Chicago Sleeps

AUTHOR: WPAdmirer@aol.com
ARCHIVE: Gossamer: Yes. Others: Please write before archiving.
CATEGORY: Slash Crossover (XF-ER) Skinner/John Carter
SPOILERS: ER -Very slight Day for Knight and Split Second (so far), X-Files - One Breath and Avatar (slightly, kind of)
RATING: NC-17, Consenting Homosexual Sex
SUMMARY: John Carter has met Walter Skinner at a hotel in Chicago. Walter invites him to stay with him for the weekend.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I got tired of waiting for some good John Carter slash, and there's never enough Skinner fic to suit me. This is a follow-up to CHICAGO REDEEMED and CHICAGO DISCOVERED, which is archived at the Walter Skinner Fanfic site, Archive X, and the Adult ER fanfic site. However, it's not necessary to have read those stories to follow this one.

DISCLAIMER: It's not the author's intention to infringe upon or profit from the characters created and owned by Chris Carter, 1013 Productions or the Fox Network, nor Warner Brothers and NBC. Skinner and Carter were borrowed temporarily and returned almost immediately.

SPECIAL THANKS: To KiMeriKal and ewade for beta reading and friendship.

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CHICAGO SLEEPS

by WPAdmirer

It was still dark outside, but the bathroom light fell through the half-open door and across the bed. John Carter sprawled across the covers, the top sheet twisted around his legs, his head nestled in the valley between both pillows. His nose could be seen, but the rest of his face lay behind the white edges of the pillow case. He snored.

Walter tilted his head as he listened. The kid snored like a fucking buzz saw. It rattled the windows. He could probably be heard in the next room. Walter rested his chin on his hand. It really was an amazing amount of noise.

He shifted, muttered something. Walter leaned forward.

"Don't do that...." he said clearly then drifted into mumbles. He didn't sound distressed. It wasn't a nightmare. He settled back down and began the glass shattering snoring again.

Walter checked his watch. 4 a.m. They'd gone to sleep around eleven. He'd had slightly less than five hours sleep, and he was tired. But when he'd gotten up to take a piss, John had stretched out, angling across the bed on his back with arms outstretched. With the beard and the shaggy hair he bore a striking resemblance to a crucifix that had hung over Walter's grandmother's bed. Whether it was the religious imagery or the fact that John Carter just looked so damned appealing lying there asleep, he didn't know, but he couldn't disturb him. Not just yet.

So Walter pulled a chair over so that he could see John sleeping in the dim, cool light that fell across the bed from the bathroom door. The fabric cushion of the chair felt rough against his bare skin as he sat and watched the young doctor dream.

So many things about John Carter surprised Walter. While he looked young and vulnerable, there was a strength beneath. He admitted making mistakes, killing two patients. He believed he should have let his cousin die. He had courage. He accepted his failures, didn't excuse or dismiss them. He still smiled. In spite of his sorrows and his pain, he knew how to genuinely smile. Walter had not been able to resist smiling back.

Walter ran his hands across his face and realized he was smiling again. While John had been tentative at first, once aroused he'd been responsive and aggressive, demanding of Walter's mouth and tongue and hands. Walter's hands flexed remembering the feel of John's penis against his own, of the tightness inside him.

He laughed out loud and John stirred. Walter covered his mouth, held his breath waiting, and John rolled over, burying his face against one of the pillows. It did nothing to muffle the god awful noise he made. It wasn't as loud as the literal scream he'd let out when Walter had pressed one finger deep inside him. God, if he made that kind of noise over a finger, what would he be like....Don't go there. Walter shook his head. This is an aberration, he reminded himself. He's never been with a man before, it is unlikely he'll do it again. You filled a need. Take it for what it was. Don't think past this moment, because there will not be another one like it. He'll be gone tomorrow. You'll be gone tomorrow. You've got a flight back to D.C. in the afternoon.

Besides, Walter reasoned, what the hell would you do with him anyway? Move him to D.C.? Into your apartment? No, keep him in a little place of his own tucked away somewhere? They would find out. They would use him. Or there would be another soul-destroying compromise. Or worse. Another Sharon. Walter rubbed his hands across his scalp. The air in the room was cool. He was getting chilled. John would be warm and pliable. He would shift and meld against Walter's body. He would mumble and mutter and snore loud enough to make Walter's ears ring. He would feel so right, wrapped in his arms.

Suddenly John sat up, blinking against the light. He looked confused. He rubbed his eyes with one hand and scratched with the other, running his slender hand up and down his torso, across his ribs, leaving thin red trails where he touched. "Walter?"

"Right here."

"What are you doing up?"

"Got up to go to the bathroom. Had a little trouble getting back to sleep."

"Oh."

He crawled out of the bed, stood, wavering a bit, then steadied himself and walked into the bathroom. Walter heard the sound of his stream hitting the water in the toilet. Then the flush, water running in the sink. His body blocked almost all the light from the door, throwing the room into shadow. He knelt next to the chair, and Walter felt his hands, hot against the skin of his thighs.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Not much."

"Un-huh." John moved Walter's legs apart and settled back against the chair, his head leaning back against the seat. He rested either arm across Walter's knees. He leaned back so that he could look up at Walter in the dim light. Then he sat up, looking toward the bed. "I don't have any regrets, you know."

Walter reached out and touched his hair, letting his fingers move through the soft strands.

"I'm not expecting anything, either. I mean, I don't know what I could expect."

Walter let his hand lie still on top of John's head.

"We don't know each other."

"No, we don't."

John rested his face against Walter's knee. Once again Walter was struck by the softness of the hair on his face, the way it felt against skin. John turned his head slightly and Walter felt a brief, damp kiss.

"I'll make you a deal," John said. "We'll have what? Thirty-two hours together? Something like that. Let's just take it."

Walter laughed quietly. "It's a deal."

Walter felt more than saw John's head nod. He got up pulling John up with

him. His smooth, pale skin felt cool against Walter's hands. "Come here," he said and pulled him toward the bed. It took a moment to straighten the covers. John had managed to twist them into a maze during the short time Walter had been out of the bed. Walter meticulously pulled them back into place as John crawled back beneath them, curling his body around a pillow.

Walter got into the bed beside him and pulled the pillow from his grasp. Putting it under his head, he drew John against him. John's leg crossed Walter's hip and settled between his legs, his thigh high and tight against Walter's groin. One arm crooked over Walter's chest, the palm lying flat in the depression against his sternum. His face fit in the crook of Walter's neck. He kissed the pulse point on the side of Walter's throat.

Walter let his hands stroke the skin across John's shoulders. Sharon had called this "glomming." She would plaster herself across his body, attaching herself to him at vital points of warmth. He had missed this kind of closeness. He let himself drift back into sleep.

***

Walter smelled coffee. He turned his head and opened his eyes and saw a tray with food, and coffee. How the hell?

"Morning."

Walter turned his head the other way and saw John Carter wearing a hotel robe standing next to the bed.

"Huh." Walter wasn't sure what the sound meant, but it was the closest thing to verbalizing he could muster.

"I ordered breakfast. I hope that's okay."

Walter closed his eyes and smelled eggs, bacon, and coffee. God, the smell of coffee was overpowering, but very, very nice. "Yeah, good." He opened his eyes and looked toward John again. He was smiling.

Walter sat up slowly. "What time is it?"

"A little after nine."

Walter realized his bladder was about to burst. God, he thought, nothing like middle-age. He pulled himself away from the covers and made his way to the bathroom, closing the door tightly behind him. He almost felt drugged. He'd slept like the dead, and now he was having trouble waking up. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in bed past nine. When he came out of the bathroom, John was sitting at the table.

"I hope the coffee's leaded."

"Absolutely. Doctors live on caffeine. We're very big on do as we say, not as we do."

Walter smiled and dropped into the chair on the other side of the table. John handed him a cup.

"I assumed black."

"With sugar."

John nodded and quickly opened a packet of sugar and dumped it into the cup. "More?"

Walter nodded.

John added a second packet. Walter took the cup and sipped. "Life's blood," he said.

"I ordered the eggs scrambled. Figured everybody eats them that way. Bacon. Toast. Whole wheat, butter, marmalade. I don't like jelly."

"Figures," Walter mumbled.

John looked at him and grinned. "Did I miss anything?"

"As long as there's coffee, you're safe." Walter drained the cup and poured another. John reached over, opening two more packets of sugar over the cup.

"Sugar rush and caffeine. You could have been a doctor."

After the second cup of coffee, Walter realized he was hungry. He made short work of the eggs, bacon and toast. John threatened to wrestle him for the last piece, but Walter merely growled and he backed down. Or at least made a pretense of backing down. Walter found himself smiling again.

As they finished eating he became aware of the silence between them. John drank his coffee and stared out the window. The sun had come out and the lake sparkled in the distance. There were a few boats out, even though it must be cold as hell on the water.

"I used to sail," John said. "I crewed on an open sea yacht race once."

"I never liked boats much."

"What do you like?"

Walter thought about it for a minute. "My work. I really love the work."

"Nothing else?"

"Not lately."

"I love what I do, too. There's something really satisfying about figuring out what's wrong and making it right."

Walter understood exactly. As different as their work was, the feelings about it were so much the same. Making what's wrong right. It was as simple as that. And as complicated.

"What do you want to do today?" John asked.

Walter looked at him and saw the morning sun shining against his face. His dark eyes were bright. "Take off the robe."

John's smile disappeared. He flushed a light pink. His eyes grew very dark. Slowly he stood up, loosened the belt of the terry cloth robe. It dropped open and he shrugged his shoulders and it slid down his body to the floor, puddling at his feet.

Walter took in his body slowly. He was almost thin. A sprinkling of hair across the chest, and his ribs could be seen with each breath. His hips were narrow, and between his legs cradled in a nest of dark hair was a circumcised penis, long and slender like his body.

Walter motioned for John to come to him. In three steps John stood in front him. Reaching out, Walter cupped his scrotum, feeling their heat against his palm. John began to get erect at the touch. Walter fondled him roughly and John responded by spreading his legs a little further, arching slightly forward.

Walter moved forward in his chair and let his tongue travel down John's body from his navel to the thick tangle of hair at his groin. He kissed the skin just above the hair and used his hand to stroke the shaft of John's penis.

"I'd like to take you in my mouth."

John's eyes were closed and Walter's hand continued stroking him.

"Ah...maybe you shouldn't...I've been tested, but...." he gasped, then moaned as Walter let his fingers trace the ridge around the head of John's penis.

"I don't suppose you have a condom on you?"

John shook his head. "I was having dinner with my grandmother. I wasn't really prepared for sex. You?"

Walter traced the line of John's hip, leaving a wet trail as his mouth moved along the bone. "The last time I had sex it didn't turn out well. I'd kind of given it up."

"So...."

"We take a risk or we play it safe. Like last night." Walter allowed his tongue to run the length of John's penis, avoiding the head and the drops of pre-cum that had appeared.

"Last night was good."

Walter stroked John's anus and then gently sank one thick finger into him. John moaned, leaning into him, pressing his stomach against Walter's face.

"Oh, God...."

"You are so tight."

Walter could hear John's breathing speeding up. "Let me touch you," he whispered.

"In a minute." Walter pulled John's body close as he continued to move his finger in and out, setting up a gentle motion that John's hips complimented with a counter rhythm. Walter kissed and sucked the skin along his abdomen. He moved his other hand back, his fingers smearing John's pre-cum across the head of his penis, making a hot friction that was quickly driving him toward an orgasm.

"Walter, please...let me touch you."

Slowly Walter took both hands away from John's body. For a moment John seemed dazed, then he grabbed Walter's arms and pulled him up so that they stood face to face. John pressed his mouth against Walter's, forcing the teeth open, pushing his tongue in.

When Walter responded and tried to draw him close, John pulled away. "No, no, you stay still," he said and dived into Walter's mouth again. They touched only there. John's hands holding Walter's face, lips pressed together, tongues vying for control.

Once again he reached for John. His wrists were grabbed and held. He heard John's voice next to his ear. "Put your hands on your head. Now." The hold on his wrists was released and he moved one hand toward John and it was snatched up, held out from his side by a strong grip. John Carter was just endlessly surprising. "Indulge me," John whispered.

Walter smiled and placed both hands flat on top of his head.

"Thank you."

A brush of beard against the side of his face, and then down his neck. A warm wet mouth on one nipple, then the other. The hot, smooth palms of hands resting on his hips. Walter realized he wasn't breathing. He gasped, then exhaled slowly as he felt John's mouth move down his body, tasting, nipping, leaving small wet kisses against his skin.

Walter looked down and John was on his knees. He touched a scar, kissed it, then went to the next and repeated the actions. Across his abdomen, his groin and his thighs, the scars were traced and anointed by his mouth. The feel, the sight was mesmerizing. All other sounds disappeared, all other sensations. The only thing Walter knew was John's touch.

John sat back on his heels and looked up. "We've gotta get some condoms." He smiled.

Walter heard himself laugh. He reached down and pulled the young doctor to his feet and captured his mouth in a sweet kiss. "Later." Walter practically carried him to the bed.

***

The day was clear and cold. Walter pulled his coat tighter around him. John was walking with his coat flapping open, his scarf lying across his shoulders instead of wrapped around his throat. He wore no gloves. Walter would have brought a blanket from the hotel with him if he'd thought it wouldn't attract too much attention. The wind off the lake was freezing, but the sun shining on the water was beautiful. Sailboats bobbed up and down in the marina like children's toys in a bathtub. Their tall masts looked like white twigs against the sky and water.

"God, it's a beautiful day."

"Only someone from Chicago could say that."

John looked over his shoulder and grinned. "You need a hat."

"Yes, I do."

John fished through his pockets and pulled out a dark burgundy toque. He handed it to Walter.

"You lose a lot of body heat through your scalp."

Walter looked at the knit cap balefully, but he pulled it over his head. Immediately he felt warmer. His shoulders relaxed their hunch a little.

John smiled and started walking again. Walter followed him. "Is there a point to this?"

"You said Chicago sucked. I'm showing you it doesn't."

"And freezing me to death."

"You're not freezing. Your core temperature is probably 96 or 97 degrees right now. Not even close to freezing."

"Right."

John didn't turn around. He just kept walking. "Have you ever been to Wrigley Field? My dad used to take me to ball games there. We could drive over there and walk around. The neighborhood's kind of funky."

Funky? Walter rolled his eyes. He'd had enough of this tour. The only sight seeing he wanted to do was in bed, and the landscape would be John Carter's lean body. "We could go back to my hotel room, watch football and drink beer."

"You're just trying to get me drunk," John said as he kept walking.

"John Carter, stop."

John stopped and turned around. His cheeks were flushed with the cold. His breath made a white fog that blew away from his face in long trails in the wind. His nose was running a little from breathing the frigid air. Walter had the impulse to open his coat and pull the young man inside it against his body and never let him go.

"Let's go back to my room."

John nodded.

Earlier they'd found a drugstore. As Walter was picking out condoms, John had leaned close and whispered, "Get a dozen. I'm a doctor. I can always write a prescription for some Viagra if need be." Walter had elbowed him away and John had wandered off, laughing. On the way to the register, Walter picked up a lubricant. To his relief, John was reading magazines and on the other side of the store when he made his purchases. He didn't want to make him nervous, but it was better to be prepared for all eventualities.

Now, walking beside him to the car, all he could think about was the feel of John's mouth, the heat and tightness inside him. Walter opened his coat and let the cold air chill his body. "Christ," he muttered curses and shivered. It wasn't quite a cold shower, but it worked pretty well.

John said very little, but Walter was acutely aware of the nearness of him as they walked. He let John drive back to the hotel. He knew the streets better and it allowed him the luxury of looking at the city as they passed it by. Walter realized suddenly he liked the way it looked. Brick and stone against a wide blue sky. The sun seemed brighter today. It was, however, still the coldest fucking city on the planet.

As they rode up the elevator to Walter's floor in the hotel, he realized that they had not touched once while they were out. Not that the impulse wasn't there, but he'd kept it in check. It wouldn't do for Walter Skinner, Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to be seen with his arms wrapped around a handsome young doctor from Chicago. Walter watched John's profile against the metal walls of the elevator. It made him sad they hadn't touched. Two hours of closeness lost.

They entered the room and as soon as the door closed behind them, Walter reached for John, turning him around and pushing him against the wall. John finally broke the kiss, tearing his mouth away from Walter's and gasping, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe."

Walter smiled and attacked the nearest ear, tracing the folds with his tongue, teasing the opening, and finally biting the lobe. Through it all, John gripped his wrists as though holding on to keep from falling. "I want you." It came out like a growl, but John didn't flinch. Instead he nodded, released Walter's wrists and dropped his coat to the floor and began to unbutton his shirt. Walter gave him just enough room to continue disrobing, and in minutes, John was naked beneath him, his back pressed against the wall and his clothing lying in a pile at his feet.

Walter was determined that this time would be at his pace. He would make it last as long as he could bear it and then a little longer. He would have his fill of the young man. Enough to last, he hoped, for the lifetime that would come after he left Chicago.

 The End