I accepted it without thought.
With his solid body standing next to me, I felt safe.
~~~
For the rest of the week I spent in the hospital, I didn't see
Skinner.  He'd been right--they took me off the heavy pain meds after
a couple of days, and my thought processes jumped back up to speed,
though some memories from the period when I was ill were still
frustratingly elusive, and headaches occasionally took me by
surprise.  The last thing I could recall at all clearly was talking
to Scully on the phone from my apartment.  After that, events
fragmented as though in a kaleidoscope, and it made my head hurt to
try to realign them.  Scully assured me that it would come to
together eventually, but I was nervous.
Once my thinking cleared and my head-wound--surgical site, whatever--
was healing, every possible kind of therapist the hospital housed
came by to subject me to tests of varying degrees of unpleasantness.
Because of the mysterious nature of what had been done to me, my
coterie of visitors included speech therapists, physical therapists,
occupational therapists, an optometrist, an otolaryngologist, a
psychiatrist, and a social worker, who I very nearly tossed out the
door.  The psychiatrist, I gathered, had last seen me when I was
screaming my head off in a padded room.  I took great pleasure in
discussing my Oxford credentials with him.
A Bureau shrink also visited me to evaluate me for duty, and she
quickly decided that I would resume field duty as soon as my
neurologist cleared me, which would probably be in a couple of weeks.
The doctors declared my speech, hearing and vision entirely normal.
My balance and coordination were found to be a little off, but the
physical therapist agreed that the remaining drugs floating around my
system were most likely to blame.
Still, though I acted fully confident with the therapists and the
doctors, I felt a core of uneasiness inside myself.  What if the
symptoms didn't go away?  What if they consigned me to desk duty, and
I could never carry a gun again?  Furthermore, what had really
happened to me?  I'd extracted from Scully the details of how she
found me, where she found me, what condition I was in.  Against the
"better judgement" of my doctor, I read my hospital records from the
time before my mother--my mother--had checked me out.
What I found there made me physically ill.  I remembered some of it
from my perspective--the maddening voices worming around in my skull,
the righteous, uncontrollable anger, the conflicting movements of my
body that nearly paralyzed me.  Scully came in one afternoon to find
me gulping back emotion over words like "hostile," "unresponsive,"
"irrational," "psychotic," "seizure."  The variety and amount of
drugs they had pumped into my system horrified me.  What could they
have done to me?  What if I had never come back?  Why did they let me
come back?
~~~
On Friday morning, they finally released me, since I was only
experiencing an occasional bad headache.  I rode home in Scully's
car, and she settled me back into my apartment.  She cautioned me to
take it easy and stay in bed, then she went to the Bureau to get some
work done.
I knocked around my kitchen and living room for the rest of the
morning, looking at the mail I'd accumulated, checking my e-mail.
Around lunchtime, the phone rang, and it was Skinner, not Scully as I
first suspected.
"When do you expect to return to duty, Agent Mulder?"
"Uh, I'll be in on Monday morning.  Desk duty, until my neurologist
clears me.  Is that acceptable, sir?"
"Well, I'm not clearing you for desk duty until Wednesday at the
earliest, and I don't want to see you in the building before then. 
In fact, I think you should work half-days through next Friday. 
That'll give you a few days to get up to speed."
His concern was solicitous and frustrating, but I didn't have much
choice other than to agree.  He could have kept me out of the office
all of next week.  I remembered, too, his oddly comforting presence
in my hospital room.
"Um, thank you, sir.  There's still a lot I don't remember, I
understand from Scully that you helped me."
"You're very welcome, Agent Mulder." His voice in return was gruff,
but questioning.   "What are you able to remember?"
I honestly had no idea what he was fishing for.  "I remember waking
up in the hospital, and you were there with Scully and the doctor."
The image of Skinner inexplicably folded into a wheelchair flashed
into my mind.  "Oh!  And before that, you were injured?"
"No, Mulder, I was...recovering.  I'm sure Scully can give you the
pertinent details."  He paused, sighing quietly. "You remember
nothing else from before that?"
"Nothing that makes any sense."  I couldn't figure out why, but I
felt like I was disappointing him.
"Very well, Agent Mulder.  Take care of yourself."
And then the line was dead, and I felt suddenly restless.  I put on
shoes and the Yankees hat Scully had bought me to cover the shaved
patches of missing hair.  I thought I'd take a walk, pick up some
Chinese, maybe some videos to keep myself out of trouble.
~~~
I love Scully dearly, but sometimes she treats me like an errant
child, the child she's not likely ever to have.  For that reason, I
can't bring myself to be short with her, to take her to task for her
scolded, "Mulder!" or her shepherding hands.  When she ran into me in
the hallway as I was leaving my apartment, her automatic assumption
that I was intending to go into work galled me.
"Mulder, you should be in bed!"
I started to argue, but then I felt her hands on my arms, her mouth
on my forehead, and something was released inside me. Memories shook
loose and suddenly surfaced: Skinner's eyes, wide and sad, his
thoughts repeating in my mind, //Mulderwanthim helphim wantMulder
lovehimprotecthim helphim//.  The feeling that I had lost,
irretrievably, any hope of happiness with the man I'd been wanting
for so long.  The warmth of his arms around my shoulders, the comfort
of his beautiful thoughts.
I gasped, coming out of the memory to find Scully staring at me, her
blue eyes sharp and concerned.  I didn't struggle as she led me to my
couch and sat me down, placing a glass of water in my hand.  I could
hear the blood pumping in my ears as the memory settled down within
me.
He hadn't said a thing.  He was hoping I would remember.  If I
hadn't remembered, he would have never said a thing.  Goddamnit, I
thought.  Damn him and his fucking cautiousness.  I felt that I'd
been given a second chance--we had been given a second chance--and I
didn't want to waste it on tip-toeing around the truth.
I opened my eyes again to find Scully sitting next to me on the
couch, appearing to settle in for the long haul.  I pulled myself
together a little and smiled at her.  "Scully, I'm fine.  Please, go
back to work."
She pursed her lips and shook her head slightly.  "I don't know,
Mulder.  I don't think you should be alone."
"You want to sit here watching me take a nap?  Because that's what
I'm going to do, I swear."  I turned sideways on the couch and
stretched out my legs, gently nudging her with my feet to dislodge
her.
"Okay, alright, Mulder.  I get the hint.  But you call me if you
feel any worse."
"Yes, ma'am."
She glared back at me but left, finally.  The moment I heard the
elevator ding, I called Skinner.
Kim answered briskly, her voice softening when I gave my name. "Oh,
it's good to hear you're home, Agent Mulder.  Feel better soon,
okay?"  She patched me through to Skinner without waiting for a
repsonse.
"What can I do for you, Agent Mulder?"
"Sir?" Annoyingly, my voice wavered a little, betraying my
nervousness.  "I remembered."
"What did you remember, Agent Mulder?"  More of his damned caution.
All the same, I didn't want to go into detail on his office line.
"Walter.  I remembered."
A soft gasp over the phone line.  "I--," he faltered, and I held my
breath.  "I'll bring you dinner tonight.  I'll be there by six."
"That would be great."
We hung up, and I went to take a shower, feeling obscurely like I
was preparing for a first date.  More than anything, I wanted to
scrub away the miasma of sick hospital smells.  I needed to feel like
a real person, not a collection of suspect body parts, not a patient.
A man.
~~~
He arrived at ten of six, bearing take-out containers from the
Italian place near the Hoover.  Two baked spaghettis with garlic
bread, two salads, two iced teas.   He made sure we would eat well,
if nothing else, and I was glad, since nearly everything in my own
refrigerator was spoiled.  The dinner was delicious: plenty of melted
cheese, lots of garlic, mildly spicy sauce.  After a week of dry,
baked chicken and questionable beef stew in the hospital, I thought I
was in heaven.
When we were both down to nibbling on the last crusts of the garlic
bread and stabbing random lettuce leaves, I broached the subject at
hand.  "You never did tell me why you were being treated at the
hospital."
He sighed, reluctant.  "The nanocytes.  They'd been reactivated."
He told me the story, then, of Krycek threatening him and
reactivating the submicroscopic machines in Skinner's blood.  I made
a heroic effort to keep from shouting, "I knew it was Krycek!  I knew
it!"  Skinner explained that his body had formed an immunity to the
nanocytes and rejected them, effectively curing him.  I was
suspicious that there was more to it, but I could tell, from years of
dealing with him, that he would go no further.  That impressive jaw
was locked up tight, on the issue on his nanocyte infection, at least.
For a few moments, we both clammed up, and I was furious with myself
for not seizing the moment to go forward.  "I need..."
He just lifted an eyebrow in my direction, silently urging me to
continue.
"I want to know what happened while I was in the hospital the first
time.  I've seen the charts, and Scully's given me some details, but
I can't form a narrative of where I was, what I was doing.  I know
Scully was away in Africa during most of the time I was there, so
there's only so much she was able to tell me.  I need to know what
happened.  I have to know what happened to me.  I have to know what
they did to me!"
By the time I finished speaking, I was up, pacing my living room, my
heart pounding in my chest.  Skinner came up behind me, placed his
hand on my arm, steered me over to the couch and gently pushed me
down.  He sat next to me, and I slumped forward, head in my hands.
"Relax, Mulder.  You look like you're about to keel over.  I'll help
you fill in the blanks as much as I can.  I can't answer all your
questions--"
"Can't or won't?"  I couldn't help myself.  I sat up, meeting his
eyes.  His hand came over to rest lightly on my back, and I flinched
away, immediately regretting it.
He pulled his hand back into his lap.  "Can't, Mulder.  Beyond what
the doctors have been able to conjecture, I don't know what was done
to you after you were taken from the hospital.  What I do know is
what we did with you before you were taken.  I'll start from the
beginning."
He told me about Diana calling him, asking him to come to the
hospital, about how  they kept me in an observation room.  He
described me pacing, screaming.  That fit with my memory of being
angry and overwhelmed, so I urged him to continue.  He told me that
Scully left for Africa at that point, and he talked the doctors into
letting him enter the room where I was being kept.
I pressed him for details, and he reluctantly admitted that I'd
attacked him and left a note in his pocket, written on a scrap of
cloth.  As he spoke of it, I remembered.  I remembered how hard I
worked to keep my thoughts in line long enough to write two words.  I
asked him what I looked like, and the phrase he used was "contained
motion."  I nodded, thinking of how I felt compelled to move in all
directions at once, how eventually it became impossible for me to
move anywhere.
He described my request for Kritchgau, as well as what Kritchgau had
to say about that.  I could tell he'd been uncomfortable with
administering the drug to me, but I'm glad he did.   As he told me, I
remembered the shock of awareness, the crystalline quality of
everything as I was suddenly able to sort the massive input flooding
my brain.
He told me about the tests, about their frantic attempts to avoid
Diana and the doctors, about the seizure I had, which clearly had
scared the hell out of him.  After that, they prohibited him from
seeing me.  They kept him away so they could take me.  They kept him
away because he'd been protecting me.  They hurt him because he'd
been protecting me.  They hurt him.
Skinner broke into my miserable reverie by once again venturing to
lay a gentle hand on my back.  This time, I didn't flinch away, so he
began to slowly rub his thumb back and forth, creating a warm spot on
my back, relaxing me fractionally.  I swallowed hard around the lump
in my throat.  "Why do you make me feel so safe?"
He was quiet for a moment, taken aback, maybe.  "I--I try, Mulder.
God knows, I haven't always kept you safe.  Maybe you shouldn't feel
that way around me."
"No, no, you would never hurt me.  Everyone else... Diana...  But
you and Scully, neither of you would hurt me.  I'm sure of it."
"You want to believe?"  Gentle mocking, a slight smile in that hard
face.
"No, I do believe.  That's one thing I do believe."  Certainty,
absolute.  "I heard it in my head."
He choked a little and then spoke, his voice sounding pained.  "I
didn't know if you would remember.  I didn't know if--when you came
out of it--you would remember what I, what we both had said."
"I remember that, and I remember what you did.  What you gave me."
"What I gave you?"
"Safety, love, warmth, images of us...happy, together, happy
together."  I grinned at him, and he blushed.  Assistant Director
Walter Skinner blushed!  He might have been embarrassed by admitting
his imagination.  Bureaucrats aren't expected to possess such tools,
but I always knew that he was more than he seemed.
"I wish I could have helped you more, but that's all I could think
to do."
"It was beautiful," I whispered, and then I leaned in and kissed
him, pressing my lips to his mouth delicately, until they softened.
With that tacit permission, I parted my lips and felt his lips moving
along with me, his hand on my back pulled me in closer.   I braced
myself with a hand around his well-muscled bicep and pressed forward
with my tongue.  He tasted of garlic and tomato and basil and
something musky, almost bitter, but not unpleasant, something
exquisitely male.
I finally pulled back, gasping, relishing the lingering taste of him
on my lips.  "Hold that thought," I told him, grinning, "I'll be
right back."
I used the bathroom and then headed for my bedroom, just to check on
the state of things, make sure it wasn't too messy.  I looked at the
bed, though, and memory flashed--Diana, moving through the room,
removing her shirt, an argument and then a jolt, and pain.
A sudden pain gripped my head, and I fell to my knees--"Fuck!"--
grasping the bedpost to keep from keeling over entirely.  The room
swam sickeningly, and then Skinner was there, holding my shoulders
steady as I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat.  I closed my
eyes and just hung onto him for a minute, and then the pain began to
recede, leaving everything bearable again.
When I opened my eyes, he peered at me sharply and then began to
stand.
"I'm just going to get my phone, Mulder.  I'm calling your doctor.
You shouldn't be home."
"No!  No, it's just, it's just a bad one.  They're not coming so
often anymore, only when I remember something big.  I have some pills
for the pain..."
"Where?"
"On the counter in the kitchen."
"Okay," he nodded, appearing to reluctantly agree.  "Let me get you
in bed, then I'll get the pills."
"Is that the line you use on all your head-case agents?"  I was
trying to be witty.
"Stop that, Mulder."  He steadied me as I climbed up onto the bed
and then left the room,  returning quickly with two pills and a glass
of water.  I took the pills, and then he helped me out of my shoes,
jeans and shirt and into the bed, under the covers.  Tucked in by A.
D. Skinner.  Thinking back, it really wasn't the first time.
I lay back in bed and blinked my eyes at him; the pills were
beginning to take effect.  He considered me with a wonderful mix of
sternness and concern.
"I'll bring you lunch tomorrow, Mulder.  Expect me around one."  I
nodded, feeling sleep coming on fast.  "Any requests?"
I mumbled something that wanted to be "chickety China the Chinese
chicken" and then dropped off to sleep.  This is the reason I hate
taking drugs: I end up quoting silly radio songs to my boss after
kissing him and then practically passing out on him.  At least I
slept--dreamlessly, as far as I remember.
~~~
He showed up the next afternoon with a bag full of Chinese food--
pepper steak for him, chicken and broccoli for me, wonton soup and
egg rolls for us both.  I was feeling great.  The minimal pill-
hangover had worn off after my shower and coffee, and my head was
clear and pain-free.  He examined me visually as soon as he put the
food down on the counter.
"How are you feeling today, Mulder?"
"Good, great.  Frisky."
"Behave yourself, Mulder," he growled at me. "Obviously we overdid
it last night."
Inwardly I groaned.  That cursed caution had reared its head again.
"No, no, I told you, the headaches come when I remember things.  And
only sometimes."
"What did you remember that almost earned you a trip to the ER?"
I sighed.  Fuck.  I didn't want to talk about it.  "Just before I
ended up in the hospital the first time, I had an attack of the, you
know, voices.  I was in the middle of investigating that fragment at
American University, and I was in pretty bad shape.  Somehow, Diana
found me and took me home."  I gulped back my displeasure at the
memory.  "She, well, came onto me, and I was about as far from being
in the mood as it's possible to be.  I said something to her that
wasn't very nice, and she slapped me.  I slapped her back, and she
hit me with a taser shock."
The surprise and anger were clear on his often-expressionless face.
"Agent Fowley did what?"
I nodded.  "I don't know how, but that shock ruined any control over
what was going on in my head.  I have no idea what really happened,
but the world just went kind of crazy on me, and then I was in the
hospital, pissed off and under-dressed.  Christ, I'm not hungry
anymore, and you brought all that food."
"Come here."  He reached out and pulled me into his arms, chafing
away the goose-bumps that had arisen at the memory of Diana's
deception.  I felt his hand move in the back of my hair, reminding me
that the present was a good deal more pleasant than the past, that I
was in the present with him, that he would protect me until I was
capable of protecting myself.
We stood there for several minutes, the quiet of the kitchen around
us, the hard tile of the floor pressing up through my shoes.  The
refrigerator kicked in suddenly, and I realized the passage of time.
I nodded against his shoulder and pulled away.  "Yeah, okay.  Let's
have lunch."
We ate, and he told me that he'd been keeping an eye out for
potential X-files while I'd been gone.  He told me about a small town
in Colorado that complained of a mysteriously disappearing domestic
pet population.  The town council was certain that the nearby
Department of Defense radar tower was drawing in UFOs, and aliens
were stealing their cats, dogs and rabbits.  Skinner was sure that
coyotes were responsible for the disappearances, but he thought I
might enjoy the trip.
His voice was magic. By the time he was done with his story, I had
slurped down my soup and some chicken, and I was back to feeling
frisky.  I spent five years, give or take, wanting my boss, watching
his perfect ass as he strode into meetings, appreciating his broad
chest when he was in my face, bringing me into line.  I would sit in
front of my videos at night, watching skinny blond women, getting
myself off, coming every time from the mental image of my tall, bald
boss holding me down, his strong arms around me.
I squeezed some duck sauce out onto my plate and pulled my egg roll
from its paper wrapper.  I glanced up at Skinner to make sure he was
watching me and then swirled the end of the egg roll into the little
pool of sauce.  I raised the egg roll to my mouth and sucked off the
duck sauce before taking a small bite and swallowing it.  I noticed
Skinner's face getting a little flushed and repeated the process
again, lazily moving the egg roll until it was lightly covered with
sauce and then decadently, thoroughly tasting it.
I was going for a third try when I heard Skinner growl, "No."  He
reached over and took the egg roll from my hand and then stood up,
standing above me.  "Now."  He took my hand and pulled me up to him,
quickly kissing away the traces of duck sauce from my mouth,
replacing the sweet taste with a spice-tinged musk of desire.
We moved into the living room, and he nimbly undid my belt and
pulled down my pants before pushing me back onto the couch.   He
dropped to his knees, locked his hands on my hips, and then I was
engulfed by his hot, moist mouth.  He pulled on my hips, making me
fuck his mouth, his tongue swirling on the head of my penis, his lips
moving up and down the shaft.  I could barely breathe, and my climax
approached fast and undeniable.
The thrusting rhythm he created had me locked in its grip.  He moved
one hand to supplement his mouth on my dick, and the other hand
reached up under my shirt, teasing my nipple into a hard nub with his
rough thumb.  I shuddered at the added stimulation and came, sliding
down, sweat-slick, on the warm leather of my couch.  His hands braced
my hips as I rode out the receding waves of pleasure.  I came back to
myself to find him smirking up at me like the cat that had got the
cream.
"Jesus, Skinner, you sure know how to suck a man off."
He hoisted himself up to the couch and kissed me, oddly enough, on
the corner of the mouth, primly as an aunt.  "My name's Walt."
~~~
Once I felt that my bones would carry me again, we moved into the
bedroom.  He looked at me, questioningly.  "You okay?"
I didn't know if he was asking about my post-orgasmic state or my
post-Diana state, but I nodded--yeah, I was fine.  Nearly done-in by
lethargy, but quite fine.  I removed the rest of my clothes, helped
Skinner--Walt--Walt out of his, and got into bed, pulling him in
beside me.  As sleep washed over my sex-addled brain, I instinctively
curled in close to his solidity and heat, feeling his smooth skin
under my hands and then little else.
I woke to find that Walt had extricated himself from my grasp but
was sitting beside me on the bed, sipping a cup of coffee and
watching me.  I felt refreshed and happy after my post-coital nap.
Walt had put his briefs on, assumedly to potter around my kitchen
making coffee, but I could see through the thin fabric that he was
half-hard, probably had been for some time.  He'd treated me to a
positively seismic blow-job earlier, but we hadn't done anything for
him.
I sat up, yawning, and leaned over him, prying the coffee cup from
his hand and placing it on the beside table.
"What, do you have a 'no drinking in bed' rule?"
"No, but I think we have some more pressing business to attend to."
I swept my eyes over his erection.
He shook his head.  "No, Mulder, no.  You're recovering--"
"I'm fine."
"You're recovering.  You just got out of the hospital."
"I'm fine.  I could suck you off.  That's not too athletic."
"Do you want to suck me off?  Is that what you really want?"  His
eyes burned into me, compelling the truth.
"I want you to fuck me."
"Mulder, I want to make love to you, but you're recovering."
I moved myself to straddle his legs so that I could look him
straight in the eye.  I placed my hand on his jaw and rubbed slightly
with my thumb, feeling the slight friction of stubble.  "You are not
going to hurt me.  I've done this before.  You've done this before,
yes?"
He turned his head toward me and kissed the palm of my hand.  "Yes.
Yes, okay.  But, Mulder, we take this slow.  Not like earlier.  I'm
so sorry--"
"If you apologize for making me feel that good, you're out of here.
And take off your shorts."
"Yes." He lifted his hips under me, and I helped him remove the
flimsy white briefs. "But this time we're taking it slower.  If I
hurt you, none of this is worth it."
His concern was touching.  Irritating, but touching.  I kissed him
briefly on the lips and then moved my mouth down, kissing along his
rough jaw and his throat, feeling his groan of arousal through the
vibration on my lips.  One hand braced me on the bed while the other
tangled in the grey-brown hair fuzzing his chest, a prodigious amount
of hair indeed.  I tilted my head to suck at one nipple, feeling it
spring to life in the moist heat of my mouth.  Skinner groaned again,
deeply, and I could feel the rumble in his chest.  I moved my oral
attentions to his other nipple, keeping the first one erect with my
fingers.
Finally abandoning his chest, I kissed a line down his taut, well-
defined stomach until I arrived at his cock, which was by then very
hard, very impressive, very ready.  I looked up into his face; he was
panting and beautifully flushed.  "Fuck me?" I asked him quietly.
"Yes, oh God, Mulder, yes.  On your stomach.  Oh, shit, where...?"
"Drawer, by your right hand."  He pulled out a condom and some lube,
while I arranged myself on the bed, facedown, my knees up under me a
little, a couple of pillows to support my head.  I felt his hand
caress my back, moving from my shoulders down to the top of my
exposed ass.
"You're so beautiful." He whispered it, almost as though he were
talking to himself and not to me.  His hands left me but returned,
bringing the startling coldness of lube.  He tentatively worked the
lubricant into me with one finger, and it felt so good to have him,
or part of him, inside me at last.  I had waited years.  I had waited
years to have Skinner making love to my ass.
He stretched me slowly, maddeningly so, with that one finger and
then introduced a second, occasionally brushing my prostate and
sending shimmering sparkles of pleasure through me.  I was open and
relaxed and ready.  "In me now!"
"Relax, Mulder, I said slowly."
"Please, please, I've never been so ready."
"I can see you're going to be the death of me," he murmured, but
then he pulled his fingers from my ass, and I could hear him
preparing himself, rolling on the condom and coating it with more
lube.  He kissed me tenderly in the middle of my back, and then I
felt the head of his cock entering me.
It consumed me--the feeling of being taken by him.  After a couple
of breathtaking thrusts, he was deep inside me, and I felt filled to
my fingertips.  I wanted to weep, it felt that wonderful.  "I love
you," I whispered to him, and I felt his hands brace on my rib cage
as he pulled out of me and pushed back in again smoothly.
He sat up a little more behind me, angling his thrusts so that he
brushed my prostate each time, and I was getting hard again, getting
harder.  I started pumping myself in time to his quickening pace.  I
could sense him starting to lose control, that precious control he
holds so close to his heart.  His thrusts came faster, faster, he
yelled my name and then he came, jerking inside me, shuddering above
me until I came again, too, more quietly.
After a moment, he pulled out of me and removed the condom, tying it
off and throwing it somewhere.  I turned around onto my back and
stretched out my legs, pulling him down flat on top of me like a
blanket.  Lying on top of me, sacked out and oblivious, he was
everything I'd wanted so much during these last terrible weeks.
Warmth, comfort, security, safety.  And love, I think, too.
We would have to talk later, about what our intentions were, about
how we were going to handle our relationship, considering the kinds
of lives we both led.    There were things I had to tell him, things
that didn't seem appropriate for a second date, so to speak.  I felt
changed, since my return.  I couldn't explain it, but I felt
overwhelmingly that I didn't want to be old and alone.  I didn't want
to *die* alone.
I knew there would be infinitely more talking, but also more kissing
and more sex and more take-out dinners.  At that moment, though,
drowsy again in his arms, I pulled the comforter over us to keep him
from getting cold as the sweat dried on his back. I closed my eyes
and breathed in the delicious scent of spent desire and relaxed
further into his blanketing weight. I had come in from the cold to
find his encompassing warmth, and I knew I'd never be alone out in
the cold again.
~~~
THE END