***

Mulder awoke with a startled shout as something hard and wild dealt a heavy blow to the top of his head.

“Wha-fuck--?”

He was used to rude awakenings, having been plagued with nightmares since childhood. All manner of monsters and frightening situations had tromped through the fertile garden of his imagination, from fire and isolation, to his sister’s abduction and the death of loved ones.

But last night he’d slept terror free; he was sure of it.

Both he and Walter had been exhausted by the time they had stopped for the night, and it was a toss up as to who was supporting whom as they stumbled into their room. He had a vague recollection of Walter undressing him, a half-hearted minute or two of gentle kisses and petting, and then drifting off with his lover spooned up behind him, two strong arms holding him tightly in place.

He supposed he’d dreamed—everybody did—but he had no remembrance of it. No, this abrupt interruption of sleep had come from an outside source, and just as he came awake enough to try and determine just what that external stimulus had been, said external stimulus came crashing down on his nose, making him yelp.

“Hey!” Completely awake now and completely unhappy about it, Mulder turned towards his lover. The complaint poised on his lips about the Walter-Skinner-Wake-Up-Call died unspoken when he realized the other man was still asleep, though far from peacefully.

With arms thrashing and head twisting in apparent negation, Skinner was making a wretched groaning noise deep in his throat. His eyes were screwed tightly shut, but Mulder could see tears shimmering on his dark lashes.

“Walter?”

Mulder caught the hand that came flying towards him in response, and used his grip to pull himself closer to Skinner. The sleeping man struggled hugely against him, and Mulder draped himself over Skinner’s trembling body, pressed kisses to his brow and cheeks, and whispered fervently to him.

“Hey! Hey, come on, Walter. Snap out of it! Come on, wake up—“

Skinner’s body fishtailed under his, the groans turned into words:

“Fox! NO-O-O!”

Louder now: “Hey, big guy, come on! It’s me--it’s Mulder. Walter, come on, wake up, you’re scaring me here.”

Skinner’s eyes flew open and he found himself staring at Mulder, their faces scant inches apart.

“Wha-fuck--?”

“Well, good morning to you, too,” replied Mulder. “What the hell was that?”

“Fox, you’re alive!”

This statement earned him a confused frown, then a careful smile.

“Yes, I am, Walter. Is that going to be a problem?”

Skinner was staring hard at him, but Mulder thought it might just be because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. Then he felt Walter shudder beneath him, and suddenly the man’s arms were wrapped around him, clinging in a hug which was tight, frightened and totally un-Walterish in it’s intent.

“Oh my god! I thought—I thought—oh god!” He didn’t seem to be able to articulate more at that moment, and Mulder didn’t press. Just embraced Skinner with equal force, rested his head on one muscular shoulder, and held him through a round of body tremors that Mulder recognized from his own particular sleep disorders.

When he felt Skinner’s grip on him loosen a little, Mulder lifted his head to again offer his lover a cautious grin.

“Well, guess that makes us even now. Wanna tell me what that was all about?” 

As he spoke he touched Walter’s cheek tentatively, wiping away a tear that he didn’t think the other man was even aware of. Skinner responded in kind, brushing his fingers over Mulder’s fading bruises, then gasping when he realized there was blood under Mulder’s nose.

“Oh, shit, Fox—did I do that?”

He sounded small and scared, like a child about to be punished for some unremembered misdeed, and Mulder hastened to allay his fears.

“No worries, Walter, its no big deal. I seem to recall this shoe being on the other foot more than once. What was it? Vietnam?”

Although Skinner glanced away from the inquisitive look in Mulder’s eyes, he didn’t hesitate in his answer.

“I wish. That would have been one hell of a lot easier than—“ 

Mulder felt another shudder under him as Skinner’s body grew tense, waited for those same muscles to relax, and when they didn’t, he forced the other man to look at him.

“Talk to me, Walter.”

“There was so much blood…” his voice was the softest trace of a lost murmur, a sound Mulder never would have equated with his lover, and his gaze was distant, not seeing Mulder now, but looking into some dark place beyond him.

Mulder made a move away from him, saying, “let me get you something to drink, a—“

He never got to complete the thought. Skinner crushed him to his body, arms like a steel trap around his back, holding him so forcefully that he could scarcely breathe. 

“Walter!” he gasped, pushing at the larger man’s shoulders with what little arm movement he could manage. “Oxygen is our friend.”

Skinner’s vice-like grip eased just enough for Mulder to draw air, then relaxed a little more when Mulder said, “Hey, s’okay, Walter, I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Again Skinner turned his head, and Mulder let him have his silence, settling himself more comfortably over the rock hard body beneath him, letting one hand come up to brush lightly over his jaw, relishing the rough drag of stubble under his fingertips. He felt a clench there, and pressed a little more firmly, then dragged his caress down to the thick neck, massaging at the tension there, too. Finally, he spoke.

“You’re not going to tell me about it, are you?”

“It was stupid.” came the reply, and Mulder was at once both grateful and disturbed to hear his lover’s signature growl. “Just a dream. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t!” Mulder growled right back, and Skinner gave him an odd look. “Don’t you dare make light of this, Walter. Do you think my nightmares are stupid?”

“What? No, of course not! They—“

“Then why in the world would you belittle your own? Or think that I would belittle them? That is what you were thinking, isn’t it?”

A shrug.

“You don’t have to tell me, Walter. I’m your lover, not your psychiatrist. But I know from first hand experience that night terrors can be every bit as horrific as anything real life can throw at us—sometimes worse. So don’t lie there and tell me it was nothing. I don’t think it was nothing. It was enough of a something that you’re lying here in a puddle of sweat with all your muscles suddenly turned into steel cables. And even if it was only a vision of all that paperwork you have waiting for you when we get home—“ 

This earned him the first ghost of a smile.

“—even if it was something you’d call nothing—“ He paused, touched Skinner’s face again, and kissed him softly. “It would be something to me.” Another kiss, this one longer and with more intent, and he felt the last of the nightmare bleeding out of his lover’s muscles.

“I love you, Walter,” he whispered.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Fox,” Skinner replied. 

“Get more work done at the office?” Mulder suggested. “Cancel your maid service?” Then with a leer: “Jerk off in the bathroom?”

Skinner’s laugh was a surprise to both of them. Mulder suddenly became aware of the large hands on his back, no longer clenched into fists, now spread out and stroking softly up and down the length of his body.

“Or maybe you’d find some other guy with a compulsion for the truth…and oral gratification.” Another laugh, this one shared by both of them, and Skinner’s hands moved a little lower.

“I could never find someone like you,” Skinner replied. “I don’t think I’d even want to try.”

“Well, then I guess you’ll be fighting Frohike for that movie collection of mine, huh?”

There was an almost predatory gleam in Skinner’s eyes that Mulder didn’t fail to notice.

“Not today, though.”

A pause, then returning the hungry look, he replied, “No, Walter, not today.”

The kiss was soft, drawn out and sweet, a slow intertwining of tongues as each man drew on the soul of the other and found exactly what he was looking for in the gentle touch of lips, the rough nip of teeth, the methodical tasting of one another.

Skinner’s hands grasped Mulder’s buttocks and kneaded firmly, forcing their groins into closer contact, and sparking desire through their bodies. Soft flesh grew firmer as their cocks rubbed across one another, and the kiss took on new urgency.

Mulder took Skinner’s face in his hands and kissed him everywhere: nose, cheeks, eyelids, eyebrows, the center of his forehead, then ran his unshaven cheek up over bald scalp and down again to find an ear with his mouth and lick at a sensitive earlobe. Skinner’s hands squeezed tighter and a moan slipped from him unbidden.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Mulder whispered, his breath in the other man’s ear making him shiver. He reached under Skinner’s biceps and pushed his arms back, releasing himself although he had no intentions of moving just yet. He stretched out to hold Skinner’s arms over his head, then began methodically licking the skin under his arms, along his sides, over his chest, relishing the sleep-sour taste of his lover. He licked and Walter groaned and tried to bring his arms down, and Mulder moved onto his nipples, biting at each one in turn until they were hard.

With a tremendous effort, Skinner reared up and flipped Mulder onto his back, climbing on top of him and grinding down on his body, running his hands through already badly tousled hair and biting at the pulse beneath his chin. Then he dropped a lick to the hollow at the base of his throat and then down, giving Mulder’s nipples the same relentless treatment he’d just received. He could feel Mulder’s chest heaving under his mouth, but his own harsh panting drowned out the sound of the other man's breathing

Mouth back on mouth, and Mulder’s back arched up, instinctively begging for more contact, closer contact. 

Skinner stopped and pushed himself up with his hands, straddling Mulder’s hips and looking down at eyes glazed with lust, lips swollen from fevered kisses, hair in complete disarray, and hands clenching and unclenching on the bed sheets as their hips continued to bump against one another.

He reached across Mulder for the kit on the nightstand beside the bed, vaguely remembering putting it there…just in case. He sat back with the necessary implements in his hands, and squeezed out lube, warming it in his hand, then sliding off of Mulder’s body to push gently at his legs, which spread immediately upon his light touch.

With a sure and determined hand, Skinner opened Mulder carefully. It had been a while since they’d luxuriated themselves in this particular act. But as he moved first one, then two fingers inside his lover, Mulder responded with a drawn out groan of pleasure, and his legs crossed behind Skinner, trying to draw him in.

Skinner took his time, though, adding a third finger, then crooking them enough to find just the right spot, and Mulder took his verbal appreciation up a notch, punctuating moans with murmured affirmations.

“Yes, oh yes, oh, please, yes…”

Skinner slipped a condom over his throbbing cock and entered Mulder. A wince, a gasp, and he paused.

“Should I stop?” His voice was rough with need. 

Mulder replied without hesitation. “Don’t you fucking dare!”  Then he wrapped his legs tighter around Skinner and drew him all the way in.

Skinner lunged forward with his own gasp, ensconced in tight heat, and grasped Mulder’s hips, pushing his legs up higher so that he could reach his mouth again.

As his erection was trapped between their bodies and he felt the coarse hair on Skinner’s stomach brush over the head, Mulder cried out and the sound was swallowed in Skinner’s mouth.

The urge to thrust hard and fast was almost unbearable, but Skinner held his control and took his time, nearly pulling all the way out with each stroke, then forcing himself deeper into the willing body under him, tasting desire and love and need in every sound that Mulder made. He could feel slickness forming between their bodies as Mulder’s cock slipped and slid between them, pulsing as he approached completion.

Skinner pulled out suddenly and reached for another condom. Mulder looked up, disappointment and desire warring in his eyes. Desire won as Skinner slipped the condom over Mulder’s straining cock, then threw a leg over his thigh and took him inside himself with a single downward push.

He winced at the burn, but welcomed it just the same, then adjusted the angle of their bodies and Mulder pushed up into him and he thrust back.

Mulder slipped the condom off of Walter’s cock and replaced the latex sheath with the hot skin of his hand. Skinner pumped into his fist, his movements in tandem with Mulder’s bucking hips.

With a final lunge, Skinner pressed down on Mulder’s cock, gripping tightly as his orgasm burst out of him, and he roared his release, wetting Mulder’s hand and stomach and chest. Mulder laughed as the clenching muscles stroked his cock and pulled his own orgasm from him and his fingers dug into Skinner’s hip, holding him tightly in place as his cock pulsed and throbbed deep inside his lover’s tight body.

Skinner fell forward, barely catching himself on his arms, and Mulder’s cock slipped out of him. Both men panted breathlessly into one another’s faces, then, as the need for air became less urgent, their mouths came together, and they completed the circle of passion by returning to soft kisses and touches.

With a sigh, Skinner rolled off to one side and pulled Mulder into his arms. Mulder swept one hand possessively over Skinner’s hip, then around to tentatively touch his backside.

“That was…”he began.

“I know.”

Mulder smiled and kissed the tip of Skinner’s nose.

“Please tell me that wasn’t just a road trip aberration.”

Skinner smiled at him in return and pressed his lips to his brow.

“I can’t wait to get you home,” he replied.