TITLE: CHICAGO STORIES II: CHRISTMAS
AUTHOR: WPAdmirer@aol.com  
ARCHIVE: Yes, but please write and tell me where.
CATEGORY: Slash Crossover (XF-ER) Skinner/John Carter, AU (Alternate Universe - cause damnit, I like the beard) 
SPOILERS: None
RATING: NC-17 (Hey, it's Christmas, a little PWP never killed anyone)
SUMMARY: John Carter gets a Christmas surprise
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I got tired of waiting for some good John Carter slash, and there's never enough Skinner fic to suit me. The full set of stories (thus far) can be found at the ER nfic site: http://www.oocities.org/TelevisionCity/Studio/5437/wpadmirer.htm  and my own site: http://chateauke.simplenet.com/chimerical/chicago/index.htm 
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, relatively unharmed. 
SPECIAL NOTE: This is completely unbetaed. A short gift for all the good people who've said nice things about the Chicago Stories. So if I've screwed anything up - you'll just have a greater respect for my betas - ewade and KiMeriKal.
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CHICAGO STORIES II: CHRISTMAS

by WPAdmirer


John Carter stood shivering on the el platform. The damn train was running late. Not that it surprised him. The whole damn evening had been like that. He'd wanted to make new traditions. He'd planned for it to become the first night of a new life of Christmas Eves that didn't include his family. Well, if this was to become the new tradition, he was going to give up Christmas entirely.

He'd organized a secret Santa gift-giving for the ER. Then ended up trading all the gifts for guns with gang-bangers who'd come in all night. He'd thought he was doing something special. Then the kid it had all started with shows up shot, a new gun in hand. It was like emptying the ocean with a thimble. 

John felt really tired. He sat down on the bench at the platform and let his head hang forward. God. Would he always be such an incredibly stupid optimistic dumbshit? Yeah, he had really made a difference. Oh, yeah.

He heard the rumbling of the train and stood up slowly. Sometimes real life was a fucking bitch.

It was only slightly warmer on the train. A bunch of young guys in hockey gear were in his car. They had the windows open, their faces flushed with alcohol (more than likely). They were rowdy enough that John decided that silence was the better part of valor. He'd just be cold a while longer.

Walter was flying in for New Years. They had agreed that it made no sense for him to fly in for both Christmas and New Years. John would be working, Walter would be working during the week between. Two flights at the height of the holiday season just didn't make sense.

At that moment, though, John Carter wished that they'd been a little less reasonable. 

Kerry had decorated. She had lights on the porch, a wreath on the door, a tree in the living room. John Carter had put up a tiny little tree of his own in his room. Well, it was a tree, and he had put lights on it. But even he had to admit that a Bonsai cedar wasn't very Christmasy. Not even with little blue lights. 

The house was silent, but the tree lights and the lights on the porch were on. Kerry must have done that before she left for her party. The house was cool, as always. It would be freezing in his room. John stood in the foyer for a moment, then pulled off his coat and walked straight to the thermostat in the hallway. Damnit. He was not going to freeze his ass off on Christmas Eve. Things sucked enough without having to go to bed with his fucking clothes on. He'd get his room warm enough to lie naked on top of the comforter, and Kerry be damned. 

He heard the furnace kick on with a loud whump. He went and stood over one of the registers in the living room floor. The warm air blew up his pants legs. He pulled his shirt tail out of his pants and held it out from his body, letting the hot air blow up around his chest. God! Heat felt so good.  It was such an elemental thing, being warm. It really made him wonder why the hell he lived in Chicago.

Because this is where you grew up. This is where your family is. This is your home. A little voice in John's head whispered. Fuck you, too. 

The soles of John's shoes were getting hot enough that he could feel it through his socks. He stepped off the register onto the cool floor and headed for the basement. He'd get undressed, get something to eat, then call Walter. He really needed to talk to Walter. Hell, he would take just hearing Walter breathe on the other end of the line. He just wanted a 
connection with him. He needed a connection with him.

The light on the stairs didn't come on when John flipped the switch. Oh great. The fucking bulb must have blown. He carefully made his way down the steps, feeling the wall as he went along so that he, hopefully, wouldn't take a header and end up spending Christmas in the ER with a concussion.

At the door to his room he flipped the switch and no light came on. "Well, shit," John said. The damn circuit breakers must have tripped. That meant fumbling his way to the closet and finding the circuit box in the pitch black. He really needed to buy a flashlight and keep it out in the open. The wiring in the basement was iffy at best. It was either that or learn braille and start marking the walls and the circuit box with that.

Just inside the door John's legs hit something about knee high and heavy. He tried to break his fall, but he had his backpack and coat in his hands and before he could do anything, his head had cracked against the foot of the bed.

"Owwwww! Fuck!" 

"John Carter?"

Oh, great. Now he was hallucinating. 

Warm hands touched his face. "John Carter, are you all right?"

"Walter?"

"Merry Christmas."

What the hell? John sat up and slammed his forehead into something hard above him. 

"FUCK!" two voices exclaimed at once.

John dropped his head back down onto the floor and yelped again as it thumped hard against the carpet. 

"John Carter, don't move."

"I don't think I can."

John felt something brush across his face. There were several soft bumping sounds then a loud WHACK. 

"Goddamnit!" Walter's voice echoed in the dark room. 

He heard the sound of a door opening, then hangers scrapping along the closet rod, and finally the metal chink of the circuit box opening. The thwack, thwack of the circuit breakers being shut off and then on was even louder. 

The overhead light came on and John looked toward the closet where he could just see Walter's coat-covered back, butt and legs. He looked at his feet and saw Walter's suitcase under his legs. So that was what he'd tripped over. 

He felt Walter lifting his head and resting it against his legs. "Where'd you hit?"

John Carter looked at Walter's face and started laughing. There was a large dark bruise starting on his chin. "Well, I can tell where I hit you."

Walter smiled. "Teach me to come to your rescue, huh?" John started to get up but Walter pressed him back into lying down. "What's your rush?"

"I don't know."

Walter leaned over and kissed his forehead. John winced as he felt Walter's lips against a very sore spot. "You've got a good lump going here."

"Hurts like hell. What are you doing here?"

"Should I leave?"

"Try it and you lose a limb."

Walter chuckled. "Left the office tonight and decided fuck logic."

"I'm really glad you did."

"Even though you've got a lump on your forehead the size of an egg?"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Well, shit."

Walter leaned down and kissed his mouth. "Don't worry, I won't let you sleep." 

***********

They had taken their time undressing each other. The room wasn't really warm yet when they started, but soon they were hot enough not to really notice. 

No one could kiss the way Walter Skinner could. John felt like his soul was being sucked out of his body. It was all heat and force. Walter's erection pressed against his own. God, if either of them got any harder they were going to do serious bodily harm to one another.

Walter took control and John let him. Walter began to work John's body with his hands and mouth, wringing from him shivers and moans. When Walter's fingers brushed across John's anus, John felt his entire body surge forward and he heard his voice begging Walter for more. More contact, more heat, more everything.

"Everything, John Carter. You get everything," Walter whispered in his ear.

When penetration finally came, John couldn't wait for the burn to stop. He pushed himself until Walter's penis was completely inside him. Until he could feel the head deep inside him, touching places that only Walter ever touched. "Oh, God, so good," John's voice sounded ragged even to him.

Walter answered him by pulling almost all the way out, and then pushing back inside in one long stroke. 

John could hear his screams mingling with Walter's. Their cries seemed to bounce off the walls and vibrate around them. There was no way they were going to last very long. Everything just felt so fucking good. The hot air from the furnace blasted across the bed as Walter began to pound into John. 

John raised up to meet him, the heated air mixing with Walter's panting breaths against his skin. Then everything inside him burst into flame, shooting out from the center of his body behind his balls out through his skull, his finger tips and his toes. Oh, God!

*************

"John Carter, come on, I promised I wouldn't let you sleep."

John groaned and opened his eyes. 

"Come on. I'm hungry. Let's fix something to eat. Then we can exchange gifts."

"You're lucky, Walter. I'm very docile when I've just been fucked through the mattress."

Walter laughed and pulled him into a sitting position. "So that's what it takes. I'll have to do it more often, then."

"Oh, yeah."

They pulled on sweats in case Kerry should return while they were upstairs. In the kitchen they found beers, good cheese and some kind of sandwich meat cut into neat, thin slices. John fumbled around and got out bread, crackers and mustard. 

"A feast," John pronounced as they sat around the butcher block in the middle of the kitchen.

"A bachelor's feast." 

"Okay, yeah, but we're both bachelors," John replied. "So it's appropriate."

"Want to exchange gifts, now?" 

John shrugged. "Sure. Whenever. It is Christmas."

"By all of twenty minutes."

"Still counts."

Walter headed back down stairs. John called out to him, "Yours is under the tree on the chest of drawers."

Walter came back in carrying John's small package and a box of his own. "You first," John insisted.

Walter tore the paper off, ignoring the ribbon and the card. John smiled as he watched him. That might have seemed very unWalter-like to anyone else. John believed that he was the only one who ever got to see the Walter who had no time for delayed gratification.

Walter held up the medallion and chain. 

"Read it," John said.

"Loved," Walter said softly.

"Figured it doesn't give anything away," John said. 

"Open yours," Walter said pushing the box toward John.

John unwrapped the tiny box and there was a plain gold band in it. "Read it," Walter said, smiling.

"Walter and John, 11-25-98." John looked up.

Walter nodded. "The day you stole my heart."

John took the ring out of the box, but before he could put it on, Walter stopped him. "Let me," he said simply. Then he slipped the band onto John's left hand. He turned it for a minute. Then smiled, "Looks nice."

Walter handed John the medallion. John fastened the clasp, draping the chain across the hard plane of muscle at the top of Walter's chest. "Looks nice,"  John said.

They sat back, each picking up their beers and taking a long drink. 

"But if you ask for a fucking commitment ceremony or something, I'm going to have to kill you," Walter said matter-of-factly.

"Don't worry. Won't happen." 

The clinked their beer bottles together.

"Good," Walter said quietly. They picked up their sandwiches and began to eat. 



The End