Chapter 7: Donkey Riding

“This is ridiculous,” Skinner groused as he paced the carpet of the small hotel room. Mulder didn’t reply, just gave him a level stare from where he was sitting on the double bed. Skinner chose to ignore the look and continued to rant.

“I’m fine.  It’s early.  We’ve got a lead now, albeit a weak one, but it’s better than nothing. But the fact is, the longer we do nothing, the colder that trail’s growing!” His pacing increased, and though his voice never rose in volume, his tone took on more of a growl as his frustration grew. Mulder could see a warm flush rising from his neck and tinting the tips of his ears pink. Still he said nothing.

“We don’t know if this man Roxy talked to is civilian, military, government; maybe one of those ‘super soldiers’; hell, he could be Krycek’s long lost brother for all we know!

“We need to get on this ASAP, not sit here doing nothing just because Scully thinks my ass should be in bed. What does she think I’m going to be doing all day tomorrow? Flamenco dancing?”

That almost made Mulder smile. Almost.

“This is ridiculous!” Skinner repeated. He turned away from Mulder and looked longingly at the door.

Mulder moved.

In a handful of quick, silent steps, he placed himself between Skinner and the door, gripping the other man’s arms hard enough to make him wince and stop dead in his tracks.

“It is *not* ridiculous!” he spat out, and Skinner thought he had never seen Mulder look so furious.

“What do you find so ridiculous here, Walter?” he continued. “Is it ridiculous that you have a brain tumor that could turn you into a vegetable? Is it ridiculous that in just two days you’re already losing your memory? You forgot Scully’s name, for God’s sake!”

Skinner tried to protest, but Mulder’s words washed over him like a tidal steamroller, and he found it was all he could do not to stumble as Mulder pushed him back.

“Oh, no, wait, I’ve got it! It must be ridiculous that Scully, your doctor, more importantly your *friend*, has told you that you need to rest in order to keep this thing from getting worse—to keep you from dying in other words!” Angry tears shimmered in Mulder’s eyes, and when they started to spill over his lids and track down his cheeks, Skinner tried to wipe them away, but Mulder still held his arms in a death grip, and was still forcing him backwards through the room.

“Or do you find it ridiculous that I love you and I don’t want you to die? Is that the ridiculous part, Walter? Is it?” Mulder shoved Skinner with all of his strength, slamming him up against the wall next to the bed. Skinner struggled, managed to free one arm, and only succeeded in flailing about with it until he knocked the lamp off of the bedside table. The heavy-based light fell onto the carpeted floor with a muffled thud, followed by the light crackle of electricity and breaking glass as the bulb within it shattered, and the room went dark.

“Aw, hell…” Skinner muttered. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized that although Mulder was now pressing him up against the wall with his body, the grip on his arms had grown slack, and he was able to pull both arms up, and a moment later, put both those arms around his lover, who was sobbing openly now.

Mindful of the broken lamp, Skinner steered Mulder back to the bed and forced him down on it, almost exactly where he’d been sitting. This time, though, he sat next to him, and held him, and let himself be held.

After several long moments of silence broken only by the hitching of Mulder’s breath, skinner tightened his grip around his lover’s shaking shoulders, found his mouth with his own and gave him a thorough kiss, tasting Mulder’s tears.

He left his mouth and peppered his face with tiny kisses and whispered, “I’m sorry, it’s not ridiculous, *you’re* not ridiculous.”

Mulder’s response was to push him back on the bed, smother his words with a brutal kiss and begin tearing at his clothes. It was as if his anger had left him but the energy remained and Mulder was channeling it out of himself in a frenzy of passion.

Skinner didn’t stop him. Maybe he wasn’t an Oxford trained psychologist, but he knew Fox Mulder. And knew him well enough to see that without this expulsion of energy, Mulder would implode, taking on guilt worry and fear like the weight of the ocean.  And surfacing from beneath that weight would destroy him in ways that terrified Skinner to contemplate.

And besides, his shirt was open now, and Mulder’s hands were running up and down the length of his body while his mouth did that thing on his neck that always seemed to turn his spine into jelly.

Groins bumped gently together, then more insistently, and Skinner fumbled with the button fly of Mulder’s pants. In contrast to his clumsy maneuvering, Mulder’s hands moved over his chest and stomach with a painful grace, at times seeming light as air, like cool breeze on his sweaty skin, peaking his nipples, raising gooseflesh all over his body; then heavy and harsh, tugging and pinching with desperate need.

Skinner pushed at cloth, pulled at cloth, needing Mulder to be naked, needing to be naked himself. His temples suddenly pulsed with pain, but the throbbing between his legs was louder, more insistent. He pushed his tongue into his lover’s mouth, tangled a hand in his sweaty hair and thrust a leg between Mulder’s, forcing them apart.

Straddling Skinner now, Mulder pulled away with a gasp and sat back, struggling out of his shirt. Skinner surged under him like waves and stroked the bare flesh of his stomach, chest, anything he could reach.

Once his shirt was hung neatly in a wadded up pile on the floor, Mulder allowed Skinner to pull him back down into his arms as he shimmied out of his jeans, then wriggled with intent until Skinner’s pants were also decorating the foot of the bed. His movements grew more heated as skin pressed to skin, and he groaned loudly into Skinner’s mouth as their hard cocks met in a head-to-head battle, one that neither man was about to lose…

When Skinner tried to roll, to push Mulder onto his back, he met resistance, and eyes tightly screwed shut flew open in surprise to stare up at blazing hazel eyes looking back at him through mussed hair.

Mulder sat back again, breathing hard, this time controlling the movement of the body under him with his own slow rocking motion, keeping Skinner excited, keeping him on the verge. He felt stickiness between his thighs, and matched it involuntarily, and reached out a hand to touch his lover’s red face. His smile was warm and teasing.

“Your doctor said you’re supposed to rest,” he said.

“Mulder…” A dangerous growl.

Mulder brushed his hand over Skinner’s mouth, silencing him, but unable to stifle a soft sound of his own when Skinner nipped and sucked at his fingers. His next words were breathier.

“I—I’m serious, Walter…don’t—don’t you move.” He slithered across Skinner’s body, tried to ignore the heat and friction and failed completely, and reached blindly for his travel kit lying somewhere on the floor near the broken lamp.  Inspiring hands on his ass, stroking and fondling, gave him incentive, and he was sitting back up again a moment later with a terrific groan, lube and condom in hand.

“You moved,” he accused.

“I helped,” Skinner countered.

“Hey, if you need to be alone to rest, I’ll go.”

“I’m resting.” A snapped reply. “If I rest much longer I’m going to rest right here, and you’ll have to rest yourself.”

Mulder laughed, Skinner gripped his cock and stroked up the hard shaft and across the slick head, and the laughter crashed into a shudder and a sigh. Mulder almost gave in to the desire to let Skinner take control of him, of his body, knowing how his lover could and would make him feel, knowing that Skinner would do the work and he would reap the rewards.

“No,” he gulped out the word and pushed Skinner’s hand away with a tremendous effort.

“No?”

“I mean, not yet.” Mulder leaned forward, kissed Skinner softly on the crown of his head, and then sat back on his haunches, holding himself just above Skinner’s body. He could feel the heat generating between them, and a shiver worked over his spine like a concert pianist as sweat trickled down his back. “Let me do the work,” he said.

Skinner reached behind him and doubled over the pillow under his head and shoulders, and this raised him up just enough that he could easily rest his hands on his lover’s thighs, and feel the muscles just under the smooth, almost hairless skin jumping and throbbing under his fingertips.

With shaking hands, Mulder tore open the condom packet, flourished the ribbed-for-his-pleasure safety like a bad magician, then popped the rubber over the head of Skinner’s cock so fast that Walter barely realized he was sheathed, and then he was pumping into Mulder’s fist as the man above him stroked the latex over his straining erection.

“Ah, God, yes…” he gasped, and bucked when Mulder pulled his hand away and placed it on his chest.

Mulder scratched at the fur there and felt Skinner’s heart beating hard and rapid under his palm. Hard and rapid and strong.

“And going to stay that way,” he muttered. When Skinner seemed on the verge of asking him to repeat himself, he gave the man’s nipple a vicious tweak, grinned slyly at him and reached for the small packet of lubricant.

“Now this is the tricky part,” he muttered, slicking up his fingers with lube, rubbing it between fingers and thumb to warm it.

When Mulder reached between his own legs, Skinner wondered for a moment if the condom was going to be wasted right now. He groaned out Mulder’s name, and then just let his eyes feast on the sight before him. As he watched his lover preparing himself for him, pleasuring himself as well, he tightened his grip on Mulder’s legs, squeezing and rubbing instinctively, his hips rising and falling in rhythm with Mulder’s movements. Though they were separated by physical space, Skinner almost felt like he was already inside Mulder, that his cock had already replaced the man’s fingers. He could almost feel his lover’s muscles clenching around him, and his breathing took on a heavy panting cadence.

“I—I think I’m ready,” Mulder hissed, biting at his lips, his eyes barely open.

“You damn well better be,” Skinner groaned back.

“Now remember, Walter. Just sit back and let us do the drive—drive—ohhhdriving…” As he spoke, Mulder moved forward just enough to let their chests brush, then drove himself back carefully, finding Skinner’s cock and slowly, slowly easing himself down on it.

Skinner felt Mulder wrap himself around him, felt him moving slowly up and down him, and felt him everywhere, inside himself, around him, in the air he was panting in and out of his lungs, in the sweat beading on his chest, in his hammering heartbeat. He spoke his lover’s name like a litany, like a prayer, and his body surged up to meet Mulder’s movements.

Mulder pressed his hands to Skinner’s chest, still moving up and down on him, though with less steady precision.

“No, don’t move.”

Skinner bucked under him again and Mulder slammed himself down as hard as he dared, given his precarious position. He scratched at Skinner’s chest and his sides, scoring his ribs lightly with short nails, then, on the next undulation of Skinner’s body, he slipped his hands under the other man and wrapped his arms around him, pulling him forward so that he could embrace him without harm, and still keep himself snug around the rock hard cock buried deep inside him.

They rocked in tandem then, Skinner thrusting and Mulder squeezing and there was more sweat and swearing and tears and then, like a bad math problem, where Train A, carrying a million pounds of fear, is moving down the track at a hundred miles an hour and Train B, carrying a cargo of passion half that weight but with an extra ton of love and traveling at the speed of light suddenly collide, they exploded simultaneously.

Skinner groaned and thrashed through his orgasm, finding Mulder’s mouth as the younger man’s own orgasm caused him to bear down on Skinner’s cock, milking the last drops of cum from him and making him tremble from the sensation. For long moments they did nothing but kiss and cling to one another, not finding words, not needing any.

Mulder finally rolled to one side with a huge groan, and Skinner’s arm was there to catch him and pull him close. He squirmed about, butting his head into Skinner’s shoulder as if punching a pillow to make it more comfortable.

“I should clean up,” he whispered, running a hand across Skinner’s chest. Skinner caught the hand and licked the fingers.

“I will.”

“Walter…” There was threat in the tone, and love, too.

“Of course, what with the breaking lamp and that supplication to the gods you were just howling out, I’m sure Scully will be in here any minute now, and she can always clean up for us.”

Skinner felt more than heard Mulder’s laughter, and he wished they hadn’t broken the lamp—he would have liked to see the accompanying smile. He felt Mulder’s hand brush down his chest again, across his stomach, and he shivered under his touch.

“Let’s just have a moment here, Walter, then I’ll get up.”

“Mmm, a moment sounds good. Maybe two even…” He closed his eyes, and was asleep too soon to hear Mulder say,

“Maybe a lifetime of them…”

7/19