Naked under here (J2au, nc-17, 11k, mild dub-con)
Naked under here
(J2au, nc-17, 11k, mild dub-con)
A superhero AU, written as part of spn_reversebang. You can see the finished, beautiful art prompt that eleke provided in the text and in her masterlist here. Huge thanks to giandujakiss for being the absolutely awesomest beta I have been lucky enough to find, and big love also to rosivan for the art-betaing!
Introductions, such as they are, are kept brief for two very good reasons.
First reason is that, although they're on separate teams of superheroes, they're both pretty instantly recognizable to each other.
Jared is the guy who turned Manhattan to metal the year before last, when the Stryfe Virus made him lose control of his powers. He was Blue Steel before that, and Black Steel after, complete with costume change.
And, in an alternate timeline, Jenesis is driven so crazy by his reality-altering powers of creation that he thinks he's a god and very nearly ends the world, which is the kind of incident that gives a superhero an edge of notoriety.
The second reason introductions are brief is that they first meet in the middle of a confrontation with Lunarys the Living Moon, who's trying to drain the planet's organic energy, again.
Following close behind Wildfire and Angelex, Jared steps off the Unit X jet, just as Jenesis is flung through the air by an energy pulse, and lands at Jared's feet. Jared cocks his head at him - laid flat on his back, stunned and breathless - and grins.
"Hey, pretty crazy party you guys are having," says Jared. "Mind if we crash?"
"Guess if you ain't got anything better to do on a Saturday night, you're welcome," Jenesis says. He takes the hand Jared offers him, and lets Jared pull him to his feet. The corners of his lips lift in a grin, and Jared notices the pretty shape of his mouth below his pale blue half-mask.
"You guys throw the best parties. Wouldn't wanna miss it," says Jared.
A bowl of orange-gold light flashes up around them, as Wildfire launches an attack on Lunarys. The ground rumbles with Lunarys' moaning growl, but the end of the noise is lost in the pounding thud of the Dominator's heavy-repeating cannon. Overhead, Angelex and RubyRayne weave through smoke and stars, two tiny figures dwarfed against the bulk of Lunarys.
Jared still has Jenesis' hand in his.
:::
Afterwards, while Unit X and The Strangers are still caught up in the haze of victory, Jenesis saunters over to Jared through the debris. There's a beer in his hand, and Jared's surprised by the incongruity of it for just a second, until he figures Jenesis probably has a wider range of uses for his powers than anyone Jared's ever met before.
He takes the beer when Jensen holds it out to him. He can't deny being curious. Jenesis watches him as he lifts the bottle to his mouth.
It tastes like beer, bubbly and maybe a little too warm, and nothing special at all, except for the part how it didn't exist a few seconds ago - not the ingredients that make it up, or the brown glass bottle it comes in, or even the label on the bottle.
"So, I was watching you in the fight," says Jenesis.
Jared feels a flush of fanboyish giddiness. "Yeah?" he says.
"Yeah," says Jenesis. "I didn't know you could turn your skin to metal like that."
"Nah, not many people do," says Jared. "It's like a secret party trick."
Jenesis nods slowly, before adding, "Didn't realize what I was seeing at first, your whole body was just like pure, hard metal. Pretty damn impressive."
There's a tone in Jenesis' voice. Jared might think he was mistaking it out of some pathetic wishful thinking, except there's the way Jenesis is looking at him as well to reinforce the suggestion. The only time Jenesis' smoky-lashed green eyes leave Jared's face is to sweep over Jared's body with undisguised appreciation.
"So tell me, just how hard do you get?" says Jenesis. It's a pretty corny line, and Jenesis' grin says he knows it but doesn't doubt its effectiveness regardless.
He's not wrong.
Jared takes him around the back of the Unit X jet and offers a demonstration. Jenesis is suitably impressed, so impressed he proceeds to give him the finest blowjob Jared thinks he's ever had.
:::
"I'm just saying, it's complicated enough. Superheroes turning supervillains 'cause of some bullshit reason, mysterious family members showing up from alternate realities, every week a new fucking crisis, resurrections and costume changes and betrayals… It's like living in a freaking soap opera that doesn't have budgetary limits to keep itself sane, you know what I'm saying?"
Jenesis' voice is low and breathy, and his face is turned into the crook of Jared's neck. There's a patch of skin on Jared's throat driven to a maddening ache by the soft, heated brush of Jen's lips against it as he talks.
He screws down hard on Jared's dick, his hips squirming in tiny movements as he works Jared's thickness deeper inside. Grunting, Jared flexes his hands tighter where he's gripping the rounds of Jen's ass, holding Jen split open for him.
He likes the hot, flexing weight of Jen's body in his lap. He likes Jen's fingers digging thoughtlessly into his shoulder as he braces himself, as though Jared's presence is merely incidental to the cock Jen's riding. He likes the feel of being all up inside Jen's tight little ass.
He's not really listening to what Jen's saying.
"Things get complicated, they stop working. I like drama and angst, sure, I appreciate the beauty of blood and tragedy. So long as it's happening to other people. And love and romance go nowhere but drama and angst."
Jared only came to The Strangers' headquarters to pass on information about Professor Bane's nexus experiments. He wasn't supposed to have run into Jenesis, hadn't been part of some private plan he'd made, but there he was, waiting for Jared at the top of the mansion's staircase, just as Jared was letting himself out.
So it's happening again: him and Jenesis, apparently as inevitable as Professor Bane's next bid for world subjugation.
And he's so hard for Jen, so helpless when it comes to Jen riding him like this, bucking and rutting and grinding in his lap, biting his lower lip swollen and shiny until it's all Jared can do not to duck his head to catch Jen's mouth with his and kiss him 'til he can't breathe, let alone give a rambling monologue on the trials and tribulations of life as a superhero.
"We're so good together like this. So fucking good," says Jen. "Can fuck and fuck and fuck, and it never has to get complicated."
The rest of The Strangers have to have some idea what they're doing in here. Jared didn't even think to make sure the door to the study Jen dragged him in was shut before Jen was pushing him down onto the chair and climbing on top of him.
He manages to coordinate his powers and brain to put together a sheet of metal behind them, shifting the air itself to polished steel. He looks back over his shoulder to check he's got the door blocked, and his brain stutters to a halt, because he can see their reflections in the metal, can see their pressed-together bodies strain and twist and move together.
The line of Jen's spine is beautiful, mesmerizing, right down to the lush curve of his ass, clutched in Jared's big hands and split apart by Jared's hard cock, buried in him to the balls. And Jared never realized he could look like this, utterly drunk on fucking, so dangerously intent on someone else's body.
They're obscenely gorgeous together.
Jen tilts his head back, baring his throat to Jared shamelessly, and it distracts Jared back to the real thing. He licks the expanse of skin, right over Jen's pounding hot pulse, while he holds Jen's body still to fuck up into him better. Fingers digging deeper into Jared's shoulder, Jen whines and writhes.
"No drama, no big reveals, no commitment," Jen mumbles. "Right?"
Jared's fucking the prettiest guy whose face he's never seen. He's fucking this guy in the mansion headquarters of a team of really kickass superheroes whose views on homosexuality aren't known to him, in an austerely furnished, wood paneled study where this kind of activity may or may not be permitted.
And he's thinking about how hot it is to fuck a masked guy while his own mask is still in place too, and about how he's going to come really fucking soon, right in Jen's perfectly tight ass, and how absolutely fucking fantastic it feels.
And so it takes him another three hours, when he's back at Unit X's underground base, soaping himself off in the shower and lazily thinking about when he might get another turn with Jen's ass, to actually register what it was Jenesis was saying to him.
No drama, no big reveals, no commitment.
"Huh," says Jared.
:::
In the middle of a conversation with Wildfire, Jared realizes something kind of interesting.
It isn't like Jared intended to keep it a secret from his teammates in Unit X that he is now having regular sex with Jenesis. It was simply that there wasn't an opening in existing conversation in which to mention it, and that Jared wasn't sure how to introduce the topic in the first place.
Thankfully, and embarrassingly, the need for any kind of formal announcement was rendered unnecessary when Jenesis pinned him to the side of the Unit X jet, following a run-in with Changeling and her minions, and thoroughly groped him. In front of everyone. Jenesis' hand on Jared's dick and his tongue in Jared's mouth communicated the nature of their relationship to everyone present very effectively.
Once Jared recovered from the shock and trauma of it, he found he was pretty relieved for the information to simply be out there. Because secrets, says Jenesis, complicate things.
So he doesn't mind at all when Wildfire just starts talking to him about it while they're alone in the polished globe of the training room, doing maintenance on the hulking computer.
Wildfire's a tiny woman with thick waves of dark hair. She has a sweet smile that's a little crooked, and whenever she uses her power to unleash writhing gorgon tendrils of all-devouring fire from her hands, she seems mildly embarrassed, like she knows it's something Nice Girls just don't do. Not that it slows her down any.
Once they're past a basic rundown of how the relationship started, they get onto the little things, like how cool it is to be dating a guy who can think up condoms and lube any time and any place they're necessary.
"So what do you call him?" Wildfire says. "Jenesis is kind of a mouthful to get out when you're… you know."
"Jen," says Jared. He heard Dominator and Bad Hand call Jenesis that a couple of times, and Jenesis didn't protest when Jared tried it, so he figures it's cool.
She wrinkles her nose up, frowning thoughtfully. "And what does he call you? 'Cause Black Steel's even worse than Jenesis."
Jared stops and thinks about it. There's a blank in his head. "He, uh, doesn't really." It sounds pretty big in the humming quiet of the training room.
"Oh," says Wildfire uncertainly. She looks at him a moment longer, her face lit up by the pale violet glow of the screen, and Jared's still giving it some consideration when they go back to the computer.
Next time he's with Jenesis, Jared waits for the absence. He listens intently for his name to not be there.
Jenesis calls Jared 'buddy', 'dude', and 'man' while they're tackling an invasion of Time Raveners, before switching to 'sweetheart', 'handsome' and 'baby' when Jared's got his dick in him. There's even one instance of 'Mr Metal' that occurs in the nomansland between saving the world and fucking.
If he wanted to, Jared supposes he could be really offended.
Jared spends more time around The Strangers than Jenesis does around Unit X, so Jenesis hasn't been in a position to hear what other people call Jared. But he could have asked.
Jen's gone a couple of months fucking a guy and hasn't bothered to figure out a name for him.
And Jared finds that way too funny to be indignant about it.
After sex, Jen thinks up some Chinese takeout for them, because Jared has a wicked appetite, and the plus-side of being involved with Jen - apart from the fact he fucks like a demon and is potentially crazily pretty without his mask on - is that he's really generous with his superpowers.
Jen's lying on his belly on the floor of an office in a recently abandoned, and even more recently exploded, military facility, the top half of his costume still peeled off. In the background, radios hiss and crackle in an unbroken sea's tide of noise. Sparks crackle occasionally from the black hulks of broken-open machinery. The tiny lights on the front of the consoles that survived the onslaught valiantly continue to flash in freeform rainbows.
Jen seems quiet and contented as he pokes at his carton of prawn chow mein with his chopsticks.
Without a word, Jared leans in, snags one of Jen's giant prawns and pops it in his mouth. Jensen looks up at him, unimpressed.
"Why yes, darlin', please do help yourself to my prawns, because I'm sure they taste better than the carton of the exact same prawns by your knee. And feel free to stick your fingers in my food."
"You want it back?" Jared offers, dangling the half-masticated prawn between his thumb and forefinger.
Jen waves his chopsticks at Jared dismissively before tucking in to the chow mein again. "Hell no, wouldn't wanna come between you two. You were obviously meant to be together."
It's a throwaway comment, but the memory of being inside Jen is vividly fresh, and it makes Jared's heart beat fast and his dick ache. Jared moves in, close enough to smell the sweet spices on Jen's breath. Jen looks up at him, held still as Jared angles his mouth to Jen's, and Jen's lips slip open like a love letter.
"No need to get jealous, Jen," he murmurs. "S'only a fling."
Jen's eyes glitter behind his mask, and Jared knows he should read it as a warning. "And you think you and me is something more?"
Jared gives him a slow, huge smile. He doesn't break eye contact as he says, "I was talking about you and me. Think I'd get serious about a guy who doesn't even have a name for me figured out? I'll give you a clue, it's not 'darling'."
A flicker in Jen's eyes, a little confused frown, and then he doesn't look dangerous at all, just caught out and awkward. No way in hell Jared can work up being offended when Jen's embarrassed flush is half an apology in itself.
Jared can be magnanimous.
"It's cool," he says airily. "I get it. My name wasn't relevant." He looks Jen in the eye as he takes another prawn from him, grins at him as he dares him to complain. "You can call me Jay."
:::
Tiny gold freckles are visible under the bottom of Jenesis' half-mask. Jared loves them, like they're a secret Jenesis never told him.
Jen is lying on his back, lazily watching Jared with hooded eyes, as Jared's fingertip quests over the angles and contours of Jen's face.
There's only the honey-amber glow of the lamp by Jared's bed in the Unit X base to light the room, and it softens the edges of the world, until everything's blurred beyond the warmth of their bodies on the mattress.
"Your turn," Jen murmurs.
"My turn," Jared echoes. His fingertip travels over the edge of Jen's mask, touching the boundary between skin and superhero identity. It takes him a moment to think of what he's supposed to be saying.
"Okay, in my civilian life, I'm a world-renowned barista. I've written books on it. In fact, my guide to making the perfect quad ristretto non-fat half and half mocha Valencia topped the New York Times list for three weeks. Uh… the paper cups I use for to-go orders are made solely from the recycled pages of poetry written by artists specially employed for the role."
Jen raises an eyebrow, biting down on his lower lip to stop a smile, and Jared tries to sound serious.
"I'm currently pioneering the espresso con Bud, which is topped with the foam from a shaken up and freshly poured beer-"
Jen's poker face breaks. Laughter bursts out of him, and he turns his face away. Jared ducks in over him, kissing his cheeks and the corner of his mouth, nosing at his warm skin.
"It's not easy being an innovator," Jared complains, his voice low and distracted. "Seems most people would prefer plain old Bud. But I do a lot of blind tests. Approach people on the street with my beer-foam coffee in poetry cups."
He tries to take Jen's mouth, wanting to kiss him properly, but Jen's hand comes up and catches Jared's jaw, cradling it in the dip between his fingers and thumb. Jen's not smiling anymore. He's gravely silent, and his eyes move over Jared's face, backwards and forwards, like he's reading him.
Jared holds still and patient, until he can't help himself, and his mouth curls into a smile. "What are you doing?"
"Memorizing the lower half of your face," says Jen. "So that if you come up to me on the street, I'll know not to accept any coffee from you."
Jared laughs, and when he pushes in to mouth at Jen's lips, Jen doesn't stop him. Instead, he wraps his arm around the back of Jared's head and holds him close.
"Want me to take my mask off so you know exactly who to avoid?" says Jared.
It's not something he should say. He knows it instantly, feels it in the way Jen's body goes taut under him. But the tension passes before Jared can say anything to make it better, or worse. Jen kisses him slowly, languorously, an open press of lips and tongue.
"No," he says quietly. "Leave the mask on. See, lower half of your face? Absolutely fucking stunning. Truly beautiful work." He trails a finger down Jared's cheek. "Not so sure about the top half though. Could be a real freak show going on under there."
Jared laughs, says, "Good call."
The masks stay on.
:::
It's like how you never ask a guy in prison what he's in for. Jared and Jen don't talk about the lives they lead when they're not with each other. It's an unmentioned off-limits in their conversation. If Jared weren't living such an action-packed life when he isn't with Jen, the completeness of the absence of any reference to it might make him a little crazy. Might make him think he's just one of Jen's thought-up creations, with no existence that isn't granted to him by Jen and what Jen wants.
He jokes about it once to Jen, and Jen tells him, very seriously, that he never would have thought up something like Jared. Jared's pretty sure it's a compliment.
Surprisingly, the one time the rule is broken, and they talk about something other than the immediate here and now of them, it's Jen who initiates it.
Jared is expecting to go straight into fucking, ready to grab Jen and peel him out of his suit, bend him over the nearest flat surface and fuck him 'til he screams. That's how it normally goes. Instead, Jen hangs back, one hand raised to ward Jared off.
"I was thinking, we should get something clear between us."
Jared fidgets a bit impatiently. They don't have long. Jared's supposed to be catching a ride back to base on the jet, plus the fighting in the research lab's been over so long that civilians are going to start feeling brave enough soon to come investigating.
"Can we talk about it while we're having sex?" he says, and he's only half-joking.
"This is important," says Jen.
Power's still down, and the research lab's back-up generators afford only a dim, starlight-blue glow. It shadows Jen's face, bleaches the flush from his skin. It should make him ugly, but only manages cold.
"Before we go any further," Jen says, "I need to know that you're not doing this with anyone else. You don't have some other superhero fuckbuddy or a civilian family tucked away somewhere. No wives, boyfriends, friends with benefits?"
Jared's smiling before he can help himself, before he can figure out whether that's going to get Jen's approval or not, because, unless the context is solely physical, Jared is never sure of the best way of handling Jen.
Feeling warm inside, he closes the distance between them and catches Jen's narrow hips in his hands, bringing their bodies together hard as he nuzzles Jen's throat.
"Nobody else, baby. I'm all yours," he murmurs.
Jen's hand lands on his chest and pushes him back a step. He's smiling, but it's sharp.
"Hold up a minute, cowboy. Don't get carried away. This ain't me trying to pin you. Just trying to avoid com-"
"Complications," Jared finishes flatly. He lets go of Jen, and draws in a deep breath.
Jen's smile goes a touch strained, and he pats Jared's shoulder, maybe a little too hard. His tongue curls in his mouth, pushing against his cheek, and Jared's so distracted with feeling inexplicably irritated that he only abstractly associates the visual with cocksucking.
"Look, I don't need betrayed boyfriend drama in my life. I don't wanna have to deal with your angst about infidelity or the lies you have to tell so we can keep on doing what we're doing. I just want it all simple."
Jared raises an eyebrow. "Anybody ever tell you you're a real charmer? Seriously, it's a real good thing you're so pretty. Or do you just think up some forgiveness from people and save yourself the trouble of ever apologizing?"
Just like that, Jen's smile reinvents itself, warming up and breaking into something natural and easy, even in the unflattering morgue light of the research lab. He pats Jared's chest, fingers splayed open and resting there, right over Jared's heart. "C'mon, buddy. I just want things simple."
Jared gives in.
"We can keep things simple," he says. He shakes his head even as he hears himself saying it. "We'll keep 'em so simple the world's stupidest man wouldn't have any trouble figuring 'em out, how about that?"
:::
The darts are tiny crystalline wasps, sharp and swift and whining as they fly, and they go through Jared's shield like the metal's nothing but a cloud of dandelion seeds. Jared dully watches the darts emerge on the other side of the metal he'd thrown up, watches their little pointed heads swim through the shield and continue towards him.
And if they get through his shields, then they'll get through his metal skin as easily.
They're so close he can see the detail of their glittering bodies. Inside each of them, there's a single thread of amber, a poison so biting Jared will be dead before a single drop of his blood can bead on the puncture wound.
He feels really alone, even in a submarine station full of superheroes battling a supervillain. Because he's going to die. Because he's only human, deep down, past his fucked up DNA, and he's going to die.
The first wasp sweeps up to him, hits him with force, but from the wrong direction, and Jared's going down -
- then Jen is on top of him and there's blue sky bewildering him overhead.
There are no wasps in sight. Jared can't hear the throb of the station's engines, or feel the heaviness of the entire Atlantic Ocean on top of him. Instead, there are car horns and the rattle of an el train, a few shreds of clouds in the sky, and Jen, on top of him.
"Did it get you?" Jen demands. He's panting. His eyes are huge and green in his face. He looks terrified. "Jay, did it get you?"
Jared tries to push himself onto his elbows, but Jen is clinging onto him. Looking around, he puts together that he's on the top of a building. Skyline says he's in Los Angeles, which is pretty nifty because the submarine station was just off the coast of England.
"You can teleport?" says Jared.
Jen huffs out a breath, and Jared feels his body relax next to his own. He's still breathless, and he won't take his eyes off Jared. "Thought up a rift in the time-space continuum and pushed us through it," says Jen. He nods at something to just off of Jared's left.
It's empty space, but it's smeared, like someone's run their thumb through wet paint.
Jen swallows hard, then grins and bites his lip. "Not sure if I remembered to think it was temporary. Might be there's now a permanent hole between the Phaedron sub-station and the roof of the Aon Center in L.A."
Just a few seconds ago, Jared was about to die. He remembers his friends, close to him, pinned down by a fight that had come out of nowhere. There was a tiny, shimmering wasp right in front of his face, about to kill him with its sting.
Jared rubs his temple, still trying to shake off the feeling that he'd left reality behind on the other side of the rift, either that or one hell of a nightmare. "Wow, that was all pretty unexpected. We were just s'posed to be checking out some anomalies on the radar. We had no idea what was down there."
Jesus, he'd been about to die.
"We know," says Jen. "We got word from the Cryptkeeper. Hell, I barely got through the door before you were-" He breaks off. He smiles through a shuddering breath. "Thought you were a goner there."
Jared's eyes snap to Jen's face. "You saved my life," he says.
From the stunned look on Jen's face, it's hitting him as hard as it hit Jared. He sinks back down his knees, and Jared misses the hot feel of his body on top of him.
They sit there a second, while the world carries on in the streets below, like they exist in a whole different geography.
Then Jensen lifts a hand to adjust the edges of his mask. "Well, sure I did, sport. I got plans for you later on. You're no good to me dead."
Jared hates him a little right then. He can't see any way around being angry. The only words that come to him are pissed off ones.
"Oh, I get it," he says. "You were saving my dick, and the rest of me had to come too, right?"
Jen shrugs and pushes to his feet, clearly still determined to play it as no big deal. "I'm mighty fond of your hands too."
Jared almost died. Which is way different to facing the destruction of the world along with the rest of your team. Jared almost died. It makes him feel real, makes everything feel real. Most especially Jen.
"Would you cut the bullshit?" he says. "Stop it. Just stop it. I am so tired of your bullshit, Jen. Would you just admit that I mean something to you already?"
Jen cocks his head at him. "Because I saved your life? That wasn't special treatment, dude. I'd'a done it for anyone on your team or mine." He hesitates before he rolls his eyes and offers Jared a hand up.
Jared takes the hand, but he doesn't let go of it once he's on his feet. Instead, he uses it to tug Jen close, because maybe he's stupid enough to believe that Jen can't carry on denying this thing between them when Jared's looking him right in the eye.
Just for second, as the afternoon sun hits Jen's face, Jared can see past Jen's cold defensiveness. He's just a guy, fucked up and complicated and struggling to deal with crazy, world-changing powers the best way he knows how. Jared's anger softens.
"I know about the Virginian Timeline," he says gently. "I know what happens to you there. And I get that seeing that must have freaked you out, but it's exactly why you can't shut yourself off like thi-"
It's the perfectly wrong thing to say. The furious spark in Jen's eyes tells him so, even before Jen shoves him back a step.
"Oh, armchair psychology, I love this game! Cool if I play too? You wanna talk about Manhattan?"
Jared flinches.
Metal Manhattan, they called it later. How quiet and cold it had been. Streets full of silver statues. Smooth towers of metal that creaked and groaned as they ran with soft summer rain. And Jared had stood in the middle of it, as much dead metal as everything else.
He grits his teeth. "This isn't about me," he says quietly. "This is about you."
"I thought it was about us," Jen shoots back. The emphasis he puts on the word is deliberately cruel. "What do you want, Jay? Fireworks?" The sky explodes with an elaborate display that's gone in an instant. "Flowers?" A red snow of rose petals comes down around Jared's shoulders and disappears before it reaches the ground. "Matching rings?" The band on Jared's wedding finger is thick and gold, then flashed out of existence.
Jared stares at him, taking in Jen's rapid breathing, his heaving chest, the rise and fall of his broad shoulders.
"What exactly do you want from me?" Jen demands again.
Jared doesn't know why he's surprised. Or disappointed either, for that matter.
"You know," he says, "for a guy who doesn't like drama, you sure do know how to overreact."
He strides away, back towards the rift. He doesn't hesitate before walking through. Seems like Jen did accidentally think up a permanent portal between L.A. and the sub-station, and Jared really hopes Jen knows someone who can fix that.
part 2
(J2au, nc-17, 11k, mild dub-con)
A superhero AU, written as part of spn_reversebang. You can see the finished, beautiful art prompt that eleke provided in the text and in her masterlist here. Huge thanks to giandujakiss for being the absolutely awesomest beta I have been lucky enough to find, and big love also to rosivan for the art-betaing!
Introductions, such as they are, are kept brief for two very good reasons.
First reason is that, although they're on separate teams of superheroes, they're both pretty instantly recognizable to each other.
Jared is the guy who turned Manhattan to metal the year before last, when the Stryfe Virus made him lose control of his powers. He was Blue Steel before that, and Black Steel after, complete with costume change.
And, in an alternate timeline, Jenesis is driven so crazy by his reality-altering powers of creation that he thinks he's a god and very nearly ends the world, which is the kind of incident that gives a superhero an edge of notoriety.
The second reason introductions are brief is that they first meet in the middle of a confrontation with Lunarys the Living Moon, who's trying to drain the planet's organic energy, again.
Following close behind Wildfire and Angelex, Jared steps off the Unit X jet, just as Jenesis is flung through the air by an energy pulse, and lands at Jared's feet. Jared cocks his head at him - laid flat on his back, stunned and breathless - and grins.
"Hey, pretty crazy party you guys are having," says Jared. "Mind if we crash?"
"Guess if you ain't got anything better to do on a Saturday night, you're welcome," Jenesis says. He takes the hand Jared offers him, and lets Jared pull him to his feet. The corners of his lips lift in a grin, and Jared notices the pretty shape of his mouth below his pale blue half-mask.
"You guys throw the best parties. Wouldn't wanna miss it," says Jared.
A bowl of orange-gold light flashes up around them, as Wildfire launches an attack on Lunarys. The ground rumbles with Lunarys' moaning growl, but the end of the noise is lost in the pounding thud of the Dominator's heavy-repeating cannon. Overhead, Angelex and RubyRayne weave through smoke and stars, two tiny figures dwarfed against the bulk of Lunarys.
Jared still has Jenesis' hand in his.
:::
Afterwards, while Unit X and The Strangers are still caught up in the haze of victory, Jenesis saunters over to Jared through the debris. There's a beer in his hand, and Jared's surprised by the incongruity of it for just a second, until he figures Jenesis probably has a wider range of uses for his powers than anyone Jared's ever met before.
He takes the beer when Jensen holds it out to him. He can't deny being curious. Jenesis watches him as he lifts the bottle to his mouth.
It tastes like beer, bubbly and maybe a little too warm, and nothing special at all, except for the part how it didn't exist a few seconds ago - not the ingredients that make it up, or the brown glass bottle it comes in, or even the label on the bottle.
"So, I was watching you in the fight," says Jenesis.
Jared feels a flush of fanboyish giddiness. "Yeah?" he says.
"Yeah," says Jenesis. "I didn't know you could turn your skin to metal like that."
"Nah, not many people do," says Jared. "It's like a secret party trick."
Jenesis nods slowly, before adding, "Didn't realize what I was seeing at first, your whole body was just like pure, hard metal. Pretty damn impressive."
There's a tone in Jenesis' voice. Jared might think he was mistaking it out of some pathetic wishful thinking, except there's the way Jenesis is looking at him as well to reinforce the suggestion. The only time Jenesis' smoky-lashed green eyes leave Jared's face is to sweep over Jared's body with undisguised appreciation.
"So tell me, just how hard do you get?" says Jenesis. It's a pretty corny line, and Jenesis' grin says he knows it but doesn't doubt its effectiveness regardless.
He's not wrong.
Jared takes him around the back of the Unit X jet and offers a demonstration. Jenesis is suitably impressed, so impressed he proceeds to give him the finest blowjob Jared thinks he's ever had.
:::
"I'm just saying, it's complicated enough. Superheroes turning supervillains 'cause of some bullshit reason, mysterious family members showing up from alternate realities, every week a new fucking crisis, resurrections and costume changes and betrayals… It's like living in a freaking soap opera that doesn't have budgetary limits to keep itself sane, you know what I'm saying?"
Jenesis' voice is low and breathy, and his face is turned into the crook of Jared's neck. There's a patch of skin on Jared's throat driven to a maddening ache by the soft, heated brush of Jen's lips against it as he talks.
He screws down hard on Jared's dick, his hips squirming in tiny movements as he works Jared's thickness deeper inside. Grunting, Jared flexes his hands tighter where he's gripping the rounds of Jen's ass, holding Jen split open for him.
He likes the hot, flexing weight of Jen's body in his lap. He likes Jen's fingers digging thoughtlessly into his shoulder as he braces himself, as though Jared's presence is merely incidental to the cock Jen's riding. He likes the feel of being all up inside Jen's tight little ass.
He's not really listening to what Jen's saying.
"Things get complicated, they stop working. I like drama and angst, sure, I appreciate the beauty of blood and tragedy. So long as it's happening to other people. And love and romance go nowhere but drama and angst."
Jared only came to The Strangers' headquarters to pass on information about Professor Bane's nexus experiments. He wasn't supposed to have run into Jenesis, hadn't been part of some private plan he'd made, but there he was, waiting for Jared at the top of the mansion's staircase, just as Jared was letting himself out.
So it's happening again: him and Jenesis, apparently as inevitable as Professor Bane's next bid for world subjugation.
And he's so hard for Jen, so helpless when it comes to Jen riding him like this, bucking and rutting and grinding in his lap, biting his lower lip swollen and shiny until it's all Jared can do not to duck his head to catch Jen's mouth with his and kiss him 'til he can't breathe, let alone give a rambling monologue on the trials and tribulations of life as a superhero.
"We're so good together like this. So fucking good," says Jen. "Can fuck and fuck and fuck, and it never has to get complicated."
The rest of The Strangers have to have some idea what they're doing in here. Jared didn't even think to make sure the door to the study Jen dragged him in was shut before Jen was pushing him down onto the chair and climbing on top of him.
He manages to coordinate his powers and brain to put together a sheet of metal behind them, shifting the air itself to polished steel. He looks back over his shoulder to check he's got the door blocked, and his brain stutters to a halt, because he can see their reflections in the metal, can see their pressed-together bodies strain and twist and move together.
The line of Jen's spine is beautiful, mesmerizing, right down to the lush curve of his ass, clutched in Jared's big hands and split apart by Jared's hard cock, buried in him to the balls. And Jared never realized he could look like this, utterly drunk on fucking, so dangerously intent on someone else's body.
They're obscenely gorgeous together.
Jen tilts his head back, baring his throat to Jared shamelessly, and it distracts Jared back to the real thing. He licks the expanse of skin, right over Jen's pounding hot pulse, while he holds Jen's body still to fuck up into him better. Fingers digging deeper into Jared's shoulder, Jen whines and writhes.
"No drama, no big reveals, no commitment," Jen mumbles. "Right?"
Jared's fucking the prettiest guy whose face he's never seen. He's fucking this guy in the mansion headquarters of a team of really kickass superheroes whose views on homosexuality aren't known to him, in an austerely furnished, wood paneled study where this kind of activity may or may not be permitted.
And he's thinking about how hot it is to fuck a masked guy while his own mask is still in place too, and about how he's going to come really fucking soon, right in Jen's perfectly tight ass, and how absolutely fucking fantastic it feels.
And so it takes him another three hours, when he's back at Unit X's underground base, soaping himself off in the shower and lazily thinking about when he might get another turn with Jen's ass, to actually register what it was Jenesis was saying to him.
No drama, no big reveals, no commitment.
"Huh," says Jared.
:::
In the middle of a conversation with Wildfire, Jared realizes something kind of interesting.
It isn't like Jared intended to keep it a secret from his teammates in Unit X that he is now having regular sex with Jenesis. It was simply that there wasn't an opening in existing conversation in which to mention it, and that Jared wasn't sure how to introduce the topic in the first place.
Thankfully, and embarrassingly, the need for any kind of formal announcement was rendered unnecessary when Jenesis pinned him to the side of the Unit X jet, following a run-in with Changeling and her minions, and thoroughly groped him. In front of everyone. Jenesis' hand on Jared's dick and his tongue in Jared's mouth communicated the nature of their relationship to everyone present very effectively.
Once Jared recovered from the shock and trauma of it, he found he was pretty relieved for the information to simply be out there. Because secrets, says Jenesis, complicate things.
So he doesn't mind at all when Wildfire just starts talking to him about it while they're alone in the polished globe of the training room, doing maintenance on the hulking computer.
Wildfire's a tiny woman with thick waves of dark hair. She has a sweet smile that's a little crooked, and whenever she uses her power to unleash writhing gorgon tendrils of all-devouring fire from her hands, she seems mildly embarrassed, like she knows it's something Nice Girls just don't do. Not that it slows her down any.
Once they're past a basic rundown of how the relationship started, they get onto the little things, like how cool it is to be dating a guy who can think up condoms and lube any time and any place they're necessary.
"So what do you call him?" Wildfire says. "Jenesis is kind of a mouthful to get out when you're… you know."
"Jen," says Jared. He heard Dominator and Bad Hand call Jenesis that a couple of times, and Jenesis didn't protest when Jared tried it, so he figures it's cool.
She wrinkles her nose up, frowning thoughtfully. "And what does he call you? 'Cause Black Steel's even worse than Jenesis."
Jared stops and thinks about it. There's a blank in his head. "He, uh, doesn't really." It sounds pretty big in the humming quiet of the training room.
"Oh," says Wildfire uncertainly. She looks at him a moment longer, her face lit up by the pale violet glow of the screen, and Jared's still giving it some consideration when they go back to the computer.
Next time he's with Jenesis, Jared waits for the absence. He listens intently for his name to not be there.
Jenesis calls Jared 'buddy', 'dude', and 'man' while they're tackling an invasion of Time Raveners, before switching to 'sweetheart', 'handsome' and 'baby' when Jared's got his dick in him. There's even one instance of 'Mr Metal' that occurs in the nomansland between saving the world and fucking.
If he wanted to, Jared supposes he could be really offended.
Jared spends more time around The Strangers than Jenesis does around Unit X, so Jenesis hasn't been in a position to hear what other people call Jared. But he could have asked.
Jen's gone a couple of months fucking a guy and hasn't bothered to figure out a name for him.
And Jared finds that way too funny to be indignant about it.
After sex, Jen thinks up some Chinese takeout for them, because Jared has a wicked appetite, and the plus-side of being involved with Jen - apart from the fact he fucks like a demon and is potentially crazily pretty without his mask on - is that he's really generous with his superpowers.
Jen's lying on his belly on the floor of an office in a recently abandoned, and even more recently exploded, military facility, the top half of his costume still peeled off. In the background, radios hiss and crackle in an unbroken sea's tide of noise. Sparks crackle occasionally from the black hulks of broken-open machinery. The tiny lights on the front of the consoles that survived the onslaught valiantly continue to flash in freeform rainbows.
Jen seems quiet and contented as he pokes at his carton of prawn chow mein with his chopsticks.
Without a word, Jared leans in, snags one of Jen's giant prawns and pops it in his mouth. Jensen looks up at him, unimpressed.
"Why yes, darlin', please do help yourself to my prawns, because I'm sure they taste better than the carton of the exact same prawns by your knee. And feel free to stick your fingers in my food."
"You want it back?" Jared offers, dangling the half-masticated prawn between his thumb and forefinger.
Jen waves his chopsticks at Jared dismissively before tucking in to the chow mein again. "Hell no, wouldn't wanna come between you two. You were obviously meant to be together."
It's a throwaway comment, but the memory of being inside Jen is vividly fresh, and it makes Jared's heart beat fast and his dick ache. Jared moves in, close enough to smell the sweet spices on Jen's breath. Jen looks up at him, held still as Jared angles his mouth to Jen's, and Jen's lips slip open like a love letter.
"No need to get jealous, Jen," he murmurs. "S'only a fling."
Jen's eyes glitter behind his mask, and Jared knows he should read it as a warning. "And you think you and me is something more?"
Jared gives him a slow, huge smile. He doesn't break eye contact as he says, "I was talking about you and me. Think I'd get serious about a guy who doesn't even have a name for me figured out? I'll give you a clue, it's not 'darling'."
A flicker in Jen's eyes, a little confused frown, and then he doesn't look dangerous at all, just caught out and awkward. No way in hell Jared can work up being offended when Jen's embarrassed flush is half an apology in itself.
Jared can be magnanimous.
"It's cool," he says airily. "I get it. My name wasn't relevant." He looks Jen in the eye as he takes another prawn from him, grins at him as he dares him to complain. "You can call me Jay."
:::
Tiny gold freckles are visible under the bottom of Jenesis' half-mask. Jared loves them, like they're a secret Jenesis never told him.
Jen is lying on his back, lazily watching Jared with hooded eyes, as Jared's fingertip quests over the angles and contours of Jen's face.
There's only the honey-amber glow of the lamp by Jared's bed in the Unit X base to light the room, and it softens the edges of the world, until everything's blurred beyond the warmth of their bodies on the mattress.
"Your turn," Jen murmurs.
"My turn," Jared echoes. His fingertip travels over the edge of Jen's mask, touching the boundary between skin and superhero identity. It takes him a moment to think of what he's supposed to be saying.
"Okay, in my civilian life, I'm a world-renowned barista. I've written books on it. In fact, my guide to making the perfect quad ristretto non-fat half and half mocha Valencia topped the New York Times list for three weeks. Uh… the paper cups I use for to-go orders are made solely from the recycled pages of poetry written by artists specially employed for the role."
Jen raises an eyebrow, biting down on his lower lip to stop a smile, and Jared tries to sound serious.
"I'm currently pioneering the espresso con Bud, which is topped with the foam from a shaken up and freshly poured beer-"
Jen's poker face breaks. Laughter bursts out of him, and he turns his face away. Jared ducks in over him, kissing his cheeks and the corner of his mouth, nosing at his warm skin.
"It's not easy being an innovator," Jared complains, his voice low and distracted. "Seems most people would prefer plain old Bud. But I do a lot of blind tests. Approach people on the street with my beer-foam coffee in poetry cups."
He tries to take Jen's mouth, wanting to kiss him properly, but Jen's hand comes up and catches Jared's jaw, cradling it in the dip between his fingers and thumb. Jen's not smiling anymore. He's gravely silent, and his eyes move over Jared's face, backwards and forwards, like he's reading him.
Jared holds still and patient, until he can't help himself, and his mouth curls into a smile. "What are you doing?"
"Memorizing the lower half of your face," says Jen. "So that if you come up to me on the street, I'll know not to accept any coffee from you."
Jared laughs, and when he pushes in to mouth at Jen's lips, Jen doesn't stop him. Instead, he wraps his arm around the back of Jared's head and holds him close.
"Want me to take my mask off so you know exactly who to avoid?" says Jared.
It's not something he should say. He knows it instantly, feels it in the way Jen's body goes taut under him. But the tension passes before Jared can say anything to make it better, or worse. Jen kisses him slowly, languorously, an open press of lips and tongue.
"No," he says quietly. "Leave the mask on. See, lower half of your face? Absolutely fucking stunning. Truly beautiful work." He trails a finger down Jared's cheek. "Not so sure about the top half though. Could be a real freak show going on under there."
Jared laughs, says, "Good call."
The masks stay on.
:::
It's like how you never ask a guy in prison what he's in for. Jared and Jen don't talk about the lives they lead when they're not with each other. It's an unmentioned off-limits in their conversation. If Jared weren't living such an action-packed life when he isn't with Jen, the completeness of the absence of any reference to it might make him a little crazy. Might make him think he's just one of Jen's thought-up creations, with no existence that isn't granted to him by Jen and what Jen wants.
He jokes about it once to Jen, and Jen tells him, very seriously, that he never would have thought up something like Jared. Jared's pretty sure it's a compliment.
Surprisingly, the one time the rule is broken, and they talk about something other than the immediate here and now of them, it's Jen who initiates it.
Jared is expecting to go straight into fucking, ready to grab Jen and peel him out of his suit, bend him over the nearest flat surface and fuck him 'til he screams. That's how it normally goes. Instead, Jen hangs back, one hand raised to ward Jared off.
"I was thinking, we should get something clear between us."
Jared fidgets a bit impatiently. They don't have long. Jared's supposed to be catching a ride back to base on the jet, plus the fighting in the research lab's been over so long that civilians are going to start feeling brave enough soon to come investigating.
"Can we talk about it while we're having sex?" he says, and he's only half-joking.
"This is important," says Jen.
Power's still down, and the research lab's back-up generators afford only a dim, starlight-blue glow. It shadows Jen's face, bleaches the flush from his skin. It should make him ugly, but only manages cold.
"Before we go any further," Jen says, "I need to know that you're not doing this with anyone else. You don't have some other superhero fuckbuddy or a civilian family tucked away somewhere. No wives, boyfriends, friends with benefits?"
Jared's smiling before he can help himself, before he can figure out whether that's going to get Jen's approval or not, because, unless the context is solely physical, Jared is never sure of the best way of handling Jen.
Feeling warm inside, he closes the distance between them and catches Jen's narrow hips in his hands, bringing their bodies together hard as he nuzzles Jen's throat.
"Nobody else, baby. I'm all yours," he murmurs.
Jen's hand lands on his chest and pushes him back a step. He's smiling, but it's sharp.
"Hold up a minute, cowboy. Don't get carried away. This ain't me trying to pin you. Just trying to avoid com-"
"Complications," Jared finishes flatly. He lets go of Jen, and draws in a deep breath.
Jen's smile goes a touch strained, and he pats Jared's shoulder, maybe a little too hard. His tongue curls in his mouth, pushing against his cheek, and Jared's so distracted with feeling inexplicably irritated that he only abstractly associates the visual with cocksucking.
"Look, I don't need betrayed boyfriend drama in my life. I don't wanna have to deal with your angst about infidelity or the lies you have to tell so we can keep on doing what we're doing. I just want it all simple."
Jared raises an eyebrow. "Anybody ever tell you you're a real charmer? Seriously, it's a real good thing you're so pretty. Or do you just think up some forgiveness from people and save yourself the trouble of ever apologizing?"
Just like that, Jen's smile reinvents itself, warming up and breaking into something natural and easy, even in the unflattering morgue light of the research lab. He pats Jared's chest, fingers splayed open and resting there, right over Jared's heart. "C'mon, buddy. I just want things simple."
Jared gives in.
"We can keep things simple," he says. He shakes his head even as he hears himself saying it. "We'll keep 'em so simple the world's stupidest man wouldn't have any trouble figuring 'em out, how about that?"
:::
The darts are tiny crystalline wasps, sharp and swift and whining as they fly, and they go through Jared's shield like the metal's nothing but a cloud of dandelion seeds. Jared dully watches the darts emerge on the other side of the metal he'd thrown up, watches their little pointed heads swim through the shield and continue towards him.
And if they get through his shields, then they'll get through his metal skin as easily.
They're so close he can see the detail of their glittering bodies. Inside each of them, there's a single thread of amber, a poison so biting Jared will be dead before a single drop of his blood can bead on the puncture wound.
He feels really alone, even in a submarine station full of superheroes battling a supervillain. Because he's going to die. Because he's only human, deep down, past his fucked up DNA, and he's going to die.
The first wasp sweeps up to him, hits him with force, but from the wrong direction, and Jared's going down -
- then Jen is on top of him and there's blue sky bewildering him overhead.
There are no wasps in sight. Jared can't hear the throb of the station's engines, or feel the heaviness of the entire Atlantic Ocean on top of him. Instead, there are car horns and the rattle of an el train, a few shreds of clouds in the sky, and Jen, on top of him.
"Did it get you?" Jen demands. He's panting. His eyes are huge and green in his face. He looks terrified. "Jay, did it get you?"
Jared tries to push himself onto his elbows, but Jen is clinging onto him. Looking around, he puts together that he's on the top of a building. Skyline says he's in Los Angeles, which is pretty nifty because the submarine station was just off the coast of England.
"You can teleport?" says Jared.
Jen huffs out a breath, and Jared feels his body relax next to his own. He's still breathless, and he won't take his eyes off Jared. "Thought up a rift in the time-space continuum and pushed us through it," says Jen. He nods at something to just off of Jared's left.
It's empty space, but it's smeared, like someone's run their thumb through wet paint.
Jen swallows hard, then grins and bites his lip. "Not sure if I remembered to think it was temporary. Might be there's now a permanent hole between the Phaedron sub-station and the roof of the Aon Center in L.A."
Just a few seconds ago, Jared was about to die. He remembers his friends, close to him, pinned down by a fight that had come out of nowhere. There was a tiny, shimmering wasp right in front of his face, about to kill him with its sting.
Jared rubs his temple, still trying to shake off the feeling that he'd left reality behind on the other side of the rift, either that or one hell of a nightmare. "Wow, that was all pretty unexpected. We were just s'posed to be checking out some anomalies on the radar. We had no idea what was down there."
Jesus, he'd been about to die.
"We know," says Jen. "We got word from the Cryptkeeper. Hell, I barely got through the door before you were-" He breaks off. He smiles through a shuddering breath. "Thought you were a goner there."
Jared's eyes snap to Jen's face. "You saved my life," he says.
From the stunned look on Jen's face, it's hitting him as hard as it hit Jared. He sinks back down his knees, and Jared misses the hot feel of his body on top of him.
They sit there a second, while the world carries on in the streets below, like they exist in a whole different geography.
Then Jensen lifts a hand to adjust the edges of his mask. "Well, sure I did, sport. I got plans for you later on. You're no good to me dead."
Jared hates him a little right then. He can't see any way around being angry. The only words that come to him are pissed off ones.
"Oh, I get it," he says. "You were saving my dick, and the rest of me had to come too, right?"
Jen shrugs and pushes to his feet, clearly still determined to play it as no big deal. "I'm mighty fond of your hands too."
Jared almost died. Which is way different to facing the destruction of the world along with the rest of your team. Jared almost died. It makes him feel real, makes everything feel real. Most especially Jen.
"Would you cut the bullshit?" he says. "Stop it. Just stop it. I am so tired of your bullshit, Jen. Would you just admit that I mean something to you already?"
Jen cocks his head at him. "Because I saved your life? That wasn't special treatment, dude. I'd'a done it for anyone on your team or mine." He hesitates before he rolls his eyes and offers Jared a hand up.
Jared takes the hand, but he doesn't let go of it once he's on his feet. Instead, he uses it to tug Jen close, because maybe he's stupid enough to believe that Jen can't carry on denying this thing between them when Jared's looking him right in the eye.
Just for second, as the afternoon sun hits Jen's face, Jared can see past Jen's cold defensiveness. He's just a guy, fucked up and complicated and struggling to deal with crazy, world-changing powers the best way he knows how. Jared's anger softens.
"I know about the Virginian Timeline," he says gently. "I know what happens to you there. And I get that seeing that must have freaked you out, but it's exactly why you can't shut yourself off like thi-"
It's the perfectly wrong thing to say. The furious spark in Jen's eyes tells him so, even before Jen shoves him back a step.
"Oh, armchair psychology, I love this game! Cool if I play too? You wanna talk about Manhattan?"
Jared flinches.
Metal Manhattan, they called it later. How quiet and cold it had been. Streets full of silver statues. Smooth towers of metal that creaked and groaned as they ran with soft summer rain. And Jared had stood in the middle of it, as much dead metal as everything else.
He grits his teeth. "This isn't about me," he says quietly. "This is about you."
"I thought it was about us," Jen shoots back. The emphasis he puts on the word is deliberately cruel. "What do you want, Jay? Fireworks?" The sky explodes with an elaborate display that's gone in an instant. "Flowers?" A red snow of rose petals comes down around Jared's shoulders and disappears before it reaches the ground. "Matching rings?" The band on Jared's wedding finger is thick and gold, then flashed out of existence.
Jared stares at him, taking in Jen's rapid breathing, his heaving chest, the rise and fall of his broad shoulders.
"What exactly do you want from me?" Jen demands again.
Jared doesn't know why he's surprised. Or disappointed either, for that matter.
"You know," he says, "for a guy who doesn't like drama, you sure do know how to overreact."
He strides away, back towards the rift. He doesn't hesitate before walking through. Seems like Jen did accidentally think up a permanent portal between L.A. and the sub-station, and Jared really hopes Jen knows someone who can fix that.
part 2