Only when the phone rang to wake him did Walter Skinner realize he'd been asleep. His heart jerked, eyes opened, and for a moment everything in him strained together, trying to orient within the well of night down which he'd fallen. Living room lamps stood here and there like sleeping sentinels, leaving the television as sole illumination, a source of stuttering light in the darkened room. From the open balcony doors, a chill breeze insinuated through the drapes and knifed the muggy, laden air. He'd shut off the air conditioner to let some real air in for a change, and the atmosphere was charged with massing ions, carried on a cold front like a rising wave.

*Storm's coming*. The thought coincided with the next ring of the phone and the small hairs on his neck rose slightly as muscles bunched under the skin. He shifted in place, found his cordless at hand in the dim light, on the table next to the couch. As his arm moved, he automatically sifted possibilities. Once upon a time when he'd gotten late calls on a more regular basis, he'd had reason to dread. But it had been a long time since the smooth, shadowy voice had violated his peace in such a way, calling to issue serpentine directives or collect on IOUs. Callers and emergencies; who else could it be--the bureau. His mother. Sharon. Mulder. Scully, calling about Mulder. But in the flickering silence of his solitude, he felt fated, and knew in his weighted bones that it was none of them, nothing so simple. It was his nemesis, the nameless fume-cloaked one who played upon all his uncertainties and guilt, who'd maneuvered a man of the law off the straight and narrow, into byways of complex government illegality. He'd been overdue for this call. How could he have even *hoped* to be left alone, for time enough to work his conscience clean--in his world, the opportunity to make full penance was a luxury he would never have.

Skinner touched the button on the phone, held it to his ear. He stared at the television screen--premium channel, soft-core porn, a tumble of women's bodies like syruped peaches--and said, in a mechanical voice, "Skinner." Watching the screen would not obliterate reality, but it distracted his vision and left the rest of him no more than nominally functional, so that he was kept from focusing completely on his laboring heart-beat, his sense of being no more than an animal approximation of himself, surprised and cornered. *If you're back, you son of a bitch, get ready, because you're not going to find me at your beck and call.*

How quickly his thoughts seized up in a sudden and familiar synapse-jump of  fury, before he even heard word one. It was as if he'd been waiting for months, without letting himself recognize that tense state of limbo. Now he was cold and set into grim resistance, ready.

Except that the voice was not the sinuous, terrible one he'd convinced himself to hear, and he hadn't readied himself for this.

"Walter." The voice was hesitant and quiet, its brevity like a stone dropped into a pool.

Skinner's breath released itself all at once, a chuff of relief and equal uncertainty. "Ellison?" His tone was terse, clipped, not very welcoming, but he recovered enough a moment later to change the address. "Jim," he said, forcing the name out. He'd been snapped fully into himself; the television went fuzzily unseen now, his focus shortening to hang in the dim midair, somewhere more or less above his coffee table.

"Yeah. Catch you at a bad time?"

Skinner hesitated. It would be easy to say yes. "What time is it?"

"Well, on the *west* coast--" Small silence that was a dry smile rather than outright laughter. "It's about nine o'clock. Sorry. I wasn't thinking about the time difference until I actually heard your voice. I woke you up. I'll--"

"I'm awake now," Skinner said.

"Yeah." There was a pause, and then Skinner heard the other man's throat clear. "I've got some vacation time coming and I need to get away. Mileage somewhere beyond the triple digits would be nice, I was thinking. So, ah, I was wondering if I could borrow your cabin."

More silence. That was Jim Ellison. He said what he needed to say, and never a word more. Skinner, in turn, didn't know quite *what* to say. In the course of listening to just a few short sentences from the other man, he'd skidded from edgy dismay into startled disappointment. He'd been sure that Jim was calling in pursuit of a tete-a-tete, and had been reflexively prepared for the necessity of demurral. He didn't really have room for this in his life right now. He'd have pleaded a crushing schedule, the grind, the ball-and-chain of Lady Justice. That's what a federal law enforcement job was good for, if nothing else. Excuses. But Ellison wasn't asking for a backwoods assignation. If someone else in his place had made a similar request, there might have been subtext, the chance that he was hinting at more. But not Jim Ellison. If the man had subtlety, Skinner had never witnessed it. And Skinner, who had too much damn subtlety in his life, approved.

"Sure, I--yeah, of course." Skinner frowned, and then tried not to let himself frown. "Everything. . .okay?"

"Just the usual." Ellison's voice sounded steady, but perhaps a bit tired.

"The usual doesn't usually send you flying three thousand miles across the country."

"No. That's true."

He didn't want to discuss it, that was obvious. Skinner leaned forward on the couch, resting one arm across a thigh, working his back to pop some vertebrae loose. "Key's in the same place," he said at last, after several unhurried beats had passed between them down the phone lines. "You remember?"

"Mmm," Jim said, in brief acknowledgment. Pause. "Stash in the same place?"

Skinner's grin cracked out at last. "That's a wait-and-see, Lieutenant."

"Hell to fly three thousand miles only to find out those pet coons of yours have rolled up all the smokes."

"Haven't seen any in a while."

"Good deer hunting last fall?" A question, but nearly not, so muted and oblique were Jim's verbal question marks.

"Not bad, I heard. I went down a few weekends. Got a three-point buck in my sights."

"But you weren't eatin' venison that night."

"Never cared for it."

"What's in season?"

"Now?" Skinner smirked. "Wild turkey."

"You joking?"

"You just missed end of coon season by a week."

There was a muttered curse from the distant reaches of Cascade, Washington, then: "Wild turkey." A tiny snort. "I'll bring my own."

*****

Not the best time of year to be holing up in the Virginia Appalachians. The mild late-winter weather had seemed to hold a touch of spring when he stepped from the airport in Charlottesville, but the further he'd driven into the mountains, the lower the temperature had dropped, until he nearly felt like he was back in Cascade. Around the sloping region where Skinner had his cabin, snow scalloped the ground and dusted the trees in a fine powder. Rhododendron and mountain laurel provided most of the visible greenery on the lower hillsides, but the rhododendron bushes drooped, leaves curled against the lingering cold. Evergreen hemlocks towered above the undergrowth, mixing with pine, spruce and fir, while bare maples and hickories gapped in stark patches along the tree line.

The Blue Ridge Parkway that had brought him here had been a desolate but arresting drive, its traffic light; and in this place off the beaten path, hemmed in by rock and dense forest, Jim could almost believe himself truly secluded from civilization. In such a place perception inverted and one understood as a fresh truth that it was not *wilderness* that was isolated, but cities that were lost within the wild vastness.

It was not his favorite wilderness. The Pacific Northwest laid claim on his heart. But he'd needed different trees this time, different smells. He couldn't identify the territorial signature--flora, spoors, minerals-like he could that of his home, and the surprise to his senses was fresh and sharp. A good distraction.

Blair had wanted to come, of course, and it had taken every ounce of Jim's low-key restraint to keep from tying the kid to a chair as he'd hurriedly packed and readied for his trip--all at the last minute, because he'd planned it just that way, to reduce Sandburg's margin for persuasive argument. They'd been through this now and again. Blair was a hell of a friend, truth be told, and when Jim occasionally needed to be alone he felt that the younger man really understood: not abstractly, not even sympathetically as Carolyn might have, but--as Blair would say--*empathetically*. And now and again Blair himself lit out, went to ground as it were, and did whatever it was jumping beans do on their time off. But when the man's protective instincts were roused, he was like a terrier that would not loosen its grip, and this time Jim had felt like he'd been forced to kick his friend off in pursuit of freedom.

Now, after three days of blessed solitude for a certain Blessed Protector, Jim stood at the back bay window of the cabin and for the first time since touching Virginia soil let his thoughts turn to Blair. Maybe it was ungracious and it was certainly something he'd never hurt his friend by sharing, but it struck him for a moment how very good it was to be a continent away from his guide. On his own. How long had it been since he'd *really* been on his own, unreachable, no matter what emergency might arise? Well, all right, not completely unreachable. There was the phone, if worst came to worst. Because he was--thankfully--not the man he'd once been, three years ago, or ten. Unable to slice the cord cleanly, he'd settled for the next best measure.

*I'm putting my trust in you, Chief*, he'd said solemnly to the other man, duffel on one shoulder, hand on the door knob. *I'm counting on you not to get kidnapped, shot, or dropped down an elevator shaft, for the next hundred and sixty eight hours.* And he'd smiled to show he was joking and patted the other's cheek lightly, trying to smooth away the irked look, but hell if he hadn't meant it, and those blue eyes, piercing him with dry reckoning, had known. The kid always had his number. No rancor, just a little twist of lips, and a veiled reference that made Jim suspect he'd find popcorn and feminine undergarments in his couch when he returned.

Jim smiled as he lifted his coffee mug to his mouth. Squinting out through the turreted woods, he could see dawn's breaking pinks at the lowest visible notch of sky, just beyond the southeastern peak of a neighboring mountain. Then he cocked his head, interrupting his next sip. Distant crunch of gravel, originating far down the private road; sound of a quiet motor growing louder as it neared; echoes that reverberated off a double line of tree boles. His lips thinned with unthinking irritation, then he made himself relax. Setting his coffee down he turned away from the lightening vista of the mountainside, the promise of trout and a few lazy casts of introspection.

Little doubt it was Skinner. What other sudden visitor would arrive early on Saturday morning. Jim spared the cabin a quick once-over, making sure there was nothing out of place in the tidy, cedar-planked dwelling. Neatness prevailed. He'd altered nothing from what he'd found, except to leave some extra ash in the fireplace and to change the bedsheets. And to dust--you couldn't fault a man for dusting. Not that it had needed much. Tight and well-made, the cabin held little dust and even less damp; being inside its polished, red-tinted walls was rather like nesting inside a giant humidor, a sense of masculine seclusion not dispelled by the spare, dry furnishings. No frippery here whatsoever; just the essentials--tables, chairs, couch--arranged at right angles to one another and showing few signs of recent use even to Jim's enhanced scrutiny, though some of the pieces bore more ancient, familial scars, and the decor as a whole carried a uniquely personal signature. The plain rocking chair tucked into one corner had a careworn, grandmotherly shape; the old wardrobe in the bedroom still held the nicks and scrapes of someone's youth. Lithographic prints from nineteenth century magazines and newspapers had been framed and hung, and Jim wondered if their sere ivory tints and simple geometries had been chosen for how little strain they placed on the eye.

When he heard the vehicle pulling up into the drive, Jim stepped out on the porch. Around him, at the edges of the clearing, intricate millions of pine needles brushed and wove, feathering the near silence that prevailed when the soft engine was cut off. Birds trilled, whinnied, peeped, things rustled in the underbrush, and the wind was a huge and stealthy presence that kinged the mountainside and pushed the morning mist along the ground in damp, rolling tendrils.

Able to see clearly across twenty feet of dim light and through lightly tinted glass, Jim watched the surprise and uncertainty on Skinner's face at finding him awake and waiting. It was still dark enough that Jim could espy his own faint reflection in the car's front window: a dark figure standing upright between the porch beams, backlit by the rectangular glow of the open door.

Jim raised one hand in casual sign of greeting.

After a minute, Skinner got out of the car, and its light steady ping sounded clearly in the quiet. "Starting early," Skinner said. He neared, reached the porch, stood there on his own property with one foot on earth, the other on wood, as if going further would require invitation. They exchanged a handshake that both seemed to find awkward, but each man overlooked the hiccup of form with stoic disregard.

Jim straightened up. "Went down yesterday to that brookie stream we worked  last year. Cold at first, didn't think I'd get a bite, but it warmed up fast with the sun and there was a hatch on. Mayflies. Fish started rising." Jim made a smooth little inclining gesture with one hand and smiled.

"You brought your gear, then." Skinner rocked a bit from ball to heel on his feet.

"Of course." Jim sounded offended. "What kind of angler you think I am?"

Skinner grinned.

"Caught a decent lunch and dinner, if you like to eat light. Four brookies, one twelve-incher. Thought I'd try again today, see if I can't do better."

"What fly'd you use?"

"Mallard Quill wet fly to start, Quill Gordon when they started to strike. Action wasn't too bad. A lot of small stuff, though. Threw most of them back." He let his gaze rise, fix on Skinner. "You up for the weekend?"

Skinner turned his own gaze away, sketching the trees. "Well. . .I've got my gear here already. Brought a few things, but. . .it's not a long drive back. I don't want to horn in--"

"Walter, it's your place," Jim said, his tone firm and uncompromising. "Don't let me keep you from your weekend. Christ, I know how few breaks you let yourself take." He nearly offered to stay at a hotel, but then held his tongue. He could sleep on the couch if he had to, but he wasn't going to offer to decamp after flying across the country to be here; it would be a ridiculous, empty gesture.

"It's not--" Skinner broke off, swiped a hand behind his head
uncomfortably. "I just don't want you to think--"

"Well, I don't."

"Good."

"Yep." Jim shifted impatiently, turning back toward the house and grabbing the door open. "You had breakfast?"

"I've had coffee. I stopped at the market in town."

"More can't hurt," Jim said equably, before re-entering the cabin.

*****

They'd eaten together, trading shoptalk over plates of cholesterol-laden bliss, because if God hadn't wanted you to eat eggs and bacon he wouldn't have made hens and cows. Then after packing lunch and checking their tackle, they hiked forty-five minutes to the stream, dipped a seine to take measure of the water's insect life, then began tying their flies. Within an hour, they'd settled in to fish while exchanging only the most minimal and technical excuse for conversation, in the quietest of tones.

"New rod," Skinner observed with a sidelong glance, after they'd been established in situ for twenty minutes, speaking barely audibly over the tumbled plash of the water.

"Yeah." Jim's face was relaxed but not inexpressive. His eyes were flicking busy glances around stream, following the movements of the birds as they skimmed down to feed, stripping across the surface of the water in search of flashes and ripples. "Sandburg knew a guy who knew a guy--makes blanks out of a little shop in Washougal, Washington. I had it customized, hand-wrapped. Gives the best cast I've ever had. Incredible."

"I didn't think he fly-fished."

"Ah. . .not so much. He doesn't have the proper appreciation for the sport. But he's coming along."

Skinner felt an instinctive reluctance to discuss Jim Ellison's so-called partner; there was no firm reason behind it, but neither of them was much for social chit-chat. He knew only sparse details about the man, Blair Sandburg: that he was some sort of academic, that he rented a room in Jim's apartment, that he had some sort of connection with the Cascade P.D. It was all very vague, and Skinner had resisted finding out anything more, just as Jim had maintained a disinclination to talk about his friend.

*Friend?* It might have been the traditional euphemism; Skinner had wondered, but hadn't yet asked, probably never would.

"How'd he know about this guy?" Skinner's tone was flat, the question indirect and skeptical, even a bit clumsy, slipping out to land beyond their usual guarded territory in which topics of mutual interest were carefully limited to work, sport, and light rations of personal history centering on the military experience. Skinner's face gave nothing away, but his lips tightened with self-irritation and he directed his gaze from side to side, letting it rest anywhere but on Ellison.

"Oh. . .Sandburg. He has that, what d'ya call it--six degrees of separation thing--down to a science. The kid knows everyone, and if he doesn't know them, he knows someone who does. You could drop him down in the wilds of Borneo and within an hour he'd've hooked up with some jungle hermit and they'd be swapping gossip about their second cousins." Jim paused, thoughtfully watching his line drift. "Actually, that's probably not the best example. I think he's been to Borneo."

"Australian outback," Skinner said in short, offering it as an alternative.

Jim nodded blandly. "Yeah, I think he's been there too."

*****

After the hatch of the day, caddis, the fish had begun surfacing and the men caught so many, so quickly, that their sandwich lunch became superfluous. They debated grilling the trout over a small fire and washing the meal down with stream-cooled beer, but even with a quick wash of morning sun the shady area hadn't heated up much, and they decided against lingering. They cleaned the fish, packed their gear up, and hiked to the cabin, reaching its porch just as it began to rain, congratulating themselves on the timing.

Ten minutes later Skinner was laying a fire and Jim was in the kitchen, shaking it down as he prepped for their meal. "How old are these potatoes," Jim called out from the pantry.

"The ones in that dusty old crate?" Skinner snorted as he poked some more kindling into the rising flames. "Too old."

"Yeah, I think you're right." Jim came out grimacing and smacking his hands against one another. "Guess we're having toast with our trout."

"Potatoes in the bag," Skinner noted laconically of his unpacked groceries, which sat on the floor by the end of the counter.

"Beautiful," Jim said in relief.

Chopping the vegetables, Jim stole glances across the cabin, watching the other man where he hunched by the fireplace. Despite Jim's determination to show nothing, feel nothing, until an unbidden sign gave him leave, his gaze traced a trespassing path across the back of Skinner's head and neck, the bulldog bunch of muscle that defined him ex-Marine. A light verge of hair shaded the nape, a residual pelt of youth bordering bare, polished skin. Skinner moved his head, as if sensing Jim's look, but did not turn entirely. His profile was built on a crag of knobs--chin, nose, brow ridges--of a geology that would accrue rather than erode with age. Thickness already had begun to gather along the jaw and cheeks, swags of flesh along the leanly established bones, but visible only to discerning eyes. Nothing detracted from the strength of his face, however, and his body's muscles were ungivingly hard.

Weren't they, though.

*So, fine. I'm hornier than a full-racked moose*, Jim thought in resignation. *Doesn't mean I'm going to jump the man*.

Skinner rose, turned, came toward the kitchen. Their gazes met as if by accident, skidding together and then away.

"You want one of those beers," Skinner said, "or should I break out the hard stuff?"

Not exactly cocktail hour, Jim noticed, and wondered if the other man was nervous. Impossible to tell. "Beer's fine," he said aloud.

They said very little. They cooked fish, drank a few beers, ate the fish, then cleared up and moved to sit by the fire. The day outside darkened rapidly as the wind lashed a hard rain ahead of itself, sweeping down on the hillside cabin a full, cracking thunderstorm, and it was if an eyelid had fallen shut and was reflecting dreams of lightning across its inner surface.

In the fireplace, the flames gathered the air and spun streaks of silk loose from the gradually charring logs.

"You dig out those smokes?" Skinner asked, when the conversation had died down a bit along with the fire.

"Nah. Not yet."

"You up for burning one?"

"Yeah, why not. You think it's still good?"

Skinner cleared his throat. "Well, it's actually. . .I've restocked."

Jim shook his head, made a small tsk-ing sound. "What is this country coming to?" he asked with mild rhetorical irony.

"Bought land here. I feel obligated to support the local economy," Skinner said, adamantly straight of face. "Most of your average backwoods boys grow ditch  weed, I was lucky to find the real deal." Skinner stood to put on his jacket. "My supplier," he said gravely, "assures me that he grows all his crops organically."

"Good to know. I try to keep my body a temple."

"I'll be right back." Skinner ducked outside and disappeared for several minutes, before returning with a small tin in hand. He shook rain off his coat and returned to the fire, to which Jim had added a few more logs during his absence.

Jim forced himself to ease back into place on the couch as Skinner rolled a joint with fingers that would probably never quite lose their old skill. Jim had never been a dogtag doper--he'd fired up his share when he could be sure of getting away with it, but the Army he'd served in had changed a good bit since 'Nam and there had never been a real war on during his term; he'd missed Desert Storm by just a few short years. He hadn't minded missing it, either, not at all. He did sometimes wonder how his own experiences differed from participating in a full-scale war, how it would have been if he'd had a ten-year head start that  landed him in Vietnam rather than Peru. He and Skinner had been born roughly a decade apart; less than a full generation's passage could be accounted between them. Those years had shaped no measurable quality of difference that Jim could see, at least when it came to values, but they had to count for something.

Skinner was passing him the joint. Jim took it in hand, sniffing it with learned caution. "This isn't laced with anything, is it?"

"Probably not."

Jim leaned back, chanced it by taking a full drag. "Oh-h-h-h," he murmured after a minute, holding and then releasing a noseful of smoke. "Jesus." He felt dizzy after just one toke, and handed the stick back. "I think that's all I need." A minute later he accepted the stick again with wordless readiness, took another hit, and was grinning rather goofily by the time he handed it over to Skinner.

"Can't believe how light in the loafers you are, Ellison," Skinner said, snorting and then toking.

"Chemical. . .sensitivity," Jim managed to say, enuciating the syllables with mellow fascination, in a voice akin to a drawl. "I'm a cheap high."

"Don't you mean a cheap date?"

"Something like that."

They killed the joint and then sat together in companionable silence, each man slightly more dizzied by the marijuana than he cared to admit. They started several conversations that tapered and trailed easily off; Skinner got up to grab them two more beers; each man disappeared in his turn to take a piss; and then they grew quiescent, as if soldered into their respective places on the couch, hypnotized by the fire. An uncertain period of time had passed before they both suddenly and wordlessly got up and in a coincident of timing and movement found themselves nose to nose, standing surprised together.

"Beer," Skinner said, playing the single word out until it came to rest along the tip of his tongue, speaking as if unsure he'd meant exactly this.

"Yeah."

They were looking into each other's eyes as the flames crackled. Rain poured down outside the cabin, pummeling the roof, an assault of restless, or maybe reckless, weather.

"Fuck," Jim said roughly, the low, grim word blurted out as something between exasperation and dare. Before he could articulate anything else, they were locked crudely, mouth to mouth, tongues thrusting and forcing each other open, driving in bursts of impatience. Scalding was escalation was hunger. They grappled and then bumped, and somehow the jarring slide of bones and flesh made their anger brim and burst. Their mouths tore apart with no pretense of gentleness and they looked at each other warily, hard glares crystalizing like tricks of light and then dissolving in slanted blinks, jaws sliding as they tasted the results of the kiss. They'd done this before, why not do it again?

Why not.

Jim reached around and dug his hand into the small of Skinner's back where the cleft of spine defined itself, stem to a heavy leaf of muscle. Skinner was tapered, rooted in himself; his upper body planted into rock-solid hips, his legs arrowing down to the center of the earth. Jim's thumb flicked down the corded center of the other man, coming to rest above his jeans, angling into a small gap at the waist. He let the curve of his thumb rub, watched Skinner's face tighten and relax in a subtle rhythm: uncertainty followed by certainty.

It was tempting to let the encounter devolve to a more primitive level. Jim could read the quickening strokes of fire in Skinner's face, like arcs of current under the surface. Somewhere interior, both of them were wired for violence, and more--the fusion of rage and lust. Too easily, they could have surrendered to the imperative of combat, gone down together in a tumble of limbs and table legs, knocking the furniture aside as they wrestled, braiding and rolling their bodies toward the fire. Ancient forces churned in them, made anachronisms of their clothes, stripped millenia from their bodies, because nothing about the human male is particularly civilized, and they were both marked men, laden with obligations, conscious, burdened, driven.

"I'm going to nail your ass," Skinner hissed, his voice almost inaudible below the clatter of the rain.

"You can try." Jim eyed him, shifted to let their hips grind together. It felt good and--smiling dangerously--he watched Skinner struggle not to relax.

They swayed a bit and then, almost reluctantly, let their faces draw close again, lips part, tongues sweep blurringly across one another's lips. Borders were crossed, territories opened. At first a cool exchange, a mutual contemplation of tactics and possibility, the touch quickly became heated, personal, and then raw. They groaned, laughed even, when their wetted tongues unexpectedly slid back into synch. It was breathless, so good. They'd wanted to fight, and still stabbed at one another, but they drew no blood.

Pressed up against Skinner, Jim couldn't ignore the recognition of how long it must have been; he knew his own body had to be equally revealing. Maybe; they both got laid now and then, with women. But other men, that was different. If either of them trolled, it was rarely, when pushed to dark impossible hunger, when it became a kind of feedling. If--when-they succumbed to this vice it was not to be spoken of. This was something equally rare and unspeakable, but allowed.

Their hands skimmed, two pairs of tensely gloved muscle that at first hesitated to touch and then gathered force until they were stroking, grabbing, gripping handfuls of shirt cloth and the flesh beneath. After a minute in which the conflict of their impulses became exasperating, they moved apart in tacit agreement, stripping themselves of flannels and t-shirts until their chests were bared gleamingly in the firelight. Skinner tossed his shirts across the back of couch; Jim unhesitatingly did the same, almost to the second. Their mirrored movements prompted a wry match of glances, faint man-to-man appraisal, as if each questioned: just who is this guy. Where was the likeness, where the difference.

"We could do this in the bedroom," Skinner noted neutrally.

Jim cocked his head, considered the couch. They stood a moment thinking about it; briefly, but still giving the issue its measure. Theirs were minds trained to process certain questions in terms of efficiency and evidence. Sheets could be washed, couches were more problematical, and so they left the front room and went to the bedroom, not giving the steady, tousling fire even one backward look. This had nothing to do with romance, ambiance; they wanted to rut, and would do so in the most convenient place.

In the bedroom, they stripped off their shoes and jeans, sitting on opposite sides of the bed, then getting up. Jim turned the covers back; Skinner flicked on a bedside lamp, then sat and swung himself onto the bed, semi-reclined on the pillows, stretched out along the length of the mattress.

Jim paused in the act of joining him. "You gonna wear your socks?" he asked conversationally, but with a small irked cast to his face.

"I don't like cold feet."

"Pussy," Jim said, raising his brows but evincing no other expression in the lean, fine cradle of his face.

With a steely look, Skinner leaned forward and yanked off his socks. "Fine."

"Thank you," Jim said politely, moving onto the bed.

"Candy-ass Ranger boy." Skinner settled back with a challenging leer.

"Asking for it, aren't you, Walter."

The sound of his first name held no threat to Skinner, but it delivered a frisson of new need. "Riled up," he said, his voice beginning to husk.

Jim slid closer. "Hmmm?"

"A good look on you." Skinner studied the other man's face from under his half- drowsed eyes. Jim wasn't paying much attention; his own eyelids had lowered to a cheek-cutting angle and he was half-crouched across Skinner's body. He looked like the prototypical Eagle Scout turned soldier, wholesome and dangerous, milk-fed, moderately disillusioned. Here was a man who worked hard at everything; the wickedly cut length of his body attested to self-discipline. In his face was a prominence of restraint, but he seemed famished for something, partly withdrawn, abstracted to concentration. He was leaning over Skinner's chest, not touching; head lightly tilted, he might have been trying to listen for a heart beat. He was blinking slowly.

Skinner shifted, frowned. "You're stoned off your gourd," he said.

"No. . .no."  Jim turned his head, smiled. His blue eyes cleared. "Just thinking."

"Probably not wise."

"Probably not," Jim agreed, sliding across Skinner's recumbent architecture.

Skinner let out a breath he hadn't known to be holding, and steadied himself by placing both hands on Jim's hips.

"Walter."

*Walter.* Walter Skinner loosened his grip and let half his name drop away. If he could be just *Walter* here, that would be a relief. *Walter* was somebody who didn't get out much, a man with an existence beyond the brickwork of the Hoover building. Walter's past contained more than Skinner's resume, more than the sum of his classes, cases, conferences. A forgotten life beyond the paper vita. Origins, desires, troubles both smaller and deeper than government conspiracy or bureaucratic exigency.

They dry-pecked one another, working around one another's jaws and taking care, taking pains to give one another pleasure, both knowing it could easily turn rough, neither willing to let it go so far, yet. And then, before Walter had a chance to let anticipation build, he felt Jim go down on him, all business, zeroing for the prize. He hissed, yelped, undeniably *felt* Jim's smirk grin as he nipped the rising flag between Walter's legs.

"Oh yeah, look at you, old man," Jim said, sounding pleased. His fingers flicked out cadences across Walter's throbbing dick, as if seeking to establish a polyphonic tune.

"Do something, why don't you," Walter groaned.

"Yes, sir," Jim said cheerfully, but under his words' surface rode a low, smooth current of meanness, the tone a man instinctively takes as he contemplates with satisfaction the object of his torture.

Walter gasped out curses as he was licked evenly, and when the licks became definite bites he dug his thumb into Jim's jaw and drove up. The lockdown on his hips broke, his pelvis rolled free, his entire spine loosened bolt by bolt. He could feel his slick body finding itself again, breaking apart into nipples and sweat and scars and then resolving all of a piece into something whole, a slung articulation of living flesh whose rushing blood-song he barely recognized, an embodiment. Carnal, risen from the dead.

He slid in and out of Jim's mouth, memories flashing through him, fine sharp threads drawing taut under his skin, and then he was simply spilling, flushed from scalp to heels, which were digging into the mattress as he growled and gave his pleasure.

A little while later, when he'd recovered his breath, he gruffly, without words, returned the favor.

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