24/02/01
X-Force

Te says I have a water fetish.  She's right.

Disclaimer: All things X-Force are of Marvel. I own them not a bit. I have a story, but the existence of the Comics Code Authority suggests to me that my story and the comic shall never meet, so (alas) the story remains mine.

Sex disclaimer: Never ever have I ever done it with a friend as part of elaborate trade negotiations for a rare book I desired.
 
 

Liquid
by Jane St Clair

Nothing prepared him for the desert. He was used to the lushness of New York and northern California, the swamps the Cadre Alliance had haunted, the climate-controlled slave pens of Mojo. He wouldn't have believed that this large a dry space was possible.

He's been living for the rare moments of water, the way he did when he was a slave. How he came out of the ring covered in things that even now he doesn't want to think about, and for two glorious minutes he could stand under the hot shower and strip himself down to the rawest level of his skin. So hot he shivered convulsively afterward, assaulted with the ordinary air. He remembers Julio dragging him into the tiny cubicle bathroom of a service station just after they crossed the Mexican border, pulling both their shirts off, and teaching him how to wash down in the tiny sink.

That alien-small hand in the small of his back, just above the waist of his jeans, encouraging him to bend forward. Rising gradually up his spine to rest at the base of his neck, bowing him deeper. Until his skull rested against the porcelain. Then that rush of water on the back of his neck, pouring into his face and down his chest. So fast. Difficult in that instant to even breathe. He must have looked so shocked when he straightened. Huge eyes and wet red hair and the vague indignation he knows haunts him whenever he can't immediately grasp why something's happened.

Julio pushed him back against the wall, let him soak up the chill in the concrete. Brought more water to him in cupped palms and poured it over his chest and shoulders. Gradually bringing his body temperature down. Cold hands kept running up and down his chest, making him want to arch out into that touch. Had to grind his flesh against the concrete to keep from doing just that.

Outside it was 104 degrees.

He'd been panting since they came down from Tularosa, but he hadn't had any idea that he was in danger. Only when his knees finally gave and he folded himself into a wet, cooling puddle on the bathroom floor and Julio knelt down beside him and kept stroking his face did he understand how close he'd been to deliriousness.

"Amigo, you aren't allowed to do that to me anymore, OK?"

"Alright." More faintly than he would have expected. When had he grown so dizzy?

He'd watched while Julio washed himself down out of the sink. Dark, slender body twisting at the shock of the wet cold. Hair darkening as it slicked down. Til he turned back with the waistband of his jeans soaking from the sudden hydration and a too-bright smile and a hand out to help Shatterstar up so they could keep going.

And that was . . . weeks ago. A month, maybe. He doesn't count time very well without something to carve it into, but he remembers seeing this phase of the moon before. Their current transportation -- the decades-old truck Julio traded for outside Jimenez - will probably make the next town, but he expects they'll have to find some alternate once there, or a more competent mechanic than Shatterstar is himself. He learned auto mechanics the same way he learned everything else, abstractly, before his "birth," but the knowledge he gained was devoted to vehicles more sophisticated and less neglected, and he suspects that there are things wrong with this poor truck that he can't begin to imagine. But the engine's quieter, at least, now that the sun is no longer assaulting it, and he can watch the moon rise in relative peace while Julio drives.

He's aware that Julio was wounded in their last encounter with the Richter family, but he isn't going to challenge the man on it. Or not yet. Later, perhaps, when they've settled somewhere for the night, he'll ask to examine the damage. See if he can smooth the worst damage away.

Sometime later, there is this adobe shell that passes for travellers' quarters. The room bare except for a mattress, a chair, a washstand in the corner. The greatest luxury its small attached bathroom, and the wealth of water contained therein.

He stares for a moment at the faded travel poster of Cuba glued to the wall above the bed. Tries to imagine a place as lush as that pictured beach.

"Star?"

Julio in the bathroom doorway, already shirtless. The floor under his feet ancient linoleum in the shape of a thousand flowers.

Sliding through the dark towards him. Bare bulb slung from the bathroom ceiling. They've done this before, and it was only the first time that he really believed that it was to conserve water.

In any case. His clothes are put carefully out of the realm of splashed water. The bandana that's been keeping sunstroke from felling him loops up the ends of his long hair to keep them out of the way. And he has this long minute of nakedness during which Julio doesn't quite look at him. Just stays with his back turned, laying his own clothes out of reach. White of his back against his neck's sunburn. And then he steps into the half-filled tub and settles back, sighs in quiet release and opens his body.

It makes this cradle of flesh and water that Shatterstar lays himself into. Julio lifts the looped-up curve of Shatterstar's hair and lays it over his shoulder, accepts the head that follows it. Tucks his knees up around narrow hips and lays back, letting them both soak and drift on the edge of the night.

The first time they shared a bath, Julio told him a story of his childhood. Of how he and his brothers and sisters would share baths when they were small. Wrestling wet flesh towards the sharp danger of the tap. Tangling feet and tanned, dirty legs under the surface. One adult washing them, briskly, then letting them play in the water after they were clean.

He and Julio weren't nearly as playful as that, but he suspects that Julio needed some context for them to lay together like that. Shatterstar was wrapped in the shivering nausea of sunstroke, and was only grateful for the support and the comfort of the water. Julio's hands brushing over his chest, and down to his navel. Very gently.

That night, they shared a stripped bed, and he learned to study the body of another human being in sleep. To watch as sleep cycles shifted. Whispered in Spanish and Cadre whenever REM led Julio into nightmare territory. And eventually he managed to sleep himself, and with only one hand outstretched towards the sound of that second breath. Woke with the moon down and realized he must have shouted. His heart racing. Battle lust somewhere near the surface, close enough that he had to swallow it hard before he could acknowledge Julio's hand on his shoulder, pulling him back down.

The next time there was a bath with their room, Julio stood in the corner of the room watching him until he understood that he was welcome, and followed the other man in.

He remembers sitting in a dirty, plastic chair in a small regional hospital while Julio's side was stitched closed by an exhausted-looking doctor. Starting to understand what news reports had meant by "Third World." Not able, really, to focus on the small television in the corner and its comforting soap-opera world. Watching the green paint on the walls slowly darken as the day left. Waiting. And then being touched by someone's hand and led into the curtained cubicle where Julio sprawled against green sheets. Wrapping both arms around his friend for a moment to be sure he was truly intact.

Now, with the water around them both, he drops a hand under the surface and brushes it against Julio's thigh. Hears the sharp hiss and pauses, waiting for either a rebuff or an explanation. There's a wound somewhere on that leg, but he doesn't know what kind or how bad. Only a bruise, if they're lucky. Two days healing to bring Julio back to full strength, and they could stay here to do it. Bathe again. Rest.

Julio catches his hand and lifts it back to the side of the tub, holds it there. Wraps his other arm around Shatterstar's belly.

"I'm OK. You don't have to."

"Is the skin broken?"

"No. It's kinda purple, but it'll fade."

"I could massage it for you later, to loosen the collected blood." He wishes for Theresa's collection of traditional remedies, particularly the witch hazel which eased bruises for no logical reason.

"Gracias." The hand restraining him lets go and crosses both their bodies to stroke Shatterstar's face. Just once. Trails across his chest on the way back to its resting place.

He's becoming used to these kinds of touches. If he breathes deeply, if he concentrates, his body won't respond to them more radically than it should. He understands enough of this world to know that they're far beyond the borders of accepted friendship behaviour, but where they've transgressed to is dangerous. And while he's sure there's a name for it, it clearly isn't one that Julio's prepared to utter as yet.

Shatterstar can almost understand. In the nights he's watched while Julio slept, he's had time to trace out the marks of the Right's torture on that body. Inflicted on someone who was by all but the rarest social standards still a child. This new thing might be more difference than Julio can bear.

Still. He wants.

He's very close to a name for it.

Later, he massages silently until Julio drifts and sleeps. The bruise is a hideous thing marking his leg like a deadly threat. It could have easily broken him.

Bare skin against his hands. His touches draw only the faintest response, and that welcoming. So. Carefully.

The first kiss he lays on that dark skin falls just below the breastbone, the vulnerable conjunction of ribs, cartilage, and vital organs. The hard-muscled hollow where ribs and abdomen meet. The shell of a hip.

His breath on the back of Julio's knee makes the man shift, but the next time his lips brush flesh, he gets the slightest appreciative moan. Careful, then, along the line of a big vein, back towards his body and his heart. The place on his lower belly where the hair thickens. The base of his throat. The line of his jaw where it merges with the rest of his skull, below his left ear. The line of his right collar bone.

Fingers tangle in Shatterstar's hair while he's bent over that place. Unexpectedly enough that he starts and waits for whatever comes next, and finds only deep breathing. A sleeping reflex, then. The hands slide loosely to his shoulders as he lifts himself away, and after that down to rest on the mattress and Julio's body. Quiet while he steps away. After long minutes the body curls into a semi-fetal ball, holding warmth in against the expanding chill of the night.

Shatterstar covers the room. Checks for vulnerable places and breaches in the structure of the walls. Secures the door as best he can, pins a cloth over the empty window and slings metal shards from it on a wire, loud enough to ring if someone touches it. The absence of security in this place makes it nearly impossible for him to rest.

Only after that to bed, settling himself soundlessly beside the sleeping man. He isn't surprised when Julio's sleeping body crawls towards him and tangles around his warmer body. It's cooler now than it's been, and soon they're going to need better clothes and real blankets to keep them in the night. He's learned that even this far south you can freeze.

One of these days, they're going to find the coast, and he's going to insist on swimming in the ocean. Wonders if Julio would join him, if they were to find a place adequately secluded.

Maybe once, maybe twice tonight, the teasing will overwhelm his control over his body, and he'll harden. Long minutes before that eases, sometimes wishing he could ease himself without waking his friend. Who lays against him, sharing their heat and sleeping easier for it. Rubbing softly in the night at the muscles just over his heart.

jane
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