"…standing in the rain, with his head hung low, couldn't get a ticket, it was a sold out show…"

Skinner turned down the radio as the hard rock replaced some generic ballad, and glanced up at the sky, which had been a promising blue when they had set out this morning, but was now a dismal grey. Darker clouds smudged the horizon with the promise of rain, and, as if to emphasize the point, lightning flickered in the distance.

He and Mulder had taken turns driving after bidding a hasty farewell to the Plains motel, wanting to get out before the cleaning staff discovered the disarray that the bedsheets were in. There was something both pathetic and oddly humorous about skulking out of a dive motel in a backwater town, and they had shared an almost embarrassed laughter over their 'escape'.

Having discussed most of his travel ideas with Mulder the night before, Walter felt more at ease. He gave up the truck to his lover for the first part of the day, and found himself more relaxed than he thought he might.  Though not prone to many acts of self-evaluation, if pressed, Walter would have had to agree that Walter Sergei Skinner and control issues were pretty much synonymous. Until now. Until Mulder.

It was a relationship based on trust first.  The physical attraction between them was a given, of course, although both men had spent time kicking themselves for not acting on it sooner, exchanging enough "I never knew, never could have imagined…" stories to fill several diaries, but the trust had been there first. Even when their respective jobs had put them at odds with one another, even when it seemed that everything and everyone in the Bureau was against Mulder, or Skinner, or both. And even when they had nearly come to physical blows over issues real or imagined, or in one case psychotic, the fact remained that they had trusted one another. Mulder trusted Skinner enough to respect him, knowing that Skinner was backing him up, even when it didn't appear to be the case. Not even Scully had been able to shake his belief in the man. And Skinner trusted Mulder enough to give him as much free reign as was humanly possible and still keep drawing a paycheck. Oh, sure, he'd fought him on occasion, mocked him even, when his pursuits into the paranormal seemed to border on the absurd. But never had Skinner doubted the integrity of the man himself. 

And all that had led them both to this place. To a relationship that still seemed to surprise the both of them, that still seemed to be the most amazing thing to have happened to either one of them, and that meant more to them than most anything else on the planet. Or off of it, for that matter.

So when Mulder offered to drive for a while, Skinner gladly took him up on it, handing him the keys without a second thought, and fitting himself comfortably into the passenger seat.

He'd napped some during the day, read aloud from a battered old detective novel he'd stuffed into his duffel bag on a whim, and listened to his lover prattle on about any subject that happened to pop into that complex mind of his, from the Knicks chances in the playoffs, to the latest word on the Teletubby conspiracy, and everything in between. And he was content.

After a late lunch consisting of coffee and sandwiches bought in a café attached to a gas station in the middle of nowhere, and consumed sitting in the back of the truck at a rest stop just a few miles from the middle of nowhere, Mulder shyly asked if Skinner would mind taking over for a while.

It was then that Walter noticed the dark shadows under his lover's eyes, and the film of fatigue dulling their usual bright hazel colour. And he suddenly realized that they had been driving for a day and a half now, with only a brief stop, which had lent itself more to love making than to sleeping. He seemed to remember Mulder slipping out of the bed at some point, but had chalked it up to a dream when he found him smiling in his arms upon waking the next morning. And Mulder had made no argument when he suggested they leave right away, making an early start to the day. But Skinner knew Mulder was not a morning person. He'd spent too much time in 7 am meetings with the man not to know that he performed one hell of a lot better after noon, preferably after a pot of coffee, sometimes two.

Without a word, Skinner had taken the keys, and as they headed back out onto the highway, and late afternoon turned into early evening, they had slipped into a comfortable silence, broken only by the endless stream of soft music on the radio.

When Skinner stopped for gas, the air was full of darkness and humidity. Rain was coming, and he didn't have to be psychic to know it. 

"Did you want me to drive?" Mulder asked him as he paid for the gas, and yet another bag of sunflower seeds.

"I think I'm okay for a while yet." Mulder hadn't slept, and Walter knew it. 

"Just say the word," Mulder insisted as they got back in the truck. "If you get tired—"

"I'm fine." He didn't mean to sound so gruff, and he didn't think Mulder was offended by his tone, but for the next few miles, the silence wasn't so comfortable. Mulder turned up the radio, and leaned back in his seat, arms crossed, staring out his window at the passing landscape, which was growing darker by the minute. Walter wanted to say something, to apologize maybe, or just make some sound to knock back the tension he felt growing between them, but couldn't find anything that wouldn't sound trite, or stupid.

He flinched at Mulder's touch, then turned as Mulder tightened his grip on his arm, and offered him a small, sweet smile, and a nod that seemed to say nothing and everything all at once. It was a short moment, but Skinner felt something shift inside him, and then everything was all right again.

"Mulder…" he started.

Mulder pressed a finger to his lips. "Shhh, I'm sleeping." Another tiny smile and he turned away, re-crossed his arms and closed his eyes.

Skinner found himself grinning at nothing, then grinning at his lover, then reaching for the radio, to turn down the volume.

"Don't," said Mulder, not opening his eyes. "I like it."

Skinner wasn't sure when Mulder's relaxed state had deepened into real sleep, but he was definitely out of it, and Walter was glad. Mulder was a sketchy sleeper at best, suffering everything from insomnia and nightmares to occasional bouts of somnambulism. Walter had become as adept at brewing chamomile tea as he had at giving head, and he nearly laughed out loud thinking that the results were often the same in both cases.

Lightning flared suddenly, much closer than before, followed closely by the grumble and curse of thunder, and the first fat droplets of rain hit the windshield. Skinner switched on the wipers, and only a few minutes later had to turn them to the high setting as sheets of rain came down with a vengeance.

Visibility turned from poor to non-existent, and the fogging windows didn't help. Skinner cracked the driver's side window and immediately got splashed by cold rain for his efforts. And the rest of the windows didn't clear. More lightning crackled, and thunder boomed like a bad Garth Brooks song, seemingly right on top of them. Skinner made a decision, and pulled the truck over to the side of the road.

Shutting off the ignition, he sat quietly for a moment, just watching the storm through the misty glass of the windows.  He didn't consider himself a romantic, by any means. He wasn't a man who was moved by rainbows or sunsets. He didn't get all dewy eyed over dawn's approach, or puppies frisking in a field at dusk. But there was something about the unrestrained power of a thunderstorm that he had come to appreciate. The strength of it, the wildness. It never failed to move him, to remind him of the unpredictability of the world, and his own small place in it. And speaking of unpredictable…Deciding that this was one storm he didn't feel like experiencing alone, he unclasped his seat belt and leaned towards his still sleeping lover. He had to smile at the man who often woke in the middle of the night if Skinner so much as rolled over in bed, but had managed to stay unconscious through one hell of a storm. The smile slipped off his face as he realized just what this trip—this pilgrimage—this whatever the hell it was—what kind of toll it was taking on Mulder. And they weren't even two days out of the city.

He rearranged his expression into something less grim, and reached over to brush his hand over Mulder's unshaven cheek. The younger man twitched in response, but didn't wake. A second stroke, this one more deliberate, provoked a shiver and a wordless noise of complaint as Mulder turned his face away from Skinner's touch.

"Hey, c'mon, Fox, wake up," he whispered, still touching him lightly, not wanting to startle him. Despite the softness of tone and touch, Mulder jerked awake with a startled "Huh?" his hands coming up to shield his face.  He looked around wildly for a moment, half-focused on Skinner and muttered something at him that sounded like "Is it still Monday?"

Skinner frowned and tried to make sense of this.

Mulder's sleep dulled eyes cleared and he sighed deeply, scrubbed a shaky hand over his face and through his hair, and tried on a smile.

"Sorry. Dream. Sleepin'."

Skinner had been working on his Mulder-To-English dictionary for some time now, so this made complete sense to him.

"I know." He wasn't sure what to say next. There'd been no reason for him to wake Mulder. As soon as the storm passed, and it had to pass eventually, they'd be on their way, with no change in plan. To say he hadn't wanted to be alone would have been a sign of weakness, and he didn't want to reveal any vulnerability. Not when he didn't know who to trust…

But this was Fox Mulder.

"I didn't want to sit here alone." Skinner said abruptly, giving his lover a sharp look, as if daring him to comment.

Mulder yawned at him.

"Where are we?" He peered myopically out the window, squinted, then rubbed at steam. This didn't help.

Skinner consulted a map, and replied, deadpan, "Just a few miles south of Buttfuck, Nowhere."

Mulder grinned, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes.  "You're funny, old man." He then made a significant observation.

"It's raining."

"Yes. Yes it is."

Thunder punctuated Skinner's words, and Mulder jumped in spite of himself. His lover threw a quick and sure arm around his shoulders.

"Thunder," he explained.

"Well, yes, Walter, I know that." Mulder's tone was peevish, and he tensed under Skinner's arm, feeling like he was being treated like a child.

"I knew you knew that—" Skinner sensed Mulder's discomfort, and decided to try and allay it. "I think I was telling myself more than you, Mulder. Sometimes I forget."

"What do you mean?" Walter had piqued his curiosity, but not so much that the next clap of thunder didn't make him twitch. He sighed and leaned closer to Skinner and took comfort despite himself as Walter continued.

"For years after I came home—"

Mulder didn't have to ask from where. He knew a part of his lover would always be young, scared and fighting an un-winnable war in an unimaginable jungle somewhere on the far side of the moon just as surely as some part of himself would always be young, scared and losing badly at Stratego against a sister he'd never see again. He wondered briefly what would happen if young scared Walter and young scared Fox ever came up against one another, and quickly decided that would be too nasty to contemplate.

"—every time it rained, I was back in that hell, getting myself shot to shit! Each thunder clap was another gunshot." He grinned ruefully, remembering. "It got so bad that Sharon used to make me sleep on the couch if there was even a hint of rain in the air."

"I wouldn't make you sleep on the couch," Mulder muttered, and Skinner used his translating skills to realize that what Mulder was really saying was, "You wouldn't make me sleep on the couch, would you?"

He leaned in to kiss Mulder's hair, and whispered, "Of course not."

And more thunder made them both jump.

After a minute or two, Mulder turned a serious expression on the other man, and asked softly, "Walter, what are we doing here?"

"Watching the rain," he replied without hesitation.

"All right then." And for now, it was.