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The kid was a mess in more ways than one: dried blood crusted under his nose and around his too-thin wrists, light brown Federal uniform streaked with black and hanging in tatters, shell-shocked expression on his begrimed, bearded face. He blinked in the brightness of the Metrian sun shining through the open hatch of his cell.
“Ackles?” Jeff’s voice sounded raw and haggard in his own ears. Telling, should anyone care to take notice. They didn’t. All was chaos here. Sporadic gunfire, men shouting, Karks dying, dust swirling hot and thick around and through all of it.
Ackles – Jensen, Private First Class - sat slumped against the wall of the stinking blank metal cage he’d been imprisoned in for nigh onto seven months, ever since his patrol convoy had been shot down during a reconnaissance mission. He stared at Jeff, something working behind his eyes for a too-long moment before giving a sickly smile – little more than a grim twist of his lips. “Knew you’d find me, Sarge. Eventually.” The last word came out sounding slurred and drawn out -- “evenshually.”
He went to the kid’s side, then, and bent to curl his hand around his upper arm, pulling him to his feet. Jensen looked at him, green eyes bright against the colorlessness of the metal walls.
“You’re real?” He seemed suddenly uncertain. Something in Jeff’s belly clenched.
He steadied Jensen as he stood there, weak and swaying. This close, Jeff could see just how emaciated he was – all sharp bones and jutting angles. “As real as they get. Com’on, you’ve got a date with the medics.”
He’d no more handed the kid off to said medics when Gomez’s crackly voice from his comm demanded, “Sarge, you copy? We got a situation with some live ordinance and three pissed off locals we could use some help with.”
He palmed the device and said, “Yeah, I’m coming.”
Jensen’s eyes were locked on his as he stumbled off, one green-clad medic holding each arm. The dazed intensity in that gaze seemed to speak in a low murmur, “Don’t let me go, Sarge. I was stuck in that hellhole for months waiting for you to find me. Don’t you let me go.”
But Jeff did. What else could he do? He had responsibilities. He strode off toward Gomez.
Three days later and the planet Metria was cleared of all enemy presence – the hated cells that had housed several dozen Federal troops, all of them captured at the same time as Jensen – were nuked and the triniblium mines that had attracted the Karks to the planet to begin with were pumped full of biohazard B, the deadliest of the nerve agents to the wiry ass little motherfucking Karks. Least as far as anybody could tell. The Federal’s enemies -- bipeds with rock-like skin and forked tongues – weren’t exactly easy to capture and study. They had a bad habit of blowing themselves up before the sciencers could pick them apart.
Their men rescued and the clean up accomplished, Delta Unit withdrew to their battle cruiser, the King Xerxes, and plotted a course for the next battle site in the endless war against the Karks.
Honestly, Jeff had figured that Jensen and the other recruits had been vaporized all those months ago, so seeing him alive had been better than that sip of two hundred year old whiskey his daddy had given him when he had enlisted in the ‘Corps. Course prisoners of war weren’t exactly treated with kid gloves, but at least he was alive. Now he could recover in peace, back in space with the oppressive blackness out every porthole, the return to the comforting familiarity of yes sir, no sir, I understand, sir.
Jeff understood the routine. Expected it after his twenty-odd years in the Corps. It had its rewards, the small comforts of his dog and the kitchen during his downtime. Even if that downtime did only come at 2300 hours on a Saturday night, when everyone else was either sleeping or celebrating their successful mission with loud music and too much alcohol down on the social deck. That was all right. Meant he had the mess to himself.
He had just tossed the shrimp in the pungent, sizzling mixture of oil and garlic when someone knocked on the door from the dining hall.
“Enter,” he called, not looking up as he stirred his creation.
“Didn’t know you were a chef, Sarge,” came an amused voice from the doorway.
Jeff looked up, surprised to see Ackles leaning against the countertop just inside the doorway, smiling and looking wholly transformed: shaved and hair trimmed, scrubbed clean, bandage peeking out white and thick from inside the shoulder of his solid green standard issue tee.
“You’re looking a damn sight better,” Jeff said.
Jensen shrugged. “Little soap and water can do wonders.”
His eyes flicked to Jeff’s culinary masterpiece, a starved look in them. Jeff didn’t miss it.
“Hungry, soldier?” he asked with a smile.
“Yes, sir,” Jensen exclaimed. “Haven’t smelled anything that delicious in more than six months.”
“Well, lucky for you I couldn’t sleep and had the craving for a little late-night shrimp scampi.” With reconstituted shrimp and inferior grade olive oil, and he didn’t even want to think about the garinji-grain pasta that was the closest thing the pantry had to linguine.
There was the pleasant bustle of activity for a while, then – Jensen finding silverware and plates, Jeff arranging the scampi and green stalks with oocha nuts and balancing the flask of white wine he’d been saving for a special occasion like tonight as they found a seat across from one another in the hall.
Before they set to devouring their dinner, Jensen raised his tumbler, clinking it against Jeff’s. “To all those who have gone before.”
“And those who have returned,” Jeff responded meaningfully.
They sipped the wine. Jensen’s right hand trembled intermittently. He squeezed it into a fist, and when that didn’t entirely stop the tremor, hid it under the table with a smooth motion.
Except for little moans of pleasure, and the clink of utensils, they ate in silence. Jeff tried to isolate and analyze the flavors like he always did, wondered if it would have been better with a little citrus replacement flavoring or sodium enhancer or maybe even a dash of Arlian spiced peppers. Jensen sighed when he cleaned the last morsel of food from his plate, rubbing a finger across his lips, which glistened with oil from the shrimp.
“That was … indescribably awesome,” he proclaimed, giving Jeff a sweet, unguarded smile.
Jeff chuckled. “Yeah?”
“You don’t even know how true that is, sir.”
They fell silent then, the hum of the air recycler suddenly loud in the stillness. Jensen looked wound tight, perched on the thrumming edge of some sort of precipice.
Jeff peered at him, saw a frailty there that he hadn’t been aware of before, a shadowed tension in the dark smudges under his eyes. He cleared his throat, tapped his fingers on the tabletop, and then decided to take the plunge. “At the risk of asking an incredibly stupid question, how are you adjusting to being back?”
Jensen met his eyes briefly with a sort of guilty misery, and shrugged. “I, uh … not real well, to be honest. I mean, obviously a lot better than I was three days ago when you found me, but everything here is so loud and busy and I haven’t seen another human being in more than six months, you know? Much less colors and smells and I’m not making any sense, am I?” He swallowed awkwardly.
“No, hey, don’t worry about it. It’s going to take some time, that’s all.”
“I can’t … I tried to sleep in the barracks but everything makes me jumpy. Plus, Rogers still snores like a bullhorn.”
Jeff’s time in the Corps had taught him how to shout and order and harass his men to do pretty much anything, including throw themselves in front of an alien race with a penchant for using their clawed pincers for severing the muscles of a man’s lower belly so that his intestines spilled out in a writhing mass. So, yeah, he could be a scary-ass motherfucker when he needed to. He didn’t need to now.
“Well, I’ve got room for a bedroll in my quarters if you want somewhere to stretch out that’s relatively private. I have it on good authority that I don’t snore, also.”
Jensen gave a barely perceptible sigh, the set of his shoulders relaxing a little. “Yeah, Sarge. That’d be great. I appreciate it.”
The walk to Jeff’s quarters was silent, and they met no one else in the hallway. Inside, Bijou looked up from her bed near the porthole. Her tail thumped sporadically but she bared her teeth at Jensen.
“Oh, Bijou,” Jeff said, settling down on his haunches next to her and scratching her neck. Her tail wagged faster and she licked his hand, brown eyes adoring.
“Sorry,” he said to Jensen. “Guess she’d make a pretty lousy mascot, huh? She doesn’t let anyone else near her. Kinda skittish like that. That’s okay, though. I’m her only human, and she’s the only girl for me.”
He stole a glance at Jensen, only belatedly realizing how that might have sounded. The kid just arched an eyebrow and said nothing.
All right, then. He was showing a side of himself that he didn’t let others see very much of, he knew. Here in his quarters, his private place, he could be a person instead of a faceless automaton fighting a war of attrition. Here, he could just be Jeff with his love of cooking and Napoleonic sea adventures, with a pat for the stray dog who had shared his life since he found her wandering the streets of some backwater planet years ago.
He glanced at Jensen, offered, “Want some old clothes of mine to sleep in?”
“Sure, that would be great. Just a shirt. I’ll sleep in my briefs.”
Jeff pulled a ratty old tee from a drawer and handed it to Jensen, who set about unbuckling his cammies.
Jeff dug out his bedroll from the shelf and took one of the pillows off the bed. He spread the bedroll out on the carpeted floor, then turned to see the kid struggling with pulling the t-shirt over his bandaged shoulder.
“Lemme help with that,” Jeff said, reaching out to help the kid put his arm through the hole. Jensen gasped when Jeff’s hand touched the bare skin of his neck and a shudder racked his body, violent and undeniable.
Jeff froze, leaving his hand where it was on Jensen’s smooth skin, wondering for a moment if he’d aggravated the wound or something. Then he saw the look of naked hunger on Jensen’s face. Jensen leaned into Jeff’s touch, nudging and insistent, in much the same way that Bijou did when she was craving affection.
Fine tremors shook Jensen’s form. They were so close that Jeff could feel them quaking along the kid’s body like tiny earthquakes.
“Jensen … “ he began, low and a little regretful.
They both knew the rules on fraternization, how the brass could come down hard on both their asses if anyone were to find out that anything untoward had happened between the two of them.
Jensen swallowed, looking desperate.
“Please, I … it’s just that they kept me in that tiny cell for so long – no sounds of a human voice, no sight of another face like mine – just alien features and their cold hard steel, the probes and wires and it feels so good to be back, to be here again, with people who aren’t trying to break me.”
Jeff slipped his arm around Jensen’s back, pulling his shivering body close while Jensen struggled to compose himself, to still the trembling and gasps.
“I know it’s pathetic. It’s just been so long and I want – “ his eyes searched out Jeff’s and held them. He was so close that Jeff felt the warm humid puffs of his breath. “I want your hands on me, Jeff. Please.”
Jeff hesitated only an instant before doing just that, because oh, God, Jensen wanted this, needed it, and Jeff had wanted it, too, from the first time he’d seen Jensen, smooth-faced and clean-jawed, an eager young recruit fresh from boot camp.
They moved toward one another at the same time, lips meeting in a rough wet crush, the slide of tongues, hands scrabbling at one another, moans and gasps and a fire burning low and bright.
It had been a long time for Jeff, too. A long time since anyone had touched him in a way that was not clinical or accidental or in combat.
Jensen was strong and wiry, his hot mouth everywhere. He kissed Jeff’s neck and nipped along his jawline, tugging his shirt out of his cammies and slipping his hand inside Jeff’s briefs to curl around his rapidly hardening cock.
Jeff made an involuntary sort of growl, then, which only encouraged Jensen more, and then the two of them were grappling, stumbling against the wall and bookcase, tripping over the foot locker, hands and lips never detaching long enough for it to be an easy trip to the bed.
At last Jeff took hold of Jensen and shoved him down on the bed. He bounced once, smiled as Jeff tore off his belt and toed off his boots. Jensen helped him tug off his pants, eyeing his dick hungrily as it sprang free. Jeff climbed onto the bed and Jensen bent and ran the flat of his tongue from the root of his dick to the tip, then sucked him deep into his throat in one greedy gulp. Jeff felt his eyes roll back in his head at how good it felt. He looked down and the sight of the kid’s lush mouth stretched wide around his dick, sucking it like it was made of sweet cream, thrilled him so deeply that he knew he’d come in about three seconds flat if this continued.
He hauled Jensen up by his armpits and thrust him back against the bed, shedding him of his clothes until he had him completely naked, then crawled up his body, reveling in the feel of Jensen’s lean hard form against his, the delicious slide of skin on skin.
Jensen threw his head back, arching up into the touch and moaning, muscles tight, veins standing out on his forearms. Jeff pressed his lips to Jensen’s pulse, breathed in the scent of him, and felt the dampness of his sweating skin against Jeff’s cheek. Jensen gave harsh panting breaths, short and pained-sounding enough that Jeff drew back, concerned.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
Jensen’s eyes were wild, body rigid and unyielding. His hands scrabbled at Jeff’s hips, straining and clawing. “I can’t – I want – I need to come but I can’t. Everything … it’s too much.” He sounded panicked.
Jeff thought he understood. The poor kid had come here to Jeff’s quarters looking for relief from the overstimulation of noise and motion and what did he get? Sexual overload. A dangerous combination.
“Hey, hey,” Jeff soothed. “Slow down, okay? Just calm down. We’ve got all night if that’s what it takes. I’m not going anywhere.”
Jeff’s words seemed to penetrate at last. Jensen gulped, and seemed to make a concerted effort to still himself. His breathing slowed and he relaxed in increments.
“Yeah, all right. I hear you.”
“Good,” Jeff said, smiling. “Now bring those lips here. Never could stop thinking about them since the first time I saw you.”
Jensen responded with a slight upward tilt of his lips. “Your wish. My command, and all that.”
They just kissed for a while then, slow and deep. Gradually, the kisses grew more heated and Jeff let his hands wander again, kneading Jensen’s ass, enjoying the slide of Jensen’s hand on his dick. When that hand sped up, Jensen drew back, staring at Jeff, green eyes dark.
“Wanna watch you come,” he said. “Give it to me. Let me see.”
Jeff felt his face twist with pleasure as the roaring need in his groin surged and he came. When his vision cleared he saw that Jensen was still watching him, his face still and tight, serious and affected.
“Now it’s your turn,” Jeff rasped, putting his hand on Jensen’s cock and jacking him.
Jensen writhed, murmured, “Yeah, like that. Cup my balls.”
Jeff complied, using one hand to squeeze them lightly while the other hand continued to pump his cock. A few strokes later and Jensen was coming with a cry, pumping warm and wet all over both of their stomachs.
Afterward, Jensen relaxed into the mattress, all tension and energy spent at last. He laughed weakly. “That was … God, I needed that. I think I came a gallon’s worth.”
Jeff snorted, dragged his hand through the come on his belly. “That’s a bit optimistic. Maybe a quart at most.”
Jensen let his hand fall on Jeff’s arm. He squeezed. “Best welcome home party I could have asked for.”
“Glad I could oblige.” Jeff leaned over the bed, scooped up his discarded t-shirt and spent the next few minutes wiping them both down before he tossed the shirt aside and slithered up next to Jensen, pulling Jensen’s head down to rest on his shoulder. Jensen came willingly, warm and pliant, his eyes drooping.
“Sleep, kid,” Jeff commanded.
“’m not a kid. ‘m twenty-six.”
Jeff smiled, content and, for the moment, as happy as he’d ever been. “Whatever you say. Kid.”
End